Blink-Step Assault :2mana::symr::symw:
Instant
Put three 2/2 red and white Knight tokens into play. Inspire - If you played an instant or sorcery this turn, these tokens have haste.
Confounding Riddle :2mana::symu::symu:
Instant
Counter target spell. Inspire - If you played an instant or sorcery this turn, return target permanent to its owner's hand.
Technically these always trigger, since by the time the ability checks, you have played THEM.
It does, but it also makes cards in the set a bit too codependent. They'd need each other too much to be effective on their own.
I actually disagree with this. A card that benefits from playing instants or sorceries fits well into any deck playing instants and sorceries. One at a decent power level (say a creature that made every instant/sorcery cantrip) is a nice addition to a permanent-lite deck. At the same time, it is a good creature in a deck that needs creatures to increase synergy of it's instants and sorceries.
As for instants/sorceries that count permanents, they were always a little narrow, and fairly linear. The creatures actually help make the shard as a whole less linear.
someone should really run the math on this in the first place - how reliably can you have five or more card types in play? in hand? in the grave
I think this brings up a logistics problem of not counting the graveyard too often. Some permanent types are less likely to hit the graveyard methinks, and encouraging people to have them there seems odd. If we make most creatures in-theme focus on instant/sorcery interaction, then the spells could mostly worry about creatures in play. This is just a suggestion of narrowing our designs to make sure the small number of shard cards play well together.
Though I'm honestly not sure if "You can't do that" cards really fit in a free-wheeling red world, even one with Azorious as its friends
With Azorius friends, there is going to be some cards that just say no. That said, I think this shard is more likely to punish players for not doing things (you didn't play a creature, FISH TO THE FACE, didn't attack? I gain life, refusing to block? take some extra damage).
Restrictive Artist Mentor 2WW
Creature-Human Wizard
When Restrictive Artist Mentor
comes into play, choose a card
type.
Cards of the chosen type can't
be played.
This is...better, but not by much. I would prefer something that has a sacrifice condition, or simply penalized them for doing it. Taking damage when you play a card of the chosen type is nasty, but nowhere near this hosing level.
On a related but very important note, I want to introduce a phrase for pretty much anything that allows you to pick a card type: Non-land card type. This is really REALLY important, and any card that lets you pick a type, you should consider the variation in power level between this and the any type goes versions.
Split cards - Anything from monocolor to both halves tri-color. This is the best tech that exists for offering two different options with one card, since you can easily price them differently, and I believe you can even make one a sorcery and the other an instant?
Kicker - The other catch-all way to alter spells is with kicker. There are still a lot of options to explore here.
"Choose" spells - Entwine is a possibility, but I prefer the either/or idea, keeping spells fairly cheap but making you choose one of two modes.
"If" spells - A variation on the above allows you to change the spell by choosing how to play it. I am mainly thinking timing, so a spell works differently on your turn and the opponent's turn, or possibly mana, with colors adding or changing modes like we saw in Shadowmoor.
The mechanics here work as filler mechanics mostly. Split cards are made in small amounts to be exciting (and I don't think you want lots of splitcards running about), Kicker is ridiculously broad, but is used as smoothing most of the time, and Entwine is a subset of kicker.
I don't really like lots of cards wich have too many decisions in what they do. It seems messy and overcluttered in large numbers.
You are right that red doesn't often care about many of the permanent types, but I don't think that really hurts things too much. Red focuses on aggresive creatures, and spells. White focuses on creatures (and boosting creatures) and enchantments. Blue focuses on enchantments, artifacts and instants (and sorceries to a lesser extent). Overall they care about everything (except lands).
Potentially, simply encouraging players to play spells (remembering that playing a creature or whatever meets this criteria) could be a slightly more flavourful way of doing it.
Also, I don't think we will make colours care about things they don't already. There will be monored card that cares if you have an enchantment. Domain effects don't really alter this, as it wants you to have multiple types, no matter what they are. A different flavour (of diversity).
I will have some more comments later, but wanted to chip in on a couple of points.
Admire the old works W
Sorcery
You gain 1 life for each
card type among cards in
your graveyard.
I tend to feel that this Shard really doesn't care about the graveyard (without green and black, graveyard magic is at its lowest possible point). I am unsure whether it's too restrictive to the theme, but I was thinking we should try and avoid counting the graveyard. This may limit things too much.
Spellbanner's Edict 3W
Enchantment
When Spellbanner's edict
comes into play, choose a card
type.
Cards of the chosen type can't
be played.
Development note: Can you have "Players can't play creature spells" for just 4 mana? Having added versatility on that is just gravy. This thing can shut down an aggro deck, and with some acceleration can do it on the third turn.
Salve Embalmer 1W
Creature Human Cleric
T: You gain 1 life
Whenever you play an instant
or sorcery, you gain 1 life. 1/1
First note: I think this is neater if you make it untap when you play an instant or sorcery, allowing the two abilities to intersect more neatly, and also allow further utility for the card.
Second Note: This does seem pure white, but we might be willing to bend it for this shard.
Third Note: This highlights a design structure I thought might be useful. If we have instants and sorceries that count the number of <card types> in <zone>, while having permanents that care about playing instants and sorceries. This addresses MikeyG's concern about instants and sorceries not mattering as much. The synergy potential has me tingling too.
Back to work now, will update with further comments on goings on here later.
So I'm left to presume, then, that the cards featuring this mechanic would be more or less like Domain/Chroma analogues (card draw, burn, pump, global destruction, etc)?
Pretty much. This kind of design would form the base of the shard.
With the numbers so small, it's probably best to tighten the focus to just one way for now. Some of the methods on the list reward playing a lot of one type rather than rewarding diversity which is fine in a big set, but I think we should try to keep the focus on one or the other.
Agreed. I think that we want to encourage simply playing as many types as possible, rather than the counterintuitive 'play more of one type' cards. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a sprinkling (at most five) cards that cared about many of a single type.
And now some random designs that aren't tied to either of the two theme options.
Reverse the Written 2RU
Instant
Return target creature you control to its owner’s hand, then add mana equal to its mana cost to your mana pool (mana cost includes colors).
This ability really intrigues me. That said, this wouldn't be too hard to get recursive with, and probably needs to be more expensive. But that's a development task.
Fateskim wind WU
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player picks draw phase, main phase, or combat phase, then skips all instances of that phase.
Harkening back to a Mirrodin card whose name escapes me.
Disenchantium RW
Instant
Choose one or both: Destroy target enchantment and/or destroy target artifact.
If you just make this destroy one of each it becomes slightly worse. An interesting alternative to disenchant or naturalize, while still fitting quite neatly into what both red and white do.
Thoughtleech Cocoon 2UR
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent draws a card, you may put a 1/1 blue and red leech creature token into play.
This is good with the type matters theme, by letting one card give you both creature and enchantment (and not being that hard to do).
Have some other ideas that are more card-type intensive which I will post later.
Most of the linger cards CAN be done in other ways, and since we are going to want to encourage enchantments to be played, (and linger often imitates them) I'm not sure there would be space for both. We don't have many cards to work with.
Discussions on why various ideas should be used seem to have finished, so I say we have a week of voting, before getting into the design for our shard. Anyone objecting?
If this is acceptable, I will collect and tally the votes in this post. I'm going to put the name of everyone who voted for something, along with a total count. Names included because this is hardly anonymous voting.
Type Matters
noviny
HGaramond
codgodthegreat
Post Affinity
4
While it's true that linger doesn't constitute a theme, it's so crazy it just won't work to do 'stack matters' without it. With linger, it's so crazy it just might work.
Backing away from prose there, the mechanic we are discussing are integral to the theme. Because of this I don't think we can realistically discuss one without the other.
Sorry if that seems overly nitpicky, but I felt that distinction was enough to warrant pointing out.
S'cool, and is important to remember. But as I said above, I do think that we can't discuss one without the other. Also, thanks for drawing us back to stack matters a little.
So if there are still spaces for people to officially join the project, and you're prepared to have me, I'd like to join.
Yay! More membership! We only have 2 active people who are officially on the team (am unsure why MikeyG hasn't joined it though). Can't add you myself, but am sure you will be approved.
Ideally, the keyword only makes the theme easier but it's still doable without linger.
Which gets us into the design restriction of how many cards we want on the stack.
But if we open the theme to also include spells you don't control, it becomes far easier to achieve
And a lot more interractive, like how storm works in limited. You get to mess around with piggybacking your spells. Quite a lot of fun.
Then I suppose it's our job to smooth out the awkwardness.
Fixing problems is what designers do. I like your initial attempt at making people want to play spells. It plays wonderfully with reds desire to make people play the game. Some stuff like this would fit well flavourfully, and outside of linger, has a general penalty for more reactive players. Another thing to do is to have more flash spells, so it is easier to layer multiple non-linger spells.
And the cheating things is another good idea. Although you always have to be careful with that so it doesn't break things. And as for white, the Quasali Ambusher shows white sneaking something into play, so we can definitely look at that.
I'm thinking about having control over when you resolve a lingering spell versus waiting for a particular card type to be in your hand and worth playing.
I think there should be a mix in whether you control when linger resolves, and whether it resolves on a trigger. To make linger less dangerous, anything with linger that can potentially warp the game (anthem effect, making tokens/turn) I would want to resolve on a trigger. Flavourfully, the card fulfills its purpose, and stops lingering (like your soldier that generated tokens). What triggers the resolution would be entirely up in the air, but probably something relevant to what it is doing (once again, I mention your soldier generator, which can only resolve once you hit critical soldier mass).
That said, I was more talking about using the linger mechanic to support a type matters theme. This would remove linger from its stack matters origins, and would provide an interesting angle on both. I am not sure if it is a truly good idea, but seemed at least worth mentioning after I made this card:
Hastey Waiter
Creature - Race Class
Linger
Whenever a creature comes into play under your control, ~ resolves.
When ~ comes into play, target creature gains haste until end of turn.
It can't occur without linger, cares about type (admittedly, lots of stuff cares about creatures so it is missable), and provides an interesting effect for playing it with that type. Either it can gain haste, or it can grant whatever else you just played haste. You had to make a downpayment of R earlier, but it avoids the problem of most haste-giving in that they normally delay when you can play your creature.
This application of linger is more simple than one that worries about the stack. It would show players some of linger's potential without having the full complexity of the whole shard caring about the stack. Within such a shard, you could probably have several cards that cared about the stack to make people play around linger.
This could either make the shard over-cluttered and underfocused, or allow more depth in deckbuilding with the shard. If it can be done well, I think it would have the subtle elegance that a RWU mage would admire.
By turning it into a triggered ability, I'm assuming that makes it a bit more functional, yes?
Definitely. That solves a major issue with the mechanic.
You do realize that the number of spells needed to boost the effect is debatable, right?
Of course. Adjusting the numbers makes it easier or harder to pull off. I suppose that around 2 would be best (hard but doable normally, fairly easy with linger).
Perhaps all we need do is drop the 'you control' clause and just count spells on the stack in genera
This adds a nice additional versatility. Like the way storm instants were able to piggy back your opponents' spells.
It's easier to tap out or fill the graveyard than have spells on the stack?
Yes, yes it is. Threshold, once reached, stays there. You fill your graveyard and don't need to worry about keeping it full. Stack matter makes you worry every time you play it about whether you can get the requisite stack position.
And you could say tapping out is like this, but I still feel that it is an easier thing to do. Mainly because both these things don't require additional cards continually. Tapping all your lands can be done every turn, filling your graveyard happens more or less naturally, having cards on the stack at the right moment (particularly for reactive spells that aren't counterspells) is normally going to be awkward.
I could have posted a dozen simple common designs, but something told me that what was requested were the bigger, flashier designs to sell the concept.
Misunderstanding, possibly lack of clarity on my part. I tend to like looking at the simple commons. How the base effects play with the new keyword makes it easier to judge than the amazing rares.
Wouldn't that just make the mechanic more insular (which is rarely a good idea)?
Yes, and no. It adds an extra challenge to deckbuilding, trying to make sure you have the right types, while at the same time the challenge is less challenge than it appears. Everybody plays lands, most people play creatures, instants and sorceries are pretty popular, and enchantments see varying play. While such cards require some support, the support is most likely in decks, so wouldn't require additional cards to allow it. So the narrower theme doesn't make it more insular/linear.
While I hate to contradict, I think we should wait until we finish this slightly deeper exploration of Linger before voting. I think we need to ensure we fully understand the pros and cons of each, which I am not sure we're at yet.
I view it like Threshold. A mechanic that allows a zone to matter where it usually hasn't before.
cards to help linger/stack matters:
...
I'd like to deconstruct this analogy a little, based on the linger support cards you developed.
Blue Illusion Thing :2mana::symu:
Creature - Illusion (C)
~ has flying as longer as there is a creature spell on the stack.
~ has protection from converted mana costs 3 or less if there is a sorcery or instant spell on the stack.
1/3
Simple Common Helper :3mana::symr:
Creature - Beast
CARDNAME has haste if there are four or more spells on the stack.
3/3
Stack Crusade :1mana::symr::symw::symu:
Enchantment (R)
Creatures you control get +1/+1 and have flying and haste for each spell you control on the stack.
All these cards only function with linger, and only function in a deck with linger. The linearity of these cards is pretty astounding. Technically you can trigger all of them simply by playing an instant or sorcery, but with these cards, you can't do anything relevant until those spells are resolved. Having haste if a spell is on the stack will only be relevant if you can attack while the spell is still on the stack.
The card that doesn't fall into this trap:
White Damage Prevention :2mana::symw:
Instant (C)
Prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to each creature you control this turn.
If there are four or more spells on the stack, prevent all damage that would be dealt to creatures you control this turn instead.
This spell is usable without linger, however how often you would get it to its full usage without linger is debatable. The only other way to really get the four spells on the stack seems to be a replicating ability, such as storm, replicate, or volley. Without support from this in-block and in the surrounding sets (are we assuming this replaces Alara in standard, or do we have no basis for what goes before?).
So, in regards to your threshold comment, linger fills a very different function. Linger would be like threshold if threshold had introduced the graveyard, rather than taking advantage of something already likely to occur. The same is true in regards to the prophecy 'tap everything' theme. This was still pretty easy to do previously, while the linger support cards are very hard to use without linger.
We also need some more common linger spells looked at:
Hastey Waiter R
Creature - Race Class
Linger
Whenever a creature comes into play under your control, ~ resolves.
When ~ comes into play, target creature gains haste until end of turn.
Spirit of the Lance 1W
Creature - Race Class
Linger
As you play ~ target creature gets +1/+1 and first strike as long as ~ is on the stack. 1W: ~ resolves. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.
You made a blue common linger spell, so I won't bother designing one of them yet.
Ultimately, I still think linger and its surrounding stack matters theme is too linear and needs too much support to fall in the place of a single shard.
A very intriguing compromise would be to use linger to show that type matters. You would do this by having your linger spells resolve only when a particular type was played, or put into a graveyard, or whatnot. This combining of the two ideas allows us to explore linger in a way that won't require a sets-worth of support, and allows us to explore 'type matters' in ways that are not only new, but previously impossible.
My confusion with type matters is this: are we trying to reward players for having a diverse number of card types or for having many of a certain type? I'm guessing the first.
I think we want to MOSTLY reward players for playing multiple types. I think that there would be an opportunity for a smattering (3-5 cards) that encouraged playing lots of one type. If not Volley, it would be good to have a unifying mechanic. Potentially something that can actually go on permanents.
Six cards in the whole set would be enough and two or three would likely be present already even without this mechanic/theme. It's just a case of making sure that each color has access to some measure of an answer (they needn't all be perfectly efficient as long as they exist).
Firstly, I want to ask, is Linger aimed at creating a 'stack matters' theme within the shard, or simply creating a 'linger matters' theme. Is linger background to the greater theme, or is it the important part? Something our rules questioning seems to have distracted.
I believe that the original idea was more to use linger to back up a 'stack matters' theme.
Six cards seems a small number to be effective against it. Still, I haven't counted the number of artifact removal spells in previous sets. This deals with Linger in limited, but would likely still boost blue's value in constructed?
At this point I see Linger as being at least not impossible. I would like to challenge its supporters to design 3-5 linger cards that are truly unique to linger, incapable of other design. Alongside this, some interesting cards to boost linger. Talking in theory is all very well, but seeing some cards would help me consider how this would play.
I actually see this as a bit of a :symr::symg::symu: theme myself.
Probably right here. Do we know if the RGU people have a theme to go on?
I think it's best (albeit slower) if everything remains public, it allows for more eyes to look over the ideas, even those who may not specifically be a part of the project.
This is true. Visibility is good. Even if it makes the decision-making process slower.
Speaking of decision-making, how is a decision finally made on which idea to pursue? Do we just discuss until everyone agrees, or do we end up with a vote at some point? Or does somebody get lead designer rights, and is the final authority?
Having it be at least clear what kind of structure we are using is useful in stopping endless back-and-forth without hope of resolution.
First, an alternate evaluation of our themes, based on the way the themes relate to other sets/how you deal with them.
Bant: Attacking with one creature is a new theme, but is supported by any number of large and/or difficult to deal with creatures. Also, people deal with attacking all the time. No new threats, moderate support previously.
Esper: Artifacts are really not new, and artifact matters also doesn’t make its mark as original. Making them in coloured increases the abilities open to them, but also decreases brokeness potential. There are lots of ways to deal with artifacts, and also lots of previous artifacts and things that like artifacts.
Grixis: I am not entirely sure what Grixis is about. Graveyards and recursion mostly. In any case, building a recursive deck and/or a discard deck are both classic parts of magic. Dealing with graveyard-using decks can be a challenge, but some choice artifacts help out a lot.
Jund: Devour has little support outside of Alara. That said, it doesn’t really need it. Any small creature works, any 187 ability works well, and devour cards can be placed into some existing decks. Aside from devour, the shards’ dragons and small creatures are pretty useful anywhere. You can support devour elsewhere, and also it is fairly easy to deal with (often easier than a swarm might have been).
Naya: Creatures with 5 or more power aren’t exactly rare in magic’s history. This shard has support everywhere, and like Jund and Bant, simply relies on creatures, so is very easy to break the power of. Almost anyone should have access to ways to beat it.
Now let us look at our new ideas:
type matters: It’s impossible to find a magic set without all the permanent types. Often they even end up mixed together. This is harder to defuse than the above examples, as you can rarely remove all their permanent types.
At the same time, it is easy to weaken it, by removing all creatures, or artifacts, or enchantments (or even all lands). It also adds an interesting puzzle piece in hard-to-find card types (tribal and planeswalkers). It is hard to truly defeat this theme, but very easy to weaken.
RFG: Almost nothing deals with this zone, and makes it very hard to work with. With only a fifth of a block to explore it and to deal with it, it will be undersupported and/or too hard to deal with. Prior support is slim, as is ways to deal with.
Linger: How do you deal with linger? Counterspells! Well, blue can deal with linger, and, um. So blue decks become that much more awesome just because nobody else has previous answers to linger. At the same time, nothing previously really cares about the stack. The best you have is spells played, and that is about putting them on the stack.
Endnote: I think Linger is a really interesting ability, that doesn't fit within a shard. You want a full 200 cards to mess around with it.
In other ideas/comments, storm has been thrown out in relation to volley. I have written quite a long stretch comparing the two, but the summary is that they play quite differently. Volley is much more like domain.
I wouldn't be against doing type matters without having a mechanic.
Nextly, I want to throw out "playing spells matters" as a theme. Things that benefit from playing spells after they are played (any spell). All the colours seem to want to play spells, and red and white tend to want to play their spells NOW. blue could probably be tempted to play them now (alongside whites' structured side), by yielding greater profits from playing spells.
Endendnote: I like type matters the most.
ps.
(Also, I'm loving this discussion. I imagine that this is what real R&D is like. Only we have 100% less MaRo.)
Hee, I have a similar feeling. I feel mean when I disagree with people though.
pps. Would anyone else be interested in organising an IM chat or something to bounce these ideas around more interactively?
Anyway, the mechanic is good. There is still the question of only instants and sorceries, or any type. But yeah, it works well.
I believe you want to make it only instants and sorceries focused?
Technically these always trigger, since by the time the ability checks, you have played THEM.
I actually disagree with this. A card that benefits from playing instants or sorceries fits well into any deck playing instants and sorceries. One at a decent power level (say a creature that made every instant/sorcery cantrip) is a nice addition to a permanent-lite deck. At the same time, it is a good creature in a deck that needs creatures to increase synergy of it's instants and sorceries.
As for instants/sorceries that count permanents, they were always a little narrow, and fairly linear. The creatures actually help make the shard as a whole less linear.
I think this brings up a logistics problem of not counting the graveyard too often. Some permanent types are less likely to hit the graveyard methinks, and encouraging people to have them there seems odd. If we make most creatures in-theme focus on instant/sorcery interaction, then the spells could mostly worry about creatures in play. This is just a suggestion of narrowing our designs to make sure the small number of shard cards play well together.
With Azorius friends, there is going to be some cards that just say no. That said, I think this shard is more likely to punish players for not doing things (you didn't play a creature, FISH TO THE FACE, didn't attack? I gain life, refusing to block? take some extra damage).
This is...better, but not by much. I would prefer something that has a sacrifice condition, or simply penalized them for doing it. Taking damage when you play a card of the chosen type is nasty, but nowhere near this hosing level.
On a related but very important note, I want to introduce a phrase for pretty much anything that allows you to pick a card type: Non-land card type. This is really REALLY important, and any card that lets you pick a type, you should consider the variation in power level between this and the any type goes versions.
The mechanics here work as filler mechanics mostly. Split cards are made in small amounts to be exciting (and I don't think you want lots of splitcards running about), Kicker is ridiculously broad, but is used as smoothing most of the time, and Entwine is a subset of kicker.
I don't really like lots of cards wich have too many decisions in what they do. It seems messy and overcluttered in large numbers.
You are right that red doesn't often care about many of the permanent types, but I don't think that really hurts things too much. Red focuses on aggresive creatures, and spells. White focuses on creatures (and boosting creatures) and enchantments. Blue focuses on enchantments, artifacts and instants (and sorceries to a lesser extent). Overall they care about everything (except lands).
Potentially, simply encouraging players to play spells (remembering that playing a creature or whatever meets this criteria) could be a slightly more flavourful way of doing it.
Also, I don't think we will make colours care about things they don't already. There will be monored card that cares if you have an enchantment. Domain effects don't really alter this, as it wants you to have multiple types, no matter what they are. A different flavour (of diversity).
Card ideas tonight.
I tend to feel that this Shard really doesn't care about the graveyard (without green and black, graveyard magic is at its lowest possible point). I am unsure whether it's too restrictive to the theme, but I was thinking we should try and avoid counting the graveyard. This may limit things too much.
Development note: Can you have "Players can't play creature spells" for just 4 mana? Having added versatility on that is just gravy. This thing can shut down an aggro deck, and with some acceleration can do it on the third turn.
First note: I think this is neater if you make it untap when you play an instant or sorcery, allowing the two abilities to intersect more neatly, and also allow further utility for the card.
Second Note: This does seem pure white, but we might be willing to bend it for this shard.
Third Note: This highlights a design structure I thought might be useful. If we have instants and sorceries that count the number of <card types> in <zone>, while having permanents that care about playing instants and sorceries. This addresses MikeyG's concern about instants and sorceries not mattering as much. The synergy potential has me tingling too.
Back to work now, will update with further comments on goings on here later.
Pretty much. This kind of design would form the base of the shard.
Agreed. I think that we want to encourage simply playing as many types as possible, rather than the counterintuitive 'play more of one type' cards. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a sprinkling (at most five) cards that cared about many of a single type.
And now some random designs that aren't tied to either of the two theme options.
Reverse the Written 2RU
Instant
Return target creature you control to its owner’s hand, then add mana equal to its mana cost to your mana pool (mana cost includes colors).
This ability really intrigues me. That said, this wouldn't be too hard to get recursive with, and probably needs to be more expensive. But that's a development task.
Fateskim wind WU
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player picks draw phase, main phase, or combat phase, then skips all instances of that phase.
Harkening back to a Mirrodin card whose name escapes me.
Disenchantium RW
Instant
Choose one or both: Destroy target enchantment and/or destroy target artifact.
If you just make this destroy one of each it becomes slightly worse. An interesting alternative to disenchant or naturalize, while still fitting quite neatly into what both red and white do.
Thoughtleech Cocoon 2UR
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent draws a card, you may put a 1/1 blue and red leech creature token into play.
This is good with the type matters theme, by letting one card give you both creature and enchantment (and not being that hard to do).
Have some other ideas that are more card-type intensive which I will post later.
If this is acceptable, I will collect and tally the votes in this post. I'm going to put the name of everyone who voted for something, along with a total count. Names included because this is hardly anonymous voting.
Type Matters
noviny
HGaramond
codgodthegreat
Post Affinity
4
Stack Matters
{mikeyG}
1
I'll update those frequently and often.
While it's true that linger doesn't constitute a theme, it's so crazy it just won't work to do 'stack matters' without it. With linger, it's so crazy it just might work.
Backing away from prose there, the mechanic we are discussing are integral to the theme. Because of this I don't think we can realistically discuss one without the other.
S'cool, and is important to remember. But as I said above, I do think that we can't discuss one without the other. Also, thanks for drawing us back to stack matters a little.
Yay! More membership! We only have 2 active people who are officially on the team (am unsure why MikeyG hasn't joined it though). Can't add you myself, but am sure you will be approved.
In closing, Long live type matters!
Which gets us into the design restriction of how many cards we want on the stack.
And a lot more interractive, like how storm works in limited. You get to mess around with piggybacking your spells. Quite a lot of fun.
Fixing problems is what designers do. I like your initial attempt at making people want to play spells. It plays wonderfully with reds desire to make people play the game. Some stuff like this would fit well flavourfully, and outside of linger, has a general penalty for more reactive players. Another thing to do is to have more flash spells, so it is easier to layer multiple non-linger spells.
And the cheating things is another good idea. Although you always have to be careful with that so it doesn't break things. And as for white, the Quasali Ambusher shows white sneaking something into play, so we can definitely look at that.
I think there should be a mix in whether you control when linger resolves, and whether it resolves on a trigger. To make linger less dangerous, anything with linger that can potentially warp the game (anthem effect, making tokens/turn) I would want to resolve on a trigger. Flavourfully, the card fulfills its purpose, and stops lingering (like your soldier that generated tokens). What triggers the resolution would be entirely up in the air, but probably something relevant to what it is doing (once again, I mention your soldier generator, which can only resolve once you hit critical soldier mass).
That said, I was more talking about using the linger mechanic to support a type matters theme. This would remove linger from its stack matters origins, and would provide an interesting angle on both. I am not sure if it is a truly good idea, but seemed at least worth mentioning after I made this card:
It can't occur without linger, cares about type (admittedly, lots of stuff cares about creatures so it is missable), and provides an interesting effect for playing it with that type. Either it can gain haste, or it can grant whatever else you just played haste. You had to make a downpayment of R earlier, but it avoids the problem of most haste-giving in that they normally delay when you can play your creature.
This application of linger is more simple than one that worries about the stack. It would show players some of linger's potential without having the full complexity of the whole shard caring about the stack. Within such a shard, you could probably have several cards that cared about the stack to make people play around linger.
This could either make the shard over-cluttered and underfocused, or allow more depth in deckbuilding with the shard. If it can be done well, I think it would have the subtle elegance that a RWU mage would admire.
Definitely. That solves a major issue with the mechanic.
Of course. Adjusting the numbers makes it easier or harder to pull off. I suppose that around 2 would be best (hard but doable normally, fairly easy with linger).
This adds a nice additional versatility. Like the way storm instants were able to piggy back your opponents' spells.
Yes, yes it is. Threshold, once reached, stays there. You fill your graveyard and don't need to worry about keeping it full. Stack matter makes you worry every time you play it about whether you can get the requisite stack position.
And you could say tapping out is like this, but I still feel that it is an easier thing to do. Mainly because both these things don't require additional cards continually. Tapping all your lands can be done every turn, filling your graveyard happens more or less naturally, having cards on the stack at the right moment (particularly for reactive spells that aren't counterspells) is normally going to be awkward.
Misunderstanding, possibly lack of clarity on my part. I tend to like looking at the simple commons. How the base effects play with the new keyword makes it easier to judge than the amazing rares.
Yes, and no. It adds an extra challenge to deckbuilding, trying to make sure you have the right types, while at the same time the challenge is less challenge than it appears. Everybody plays lands, most people play creatures, instants and sorceries are pretty popular, and enchantments see varying play. While such cards require some support, the support is most likely in decks, so wouldn't require additional cards to allow it. So the narrower theme doesn't make it more insular/linear.
While I hate to contradict, I think we should wait until we finish this slightly deeper exploration of Linger before voting. I think we need to ensure we fully understand the pros and cons of each, which I am not sure we're at yet.
I'd like to deconstruct this analogy a little, based on the linger support cards you developed.
All these cards only function with linger, and only function in a deck with linger. The linearity of these cards is pretty astounding. Technically you can trigger all of them simply by playing an instant or sorcery, but with these cards, you can't do anything relevant until those spells are resolved. Having haste if a spell is on the stack will only be relevant if you can attack while the spell is still on the stack.
The card that doesn't fall into this trap:
This spell is usable without linger, however how often you would get it to its full usage without linger is debatable. The only other way to really get the four spells on the stack seems to be a replicating ability, such as storm, replicate, or volley. Without support from this in-block and in the surrounding sets (are we assuming this replaces Alara in standard, or do we have no basis for what goes before?).
So, in regards to your threshold comment, linger fills a very different function. Linger would be like threshold if threshold had introduced the graveyard, rather than taking advantage of something already likely to occur. The same is true in regards to the prophecy 'tap everything' theme. This was still pretty easy to do previously, while the linger support cards are very hard to use without linger.
We also need some more common linger spells looked at:
Hastey Waiter R
Creature - Race Class
Linger
Whenever a creature comes into play under your control, ~ resolves.
When ~ comes into play, target creature gains haste until end of turn.
Spirit of the Lance 1W
Creature - Race Class
Linger
As you play ~ target creature gets +1/+1 and first strike as long as ~ is on the stack.
1W: ~ resolves. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.
You made a blue common linger spell, so I won't bother designing one of them yet.
Ultimately, I still think linger and its surrounding stack matters theme is too linear and needs too much support to fall in the place of a single shard.
A very intriguing compromise would be to use linger to show that type matters. You would do this by having your linger spells resolve only when a particular type was played, or put into a graveyard, or whatnot. This combining of the two ideas allows us to explore linger in a way that won't require a sets-worth of support, and allows us to explore 'type matters' in ways that are not only new, but previously impossible.
I think we want to MOSTLY reward players for playing multiple types. I think that there would be an opportunity for a smattering (3-5 cards) that encouraged playing lots of one type. If not Volley, it would be good to have a unifying mechanic. Potentially something that can actually go on permanents.
Firstly, I want to ask, is Linger aimed at creating a 'stack matters' theme within the shard, or simply creating a 'linger matters' theme. Is linger background to the greater theme, or is it the important part? Something our rules questioning seems to have distracted.
I believe that the original idea was more to use linger to back up a 'stack matters' theme.
Six cards seems a small number to be effective against it. Still, I haven't counted the number of artifact removal spells in previous sets. This deals with Linger in limited, but would likely still boost blue's value in constructed?
At this point I see Linger as being at least not impossible. I would like to challenge its supporters to design 3-5 linger cards that are truly unique to linger, incapable of other design. Alongside this, some interesting cards to boost linger. Talking in theory is all very well, but seeing some cards would help me consider how this would play.
Probably right here. Do we know if the RGU people have a theme to go on?
This is true. Visibility is good. Even if it makes the decision-making process slower.
Speaking of decision-making, how is a decision finally made on which idea to pursue? Do we just discuss until everyone agrees, or do we end up with a vote at some point? Or does somebody get lead designer rights, and is the final authority?
Having it be at least clear what kind of structure we are using is useful in stopping endless back-and-forth without hope of resolution.
First, an alternate evaluation of our themes, based on the way the themes relate to other sets/how you deal with them.
Bant: Attacking with one creature is a new theme, but is supported by any number of large and/or difficult to deal with creatures. Also, people deal with attacking all the time. No new threats, moderate support previously.
Esper: Artifacts are really not new, and artifact matters also doesn’t make its mark as original. Making them in coloured increases the abilities open to them, but also decreases brokeness potential. There are lots of ways to deal with artifacts, and also lots of previous artifacts and things that like artifacts.
Grixis: I am not entirely sure what Grixis is about. Graveyards and recursion mostly. In any case, building a recursive deck and/or a discard deck are both classic parts of magic. Dealing with graveyard-using decks can be a challenge, but some choice artifacts help out a lot.
Jund: Devour has little support outside of Alara. That said, it doesn’t really need it. Any small creature works, any 187 ability works well, and devour cards can be placed into some existing decks. Aside from devour, the shards’ dragons and small creatures are pretty useful anywhere. You can support devour elsewhere, and also it is fairly easy to deal with (often easier than a swarm might have been).
Naya: Creatures with 5 or more power aren’t exactly rare in magic’s history. This shard has support everywhere, and like Jund and Bant, simply relies on creatures, so is very easy to break the power of. Almost anyone should have access to ways to beat it.
Now let us look at our new ideas:
type matters: It’s impossible to find a magic set without all the permanent types. Often they even end up mixed together. This is harder to defuse than the above examples, as you can rarely remove all their permanent types.
At the same time, it is easy to weaken it, by removing all creatures, or artifacts, or enchantments (or even all lands). It also adds an interesting puzzle piece in hard-to-find card types (tribal and planeswalkers). It is hard to truly defeat this theme, but very easy to weaken.
RFG: Almost nothing deals with this zone, and makes it very hard to work with. With only a fifth of a block to explore it and to deal with it, it will be undersupported and/or too hard to deal with. Prior support is slim, as is ways to deal with.
Linger: How do you deal with linger? Counterspells! Well, blue can deal with linger, and, um. So blue decks become that much more awesome just because nobody else has previous answers to linger. At the same time, nothing previously really cares about the stack. The best you have is spells played, and that is about putting them on the stack.
Endnote: I think Linger is a really interesting ability, that doesn't fit within a shard. You want a full 200 cards to mess around with it.
In other ideas/comments, storm has been thrown out in relation to volley. I have written quite a long stretch comparing the two, but the summary is that they play quite differently. Volley is much more like domain.
I wouldn't be against doing type matters without having a mechanic.
Nextly, I want to throw out "playing spells matters" as a theme. Things that benefit from playing spells after they are played (any spell). All the colours seem to want to play spells, and red and white tend to want to play their spells NOW. blue could probably be tempted to play them now (alongside whites' structured side), by yielding greater profits from playing spells.
Endendnote: I like type matters the most.
ps.
Hee, I have a similar feeling. I feel mean when I disagree with people though.
pps. Would anyone else be interested in organising an IM chat or something to bounce these ideas around more interactively?