Playing your creatures post combat is something that players have to learn, so I'm not sure if that's really useful. Like, newer players who are just jamming stuff get rewarded for playing their creatures normally and don't learn much, while experienced players just revert to main phase one. This is the opposite of Raid for example, which teaches newer players how to use their second main phase (which seems more useful to me).
I'm sure there's some amount of play to it, what I'm saying is that there are only a few "basic game actions" left to utilize and this seems like the most boring one.
Omniscient Eye is horrible from a logistic standpoint. The players who want to play this are exactly the kind of people who will check everyone's hand and the tops of their libraries multiple times every turn just to make sure they don't "miss anything". Basically I just don't think that's feasible in paper magic.
Even "all other players play with their stuff revealed" would be annoying, but at least it wouldn't involve a game of duck duck goose trying to check everyone at the table.
Sorry for the delay guys, it's the end of the semester here and things are crazy, especially with pushing one of my projects through a greenlight process. I'm liking a lot of the suggestions so far and I'll be updating the multiverse soon(tm) once I get a chance to really dig in to your guys' suggestions.
FWIW, Multiverse does give me the option of allowing any user to edit cards. That's also the issue though, any user can edit the cards. For some reason my only options for admin privileges are "just me" and "anyone who's logged in". I'm pretty sure I can trust all of you not to go mad with power, but there is a small chance of some randos editing things.
What do you all thing, would you prefer to have edit privileges so you can continue to make progress without going through me?
On one hand, this reads really boring. On the other hand, I probably would have said the same about Landfall.
I want to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it really does seem kind of dull. Landfall is interesting because it creates decisions where there are usually very few. Most of the time you don't have to worry about when and how you play lands, so adding meaning to that decision allows for new avenues of play. Prowess similarly allows for cards that normally don't affect the board directly to have an impact in combat. Both of these simple effects require interesting deckbuilding decisions.
This doesn't seem to have as much potential. Most decks (in limited) are already mostly creatures, and creatures already have a lot of importance in sequencing. I think you'd have to prove why this plays well.
As long as you have one other creature besides the one with Dignify, you can reap the benefits. Plus Dignify can grant access to scaling effects like tutoring an Equipment with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of dignifying creatures.
I think the point is that you may want to do the opposite.
When you have an effect that scales infinitely, you usually have to cost your card accordingly. This means that most Dignify cards are going to have to be overcosted to account for the possibility of a huge payoff. If you cost every Dignify card so that it's good with just one tapped creature, it can easily get out of hand when scaling is involved. If you balance the cards around having a bunch of creatures to tap, then you still end up with a win-more mechanic.
It's possible you want to keep scaling effects to higher rarities and focus on Dignify effects that require specifically one or two creatures on commons and uncommons.
Woah, I totally misread the previous card. Putting a counter on each of the creatures (rather than itself) might be pushing it.
Something worth considering is that, in most circumstances, Dignify is going to be a "win-more" mechanic. Win-more mechanics are fine so long as you design with them in mind, but if this is supposed to be a faction mechanic or a major theme you may run into issues.
I've seen this before as "worship" or "kneel" and such, still like it a lot. I agree that "Dignify" is a little awkward.
This card seems a tad strong. I assume this is a rare so I'd probably leave it as-is, but it naturally cancels out the trade off tapping your creatures by giving you a big blocker and life gain to boot.
This, much like Exalted or Renown, could easily fit into different colors depending on your setting. Green & White do seem like the most natural choices.
Auras are only an issue for black, since Green can just grant indestructible for a similar effect.
I do agree that losing regeneration instants is a bigger loss, but you could easily just use this ability to replace "regenerate" without changing the formatting:
1G: Regen ~. (The next time this creature dies this turn, return it to the battlefield tapped.)
Regen target creature. (The next time that creature dies this turn, return it to the battlefield tapped.)
You get the same instant functionality but now it uses completely normal game terms instead of replacement effects, healing, and removing from combat. I'm annoyed that I'd still have to explain delayed triggers, but this might actually be my preferred replacement now. (Yes, this still removes the creatures from combat, but by using this wording you can now explain to a new player why that happens instead of hand-waving and saying "regeneration's just weird like that)
@Lucan: Reassembling Skeleton is a much stronger version of this ability, given that it can be activated at anytime and not just when the creature dies (which is a huge deal). And yes I understand that this new thing would give up a lot of what traditional regeneration did, but those are trade offs (not sacrifices) I'm willing to make for an evergreen ability that's actually sustainable.
Honestly I think the main argument against this "replacing" regeneration (and it's a good argument) is that regeneration is already such a small part of the game that it's not worth the added complexity to change things up. Unlike Prowess, Regeneration isn't filling a necessary role ((B/G) already has Deathtouch) so it's really just gravy that we can use when we feel like it. IMO this replacement would be a net positive for Magic design, but it's not one I would really advocate given how little we use regeneration anyway.
But first, the complexity is not only about ETB/LTB triggering and new object ruling, but also the frequency. Any issue for a player, even a new player, to play Resurrection one time. But thing which continously ETB/LTB, being a new object is really : favorising combo engine, repetitive and time consuming, and more annoying than entertaining (at least for one player). It works, it's kinda understandable with time at least, but it can be quickly a bad design for a entertaining game, especially for new players.
Regeneration shows up at most on one or two cards per set. This ability wouldn't show up any more frequently, and perhaps even less given that it can't be used on instants in the same way. It opens up the potential for abuse with sacrifice outlets, but cards like this already exist (Reassembling Skeleton is a much easier to use version of this ability). So long as you always attach a cost to regeneration, I don't see an issue here. In fact, I'd say interacting with ETB triggers would be a strength of this ability.
I'm not quite sure, but it seems like in the rest of your post you're agreeing with me... right? I too believe that regenration is too complicated and weird for an evergreen ability. It doesn't make sense to "heal" when nothing else in magic does that, nor does it make any intuitive sense that you set up a shield for a creature that goes off later. This is why I'm in support of the OP's idea to replace Regeneration with a new ability of this type.
Though TBH OP, now that I've reread it I see no reason to use Madness. At first I thought you were trying to avoid death triggers, but if you're not then why not use the much simpler version?
Regen (When this creature dies, you may pay . If you do, return it to the battlefield tapped.)
To be simple, I think the main strenght/specificity of Regeneration is to NOT make the permanent leaves the battlefield. If it will be design with, Flicker, Undying/Persist... already exist and all proved being not "simple" mechanics just because triggering any ETB/LTB effects and leaving battlefield means to be an entirely new object.
I disagree with this analysis of complexity. Players are very used to things coming back being a "new object" because it happens all the time. Bounce and reanimation are used in literally every set, with flickering or undying-type effects showing up pretty often as well. These are things people understand naturally. What they don't understand are delayed triggers, removing already applied damage, and removing a creature from combat which are all aspects unique to regeneration that basically don't exist anywhere else in the modern game. Flickering regeneration has complexity of leaving and entering the battlefield, but that is knowledge that is relevant to many other abilities and thus players will have to learn about it anyway. If I never have to teach a player what a regeneration shield is or why their regenerated blocker I killed isn't blocking anymore it'll still be too soon.
If you're going to have to make rules that attachments remain, then it becomes more complicated than regenerate. That, and it's more powerful than regenerate because it triggers ETB/LTB, overcomes -x/-x, and "Dies" applies to sacrifice effects.
The OP's wording actually doesn't trigger "dies" effects.
The rest is all true, but I think this is just pointing out differences rather than problems. This is not trying to refurbish regenerate this is trying to replace it. It being more powerful seems like a feature to me, not a bug. Yes you'd have to design cards around these upsides, but it seems like a far better alternative to the clunky rules of the current implementation.
Not to mention the flavor is off. You don't see Wolverine flickering out of existence.
This is true, but again I feel like I'd err on the side of superior gameplay. Sure the flavor is a bit off, but that's a small price to pay IMO for an ability that people can grok. Most new players assume regenerate brings things back from the dead, this just plays into that assumption. I mean, I don't think Kitchen Finks or Young Wolf should really leave/enter again either, but you make do with what you got.
I expect they'll be taking a very different approach to "Steampunk", which is good because Kaladesh is definitely distinct from the traditional genre.
I'm sure there's some amount of play to it, what I'm saying is that there are only a few "basic game actions" left to utilize and this seems like the most boring one.
Even "all other players play with their stuff revealed" would be annoying, but at least it wouldn't involve a game of duck duck goose trying to check everyone at the table.
FWIW, Multiverse does give me the option of allowing any user to edit cards. That's also the issue though, any user can edit the cards. For some reason my only options for admin privileges are "just me" and "anyone who's logged in". I'm pretty sure I can trust all of you not to go mad with power, but there is a small chance of some randos editing things.
What do you all thing, would you prefer to have edit privileges so you can continue to make progress without going through me?
I want to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it really does seem kind of dull. Landfall is interesting because it creates decisions where there are usually very few. Most of the time you don't have to worry about when and how you play lands, so adding meaning to that decision allows for new avenues of play. Prowess similarly allows for cards that normally don't affect the board directly to have an impact in combat. Both of these simple effects require interesting deckbuilding decisions.
This doesn't seem to have as much potential. Most decks (in limited) are already mostly creatures, and creatures already have a lot of importance in sequencing. I think you'd have to prove why this plays well.
When you have an effect that scales infinitely, you usually have to cost your card accordingly. This means that most Dignify cards are going to have to be overcosted to account for the possibility of a huge payoff. If you cost every Dignify card so that it's good with just one tapped creature, it can easily get out of hand when scaling is involved. If you balance the cards around having a bunch of creatures to tap, then you still end up with a win-more mechanic.
It's possible you want to keep scaling effects to higher rarities and focus on Dignify effects that require specifically one or two creatures on commons and uncommons.
Something worth considering is that, in most circumstances, Dignify is going to be a "win-more" mechanic. Win-more mechanics are fine so long as you design with them in mind, but if this is supposed to be a faction mechanic or a major theme you may run into issues.
I don't see how this definition of assemble could ever be on a non-rare.
This card seems a tad strong. I assume this is a rare so I'd probably leave it as-is, but it naturally cancels out the trade off tapping your creatures by giving you a big blocker and life gain to boot.
This, much like Exalted or Renown, could easily fit into different colors depending on your setting. Green & White do seem like the most natural choices.
I do agree that losing regeneration instants is a bigger loss, but you could easily just use this ability to replace "regenerate" without changing the formatting:
1G: Regen ~. (The next time this creature dies this turn, return it to the battlefield tapped.)
Regen target creature. (The next time that creature dies this turn, return it to the battlefield tapped.)
You get the same instant functionality but now it uses completely normal game terms instead of replacement effects, healing, and removing from combat. I'm annoyed that I'd still have to explain delayed triggers, but this might actually be my preferred replacement now. (Yes, this still removes the creatures from combat, but by using this wording you can now explain to a new player why that happens instead of hand-waving and saying "regeneration's just weird like that)
@Lucan: Reassembling Skeleton is a much stronger version of this ability, given that it can be activated at anytime and not just when the creature dies (which is a huge deal). And yes I understand that this new thing would give up a lot of what traditional regeneration did, but those are trade offs (not sacrifices) I'm willing to make for an evergreen ability that's actually sustainable.
Honestly I think the main argument against this "replacing" regeneration (and it's a good argument) is that regeneration is already such a small part of the game that it's not worth the added complexity to change things up. Unlike Prowess, Regeneration isn't filling a necessary role ((B/G) already has Deathtouch) so it's really just gravy that we can use when we feel like it. IMO this replacement would be a net positive for Magic design, but it's not one I would really advocate given how little we use regeneration anyway.
I'm not quite sure, but it seems like in the rest of your post you're agreeing with me... right? I too believe that regenration is too complicated and weird for an evergreen ability. It doesn't make sense to "heal" when nothing else in magic does that, nor does it make any intuitive sense that you set up a shield for a creature that goes off later. This is why I'm in support of the OP's idea to replace Regeneration with a new ability of this type.
Though TBH OP, now that I've reread it I see no reason to use Madness. At first I thought you were trying to avoid death triggers, but if you're not then why not use the much simpler version?
Regen
Seems much easier.
I disagree with this analysis of complexity. Players are very used to things coming back being a "new object" because it happens all the time. Bounce and reanimation are used in literally every set, with flickering or undying-type effects showing up pretty often as well. These are things people understand naturally. What they don't understand are delayed triggers, removing already applied damage, and removing a creature from combat which are all aspects unique to regeneration that basically don't exist anywhere else in the modern game. Flickering regeneration has complexity of leaving and entering the battlefield, but that is knowledge that is relevant to many other abilities and thus players will have to learn about it anyway. If I never have to teach a player what a regeneration shield is or why their regenerated blocker I killed isn't blocking anymore it'll still be too soon.
The rest is all true, but I think this is just pointing out differences rather than problems. This is not trying to refurbish regenerate this is trying to replace it. It being more powerful seems like a feature to me, not a bug. Yes you'd have to design cards around these upsides, but it seems like a far better alternative to the clunky rules of the current implementation.
This is true, but again I feel like I'd err on the side of superior gameplay. Sure the flavor is a bit off, but that's a small price to pay IMO for an ability that people can grok. Most new players assume regenerate brings things back from the dead, this just plays into that assumption. I mean, I don't think Kitchen Finks or Young Wolf should really leave/enter again either, but you make do with what you got.