That makes a lot of sense, Lyracian. Triple black seems reasonable, while hopefully being playable.
Lornick, I considered the possibilities of draws. I figured it was safe enough to put in black since the color has so much direct damage and cards that cause life loss. Maybe I should have put in a clause that forces a sacrifice when there are no counters? Unfortunately, that makes it a lot wordier.
- necrogenesis
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May 13, 2013necrogenesis posted a message on You Make the Card 4Thanks for the comments! After reading hundreds of posts, it seems to be the general consensus that my design isn't the most powerful for tournament play. That's fair enough and I now realize the power isn't as obvious as I'd hoped it would be. I wanted people to see the connection to Sulfuric Vortex and Shrine of Burning Rage.Posted in: Everlasting Dusk
On the other hand, I've received quite a few compliments on the general design and flavor, which is definitely a nice feeling.
I, too, wish they would have included a mana cost estimate. Obviously, the CMC is going to determine how playable ALL of these are. I've seen some estimates for mine that are far higher than what I'd expect.
To answer your question Lyracian, I figured the cost could be adjustable along with the number of counters. The more counters there are, the lower cost.
For example, if they put the counters at 5, the cost might be 5BB. If they put the counters at 20, the cost might be 1B. At 13, I was hoping it would be toward the lower end. What do you think? -
Jan 26, 2008necrogenesis posted a message on [0004]I had a dream of a symbol once. It was quite nice looking and I don't remember ever seeing it before my dream. In many years, I think I've only shown it to one other person. I search through books of symbols because I think it has probably been done before. Still, for all I know now, that symbol is original, and I treasure it because of that.Posted in: Redington Blog
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Jul 12, 2007necrogenesis posted a message on Wii!Awesome! You got a great bunch of games to go with it too. Sounds like enough to have a lot of fun for a long time.Posted in: Alacar's Design Zone
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Jul 8, 2007necrogenesis posted a message on MusingsI like the quote. Earning XP is the hard part. But it can also be really, really fun.Posted in: Crateria
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Some thoughts:
What is a guild?
Definition 1 seems the most relevant to me.
Guilds were groups of people with one or more skills in common. They were the medieval equivalent of today's unions. The people in a guild didn't necessarily work together on the same projects or in the same building or even in the same town. However, they would meet with each other and as a group, they would decide on standard rates for their services and acceptable qualities for their products. This practice helped to ensure fair wages for each guild member (no price wars among members) and helped keep customers happy (due to a better quality product).
Inter-guild negotiations were also important for establishing beneficial agreements for members of each guild. A guild of miners could provide cheaper ore for a guild of iron smiths if the iron smiths would provide cheap, effective equipment in return.
How is a guild similar to a tribe?
Both are groups of beings designed to protect the members.
How is a guild different than a tribe?
Tribes are usually fully self-reliant groups containing members primarily of one race (creature type) or family. Each member may have a different job. Members frequently rely on each other, rather than looking outside the tribe for services or goods.
Guilds are not designed to be self-reliant. Race and family usually don't matter. All members specialize in the same one or two skills (jobs), which they use to make a profit by selling their goods or services to others. Members rarely rely on each other for services or skills. (An iron smith doesn't usually need another iron smith.) Guilds frequently rely on other guilds for products or tasks they cannot do themselves. (An iron smith doesn't mine his own ore.)
How do guilds differ from spirits and arcane spells?
Um... They don't trigger random events when they are played?
Anyway, guilds are clearly very different from tribes. My train of thought leads me to believe that the guild mechanic will encourage playing multiple guilds far more than the tribal theme encouraged playing multiple creature types. I think guild members would already have most of the abilities that the other guild members have (which is precisely why they are in the same guild in the first place). Therefore, it would make more sense if a guild member gave his ability to an outsider (usually for a price).
The problem with this idea is that you could then just play random guild members to give your other guys their abilities. This would be almost exactly like tribal or slivers (but in reverse). In real life, however, guilds are stronger when there are more people in them. The trick then becomes figuring out how to design a mechanic that encourages playing several members of each of a few guilds rather than just the best members of many guilds.
Some ideas:
Playing multiple members of a guild reduces the cost to use their ability on non-member creatures. (Flying guild members allow you to give non-members flying. The more members you have, the cheaper the flying ability is.)
Playing certain guilds makes certain other guilds cheaper to use. (Having a rock guild member reduces the cost of using a wall-builder guild or catapult guild member's ability. More members of one group = cheaper costs of another group. This cost reduction could work for 2 or 3 guilds to encourage modular deck building.)
Playing multiple members of a guild increases the effect of their ability on non-members. (You get more mana, more life, less damage, or a bigger pump effect.)
I've typed long enough on this for tonight. I hope that this post helps to encourage people to think in a slightly different way than tribal. It was awesome in Onslaught block, and I'm sure it would be awesome in Ravnica, but honestly I'm hoping for something a little different than "pick the few best tribe members of the one best tribe and there's your deck." I want something more along the lines of "Guild X may be the best by itself, but Guilds Y and Z work better together." Given Forsythe's comments, it is very possible that guilds may be distinguished by names rather than subtypes. However, people are still falling into the tribal pattern using the names.
EDIT: Longest. Post. Ever.
Bug - :symb::symu::symg:
Creature - Insect
Sacrifice Bug: Add :symb::symu::symg: to your mana pool.
Don't bug me.
3/3
The card name is literally the mana cost of the card if you use letters instead of symbols: Bug costs BUG.
Hello. I wasn't going to post, but I felt it would be rude not to speak when spoken to. You guys have enough mods in this group to delete this if it's inappropriate.
Best wishes to r_e (and the rest of you as well).
Speaking of Pox - that's a pretty "mirrored" card right there. 3 letters in the name, 3 casting cost, lots of 3's in the text box. If it only made you lose 3 things instead of 4 and had a 3 word flavor text it would be perfectly 3'ed... or something.
My initial thoughts were along the same line as TheLion's: a number in the title that reflects how much the card costs and how much [damage/discard/life loss/etc] it causes. I suppose it could be a color word as well but how would that be reflected in ability?
Bogardan Mage: You're absolutely correct. The painstones do show that the rule has not been abandoned. For Type 2 and draft play I actually enjoyed the painstones a great deal. I even made a point to get them all in foil because they were so cool. I realize my last post didn't reflect that and only focused on their value in Type 1. Sorry for the confusion. Type 1 is certainly my primary focus at the moment, but not my only one.
Lord Kaos: There is a big difference between wishing something was broken and wishing it was just playable in a format.
solisete: Type 1 is a fairly diverse format and frequently uses cards from throughout the history of Magic, including newer sets. Trinisphere, Crucible of Worlds, Sword of Fire and Ice, and the Fetchlands are just a few of the newer cards that see play in Vintage now. There are even some interesting Ninja decks that have popped up. As far as I know, none of these cards are/were considered broken in Type 2 while legal.
Annorax: While I obviously know those aren't the only duals printed, they do happen to be my 3 favorite cycles (including the Apocalypse cycle that finished out the one started in Ice Age). I also think the Invasion cycle was pretty decent, even though they will never see play in Type 1. I had a Wake deck that used them and they fit in pretty nicely at the time.
Flamebuster: I'd like that cycle a lot. Maybe increase the counter amount to 4 so as not to be strictly worse than Gemstone Mine? Either way, it's a cool idea.
That's true. I only listed the changes that I thought were most obvious and that definitely improved on the card. (Mr. Rosewater said the change was beneficial.) If the card were printed with just the change you mentioned, you would lose less life (a definite plus), but you wouldn't draw as many cards (a definite drawback). I think only a decent amount of playtesting would show which version is better in that case.
If I had to make a guess though, I'd say your version would be better in Type 2 than Type 1. As I stated before, Type 1 has so many low casting cost cards, the life loss wouldn't be as dangerous, even for 2 cards a turn. In Type 2, the threat of hitting 2 cards in a row each with mana cost of 4 or more is very real. Even in a more weenie oriented deck, losing 2-4 life per turn seems more dangerous in Type 2 than Type 1, because games have more potential to last longer in Type 2. On the other hand, you could always just chump block, use one of black's sacrifice effects, or use a drain life effect if the life loss was getting critical. So again, playtesting is really needed to compare the effectiveness of each version.
Of course, there is the distinct possibility that R&D have decided to add a completely different ability to the card. For all we know, the creature could have Morph or some new effect. However, any discussion of such changes would be pure speculation at this point.
Overall, I'd personally prefer the card to require the draw each upkeep at a cost of 1 life. I feel this would best follow suit with black's "1 life = 1 card" theme. It would certainly be a powerful card in any format, but hopefully being a fragile creature would make it less degenerate. However it turns out, I like the card now and I see a great deal of potential for it.
Those artifacts may serve the purpose of supplying two different colors of mana, but the fact is they are not lands. I look specifically for lands with Type 1 in mind. Any artifact that costs more mana than it produces will likely not see Type 1 play. Good duals always have potential however. The fetchlands have had a significant and lasting effect on the entire Type 1 metagame, while having had a resonable and safe effect on Type 2. I look forward to the next set of lands with that sort of power. Current artifact mana producers just don't have the same potential.
Also, I completely forgot about the Kamigawa duals simply because they sucked so bad.
As for type 2, the card can still have a lot of power, but the drawback becomes more severe since you usually only get lands for free, the mana curve is generally higher, and deck fixers are less common.
So the card is:
Dark Confidant :symb::symb:
Creature - ?
During each upkeep you reveal the top card of your library and must pay life equal to the card's converted casting cost and put it in your hand.
Greatness, at any cost.
2/1
...with one small improvement according to Mr. Rosewater. The four potential small improvements I see (and that have been mentioned in this thread) are:
1. Change 2/1 to 2/2 - Make him a little tougher.
2. Change ability to be more similar to Phyrexian Arena's - pay only 1 life per card drawn.
3. Change "must pay" to "may pay" - Make the draw optional.
4. Change "put it in your hand" to "may play the card without paying its mana cost" - Permanents can come into play and other spells can be cast immediately.
Of these, 1. is the smallest and most uninteresting change. The most powerful change is 4. It is way over-powered in that form because random 5/5 flyers with amazing abilities on turn 2 is too potent for Standard. That leaves 2. and 3. as the most interesting and appropriately powered changes. Either one of those changes makes the card very, very good - but not broken in Standard. For Type 1, my gut says change 3. would result in the more powerful card. I guess we will see in a few weeks.
That's what I liked about this thread. It kind of showed me how much variation a single idea can spawn. One of the things I most look forward to in a new set is what kind of lands it has. I'm always interested in seeing what WotC comes up with to make new, interesting, and useful dual lands. A while back I think Randy Beuhler wrote an article saying WotC was going to put new duals in every large expansion. That excited me, but unfortunately they haven't followed through with that idea. I was kind of worried they couldn't think of anything good to do. Reading this thread makes it clear that there are many viable ideas out there. I just hope WotC can think of something cool too.
The only problem I see with having lands like Dracomos posted is that it has a strong focus on playing three colors (similar to Invasion block). What little information we have so far is that Ravnica will instead focus more on playing two colors. This is probably too little information to go on, but I still like the idea I posted earlier and I really dig Annorax's spin on it. Each of those lands keeps it to two allied colors. I'm not saying the Tainted-esque lands aren't good, they just tend to force you into three colors and aren't very good in a two color deck. But maybe that's what WotC wants. We can only wait and see.
Erad - Yes "in addition to its other types" was the intention - good catch.
Taking a few of the ideas in this thread (from Lestat, Lord Kaos, and silicon) and simplifying/slightly changing them:
Seeping Bog
Land
As long as you control a swamp, Seeping Bog is a swamp.
As long as you control an island, Seeping Bog is an island.
Simple, elegant, unfetchable, definitely not overpowered, but still useful.
As for other ideas, I do not think that Ravnica block will be based on themes from The Dark. That is simply too narrow of a set on which to base a whole block. WotC isn't just going through their list of past sets in chronological order and updating the themes. They are mixing new ideas with past ideas that they think are cool. The Dark doesn't really have that mass cool factor going for it.
I think that the idea of classes or jobs being important is the most logical one, based on the info we have so far. Even though there is no technical difference between a creature type like "goblin" and a class type like "wizard," there is a great deal of thematic difference. Creature types generally stay within the same color, while classes can easily span the colors. If someone says they are building an elf deck, don't you know what color it is without even asking? However, with Magic's relatively new "creature - type class" format, decks built around classes like warriors, wizards, etc. could be several colors or several combinations of colors. It could play out much differently than Onslaught's focus on mono-colored decks, while being significantly different than Invasion's extreme multicolor focus. Perhaps the majority of the cards would be mono-colored, but the contents of the entire set would encourage playing decks of two or more colors. I don't think 5-color would be a great focus because having every deck in the format contain all the colors would be just as boring as having every deck containing the same single color.
Game timing is really more of a subtheme rather than a metatheme. Perhaps it would be interesting to have a cycle or two of cards affecting the turn order, but more than that would be forced and overkill.
Finally, while I haven't been following Ravnica speculation, I do remember the first Ravnica picture WotC released and I recall that it had a Russian flare to it. If that is the case for the set, I have a feeling more info could be gleaned from a knowledge of Russian myth and history than from the name of the expansion.