"As long as an opponent controls a creature attacking you, you may pay [MANA] to turn this card face up."
Or is that just more of the same problem?
This, again, would be a special action akin to morph, although the way it's worded makes it seem like a static ability with a choice, which Wizards doesn't do. I just integrated this rules text into the cost and reminder text of "Trap" itself.
The problem lies more with cards like this:
Morbid Spellbomb
Artifact (C)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
Whenever a creature with toughness of 4 or greater comes into play, you may pay B to turn Morbid Spellbomb face up.
When Morbid Spellbomb is turned face up, target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn.
The card is clearly designed to "trap" like a counterspell, in that you can turn it face up immediately after something "triggers" it - but if you choose not to, then change your mind, you'll have to wait to spring the trap until a different creature enters the battlefield.
Let's see what might happen in actual gameplay. For this example, our opponent controls a Noble Hierarch and four lands. We control a face-down Morbid Spellbomb that says: "B: Turn Morbid Spellbomb face up. Activate this ability only if a creature with toughness 4 or greater entered the battlefield this turn." Our opponent taps three lands for Knight of the Reliquary. What could go wrong now?
1) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent immediately plays a fetchland and cracks it, meaning there is no time when Knight is a 4/4 on the battlefield and we have priority to kill it with Morbid Spellbomb. Under original functionality, the trigger would go on the stack immediately, and our opponent (even though he had priority) couldn't respond by playing a land.
2) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent passes priority and swings with the Hierarch. During his postcombat main phase, assuming we can't use our trap, our opponent plays a Forest. We then turn Spellbomb face up during his end step, long after the triggering event occurred.
3) Knight enters the battlefield as a 3/3. Our opponent activates the ability of Oran-Rief the Vastwood to put a +1/+1 counter on it. We can now kill Knight with Morbid Spellbomb, even though under original functionality, we shouldn't have been able to turn it face up at all.
--
I really like the way you integrated "blue likes artifacts" with "blue likes hiding and revealing information", though.
Is there a card in this set that bounces traps back to their owner's hands?
You have traplayers on one side, then trapscouts, trapslippers, and trapnullers on the other. Does no one on Excellion find this overly complicated?
I'm really enjoying this highly detailed, well organized, slow reveal. My buddy, Wamyc, is going to do something similar for his new set, Requiem and this has really made the time waiting from him to finish that set a lot more tolerable.
I really like the top down design of this set, with a tight flavor/mechanic relationship. The colored artifacts, colorless artifacts, treasures and Perils are all really unique. Inntervated, poison, and all the other win conditions present a fresh take on a set and make me wonder how it will play in constructed and limited.
I'm especially curious about whether the board gets swamped with permanents, or if there are enough removal and sweeper spells to keep things neat. The problem with large board presences is the confusion and complications they create that can create bad play and bad experiences.
Here are the cards that have spoiled so far. Notice the large number of White (nearly as many as blue, black, red and green combined.)
WHITE 23
Common
Awe Strike
Burst of Energy
Chryst of Kings
Disciple of Mada'Zyl
Journeyman's Mount
Keeper of the Southern Span
Unarm
Uncommon
Chryst-King Liege
Diversionary Tactics
Elixir Vitae
Frontier Healer
Giltwall Champion
Paladin of Razalen
Pilgrimage to Gold Horizon
Seal of the Luminarch
Shield of Naloa Tor
Stoneform Gargoyle
Rare
Azella Kinneas, Tomb Raider
Cult of the Sacred Breath
Shallow Comfort
Terminal Reprieve
Voyage of Chryst-Kings
Wandering Dreamwalker
Mythic Rare
BLUE 7 Common
Trapscout Uncommon
Mirror of Treachery
Repentant Thief
Silent Traplayer Unscrupulous Journeyman Rare Sands of Ill-Fate
Traumatize Mythic Rare
BLACK 7 Common
Defiling Contagion
Delving the Darkest Tombs
Gis Bangou Sentry Uncommon Eldergorge Traitor Rare
Advice of the Witchdoctor
Lord of Agonies
Spoilcleave Mythic Rare
RED 7 Common Imprisoned Sentinel
Tavern Rumormonger Uncommon Burn Off Rare
Aged Spellcaster
Coveteous Dragon
Trash for Treasure Mythic Rare
Picaro Makama
GREEN 6 Common
Gis Bangou Underling
Lay of the Land
Needlebrake Sporopod
Stalwart Observer Uncommon
Hunt of the Sable Wolf
Lifetwister Monk Rare Mythic Rare
This, again, would be a special action akin to morph, although the way it's worded makes it seem like a static ability with a choice, which Wizards doesn't do. I just integrated this rules text into the cost and reminder text of "Trap" itself.
The problem lies more with cards like this:
Morbid Spellbomb
Artifact (C)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
Whenever a creature with toughness of 4 or greater comes into play, you may pay B to turn Morbid Spellbomb face up.
When Morbid Spellbomb is turned face up, target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn.
The card is clearly designed to "trap" like a counterspell, in that you can turn it face up immediately after something "triggers" it - but if you choose not to, then change your mind, you'll have to wait to spring the trap until a different creature enters the battlefield.
Let's see what might happen in actual gameplay. For this example, our opponent controls a Noble Hierarch and four lands. We control a face-down Morbid Spellbomb that says: "B: Turn Morbid Spellbomb face up. Activate this ability only if a creature with toughness 4 or greater entered the battlefield this turn." Our opponent taps three lands for Knight of the Reliquary. What could go wrong now?
1) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent immediately plays a fetchland and cracks it, meaning there is no time when Knight is a 4/4 on the battlefield and we have priority to kill it with Morbid Spellbomb. Under original functionality, the trigger would go on the stack immediately, and our opponent (even though he had priority) couldn't respond by playing a land.
2) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent passes priority and swings with the Hierarch. During his postcombat main phase, assuming we can't use our trap, our opponent plays a Forest. We then turn Spellbomb face up during his end step, long after the triggering event occurred.
3) Knight enters the battlefield as a 3/3. Our opponent activates the ability of Oran-Rief the Vastwood to put a +1/+1 counter on it. We can now kill Knight with Morbid Spellbomb, even though under original functionality, we shouldn't have been able to turn it face up at all.
As you could probably guess by now, I'm not rules savvy at all. As far as fixing the traps to make them function much more cleanly, I'm at a loss. I'd hoped the concept functioned well enough on its own or (like innervated) required only a little tweak. At this point, I sort of just have to defer to you on it. I may have to take the issue to the Custom Rulings area for a comprehensive overhaul.
I really like the way you integrated "blue likes artifacts" with "blue likes hiding and revealing information", though.
Blue and White are the two very clear leaders in the use of traps. They have many and they quite clearly benefit the most from them. Blue in its love (as you say) of both artifice and trickery. White in its defensive nature also loves the idea of leading the menacing and reckless into a trap.
For future reference, here's the major breakdown of the themes and the colors of concentration:
Treasures - All colors pretty evenly though different colors use them differently (red, for instance, is much more likely to "cash them in" for a benefit), white and red seem to have just a few more Treasure-matters cards than the rest
Traps - A few in all colors (along with artifacts, like Treasures), but blue and white deal with them extensively
Poison - Black and Green almost exclusively with white and red getting a few cards that care about poison and blue getting none
Mill - Blue gets the most with black sharing a few 'milltrips' and the usual odd artifact or two
Life Matters - White primarily, with a bit of green and the usual black and red hate
Innervate - White, Blue and Green, with a very minimal amount in red and the usual hate in both black and red
Retrace - All colors use retrace, but blue, red and green have a few effects that trigger off retrace
Hideaway/Ruins - Lands of varying color affiliations, a few blue and white cards card about the Ruins type
Allies and Quests - In all colors, but quest counters matter a bit more for blue and green
Mercenaries - The type returns in black and one each for blue and red (no recruiters in this set, though, but it is a mechanical consideration)
Red is the only color without a really strong secondary theme after treasure, but it has its fingers in pretty much everything else to some degree which makes sense since the would of Excellion is like a candy store to the kid that is a red mage. So much to see and do and steal and destroy and experience and fight.
Is there a card in this set that bounces traps back to their owner's hands?
Not specifically.
But we do have:
Preserve 1WW
Instant (U)
Shuffle target artifact into its owner’s library. “I would rather see the Pyxis fade into obscurity for another thousand years than see it fall into the hands of those who’d abuse it.” -Azella Kinneas to Picaro
Katoum Pathmaker 1UU
Creature — Merfolk Wizard Ally (R)
1U, T: Return target artifact with a converted mana cost of X or less to its owner’s hand where X is the number of Allies you control.
2/2
Arthrozan Scale 5
Artifact (R)
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, he or she returns a nonland permanent he or she owns to its owner’s hand. “Glory fades and kingdoms are forgotten. Can anyone truly be equal in such a world? There is no justice in that and not even the Arthrozans of old could argue.” -Picaro
Sheltered Cove
Land (U)
T, Return a face down artifact you control to its owner’s hand: Add W or U to your mana pool.
Note how the first three are good both in and against decks sporting treasure and/or traps (and the Scale gets a good load of hurt in on various other strategies as well). And yes, that last card is part of another cycle of duals (each one sacrifices the advantage of one of the major play styles - treasure, traps, innervated creatures, cards in library and poison).
You have traplayers on one side, then trapscouts, trapslippers, and trapnullers on the other. Does no one on Excellion find this overly complicated?
Hahahaha, it would seem that way, but Excellion is so full of traps and the like that it's a bit like snow for the Inuit - so commonplace that they have many words and activities associated with it.
Traplayers are the obvious rogues who use traps to hunt and protect.
Trapscouts are adept at using stealth and finesse to plot a path past deadly traps.
Trapslippers are the people crazy enough to try to disarm these ancient perils.
Trapnullers are those who have a knack for using magic to disarm or otherwise dispel traps, the rare hands-off version of the trapslipper.
I'm really enjoying this highly detailed, well organized, slow reveal. My buddy, Wamyc, is going to do something similar for his new set, Requiem and this has really made the time waiting from him to finish that set a lot more tolerable.
I find it's also sooooo much better for posters who may want to comment since smaller, thematic chunks of a set are so much easier to digest than the whole thing dropped at once.
Thank you very much, by the way. Posting this way can be as much if not more time and effort than just posting it in one huge spoiler tag.
I really like the top down design of this set, with a tight flavor/mechanic relationship. The colored artifacts, colorless artifacts, treasures and Perils are all really unique. Inntervated, poison, and all the other win conditions present a fresh take on a set and make me wonder how it will play in constructed and limited.
Uniquely, if all goes as planned. I would like to think that the set supports a diverse band of deck types since each win-con is being pushed for competitive play. Treasures, I imagine, fare the best since they fit all color combinations and a wide variety of decktypes. Poison is likely the aggro deck of choice (suicide black poison with a touch of green is I think the logical play here). Innervate may prove too fragile for really serious T2 play, but it'll be a monster for block. Traps and the overall UW creatureless control build is incredibly possible but whether it uses treasures, mill, or dips back into creatures for innervate is a little hazy. Retrace may be a sleeper until someone finds a way to really abuse it (green has a couple ways to fetch from the graveyard, and I think it would be very interesting indeed to see a GRu creature-light control deck). Mill is weak in block but receives the most overt support outside the block.
The key here for all of this is difference. Very few of these follow the usual (creature, creature, removal, swing, swing, game winner) model. The set gives us the tools to hopefully make non-combat decks not just function but thrive. Which we more or less haven't seen since the terrifying days of Combo Winter. With any luck, this environment is a bit slower and more interactive than that.
I'm especially curious about whether the board gets swamped with permanents, or if there are enough removal and sweeper spells to keep things neat. The problem with large board presences is the confusion and complications they create that can create bad play and bad experiences.
Two of the big alt-win-cons thrive on extending board presence. So, yes, to a degree we'll see more permanents in play. Players will want to amass their collection of treasure, get innervating, build that quest to its end. That said, removal isn't nonexistent.
Aside from what's already been posted (such as Picaro, who has a great, multipurpose artifact sweep as one of his tricks that even fuels his ultimate), here are a large chunk of the cards in the set that will likely nullify multiple cards:
Pass into History 3WW
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. Each player gains 1 life for each creature destroyed this way.
Piercing Rain 1WW
Instant (R)
Exile target attacking creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
^ This card is in fact a stand-in for every card with retrace that will technically sweep over time given mana and lands to discard. While not technically sweepers, removal that becomes better over time is fairly common here.
Urdras Sea Voidcaster 4UU
Creature — Merfolk Wizard Ally (C)
When Urdras Sea Voidcaster or another Ally comes into play, return target nonland permanent to its owner’s hand.
2/3
Wipe Away 2U
Instant (C)
Return up to two target attacking creatures to their owners’ hands. “Your vulgarity and impudence is neither appreciated nor ignored. You wanted attention? You got it, now be gone and never return.” -Stelmarria Jonell
^ For Blue, its 'sweepers' are fairly Limited. Much of its control is in the form of counters, which are multiple and varied.
Dreadbaron of Zehaan 3BB
Creature — Zombie Shaman (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you win the game unless a player pays 3 life, sacrifices two permanents, and discards a card.
3/1
Endermire Journey B
Enchantment — Quest (U)
Whenever a creature with poisonous comes into play under your control, put a quest counter on Endermire Journey.
1B: Target player sacrifices a creature. Play this ability only if there are three or more quest counters on Endermire Journey.
^ Takes a while and a tight focus to get going, but once rolling, this will shred enemy lines.
Inscribed Slab 3BB
Artifact — Treasure (R) (At end of turn, if the total combined treasure value of Treasures you control is 25 or more, you win the game.)
Whenever a creature would deal combat damage to you, destroy it instead. “... mercy deprived ... vengeance of .... gods .... death everlasting ..” -slab’s etchings, partial translation
[3]
^ No Mercy, but easier to destroy (especially in this set), potentially adding to a game win and a nifty clause that replaces the damage.
Into the Pit 2B
Instant (U)
Target opponent sacrifices a creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
^ Another retrace card that gets better the more you use it.
Primordial Death Chant 5BB
Enchantment (C)
Creatures you control have deathtouch and poisonous 1.
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
When an opponent controls five or more creatures, you may pay 2B to turn Primordial Death Chant face up.
^ A very potent common and one of the few that really rewards playing creatures for their attacking ability (there's a few amongst black, red and green).
Caldera Firebird 2RRR
Creature — Phoenix (R)
Flying
Whenever Caldera Firebird is retraced, it deals 2 damage to each other creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
3/3
Cinder Winds 3RR
Enchantment (U)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
Whenever an opponent gains life, you may turn Cinder Winds face up.
1R: Cinder Winds deals 1 damage to each creature and each player.
Earthstunner Warrior 4RR
Creature — Giant Warrior (U)
Haste, trample
When Earthstunner Warrior comes into play, it deals 4 damage to each creature without flying.
6/4
^ Yes, it kills itself.
Effigy of Fury 2R
Artifact — Treasure (C) (At end of turn, if the total combined treasure value of Treasures you control is 25 or more, you win the game.)
T: Effigy of Fury deals 1 damage to target creature.
[2]
^ This will win games. Slaughters weenies, especially the Sporopod.
Jagged Bolt 3RR
Sorcery (U)
Jagged Bolt deals 3 damage to two target creatures.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
Shed the Florid XRR
Sorcery (U)
Destroy all Treasures with a treasure value of X or less. “When it became clear to me that my collection was no longer the best in Excellion, I simply had to toss away all that did not stack up against the best in other collections so I could begin anew without classless junk tarnishing my coffer.” -Lady Drezbal of Bazanda
Lyciabarb Pod 3GG
Enchantment (U)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
When an opponent controls two or more creatures with flying, you may turn Lyciabarb Pod face up.
When you turn Lyciabarb Pod face up and at the beginning of your upkeep, Lyciabarb Pod deals 2 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
Entropic Gates 6
Artifact (R)
Whenever a creature comes into play, if there are three or more other creatures in play, exile that creature. Return that card to play under its owner’s control when Entropic Gates leaves play.
^ Weeeeeeeeeeeee, Portcullis, a card I always had a soft spot for! Tempest-Urza era cards that assisted control see homages here and there in the set.
Here are the cards that have spoiled so far. Notice the large number of White (nearly as many as blue, black, red and green combined.)
I noticed that, too. Mostly coincidental as a result of the 'extras' I posted (details on Razalen and Naloa) just happened to be white.
Pick a color or theme and I'll delve it deeper. A few previews more and I'll likely update with the full set. Most of the major themes have been covered so that allows me to post larger batches.
Wipe Away: Is already the name of a card. But good design.
Dreadbaron of Zehaan: Is this in the same cycle as Aged Spellcaster? Looks absurd. If you have enough discard that they're reduced to topdeck mode (or the game goes long enough and they dump their hand as a natural result of playing out their cards), they can't play any cards that don't kill either it or you, or you just win. What with losing 3 life and 2 perms each turn they don't kill it, unless they're far ahead on board, chances are you still just win. If it was "or" (with the body embiggened to compensate) it would be far more fair, you still get to play politics in multiplayer, and you're still getting a free Bolt/Annihilator 2/Funeral Charm every turn it lives.
Caldera Firebird: You don't have to say "other", because it doesn't say CIP, so I'm assuming it's still on the stack when it triggers. (Like Rumbling Aftershocks.)
Cinder Winds: Hey, it's Pyrohemia!
Earthstunner Warrior: I'm assuming you use this in combination with either green or white? Otherwise the keyword abilities don't do anything.
Effigy of Fury: It seems to be balanced at common by not hitting players and being harder to untap, and it's a Treasure to boot.
Shed the Florid: My mental image of this card is Jhoira polishing a Mox while tossing Lucky Charms and Enatu Golems over her shoulder into a chute marked "TO SCRAP HEAP".
Lyciabarb Pod: What are these, killer plants? A great way to close out a game for the lifegain/stall deck.
Continuing on with the oversaturation of white, can you share some snippets of Kithkin lore?
Wipe Away: Is already the name of a card. But good design.
It's now Wash Away.
Dreadbaron of Zehaan: Is this in the same cycle as Aged Spellcaster?
And Cult of Sacred Breath, yes. Some use personal quest counters, but all are individual creatures with their own alt-win-con.
Looks absurd. If you have enough discard that they're reduced to topdeck mode (or the game goes long enough and they dump their hand as a natural result of playing out their cards), they can't play any cards that don't kill either it or you, or you just win. What with losing 3 life and 2 perms each turn they don't kill it, unless they're far ahead on board, chances are you still just win. If it was "or" (with the body embiggened to compensate) it would be far more fair, you still get to play politics in multiplayer, and you're still getting a free Bolt/Annihilator 2/Funeral Charm every turn it lives.
Remember that this is a slower, life gainier, card drawingier, board extendingier environment. Life loss matters much less here than in aggro-orient environments, decks slants slower and with more board presence so sacrificing isn't as bad as usual and there's a fair bit more card draw (and other hand-filling) than usual. Dreadbaron, in this set at least, isn't quite the devastator he appears to be. Extremely potent, yes, but he'll probably take an average of three turns to really put one opponent in a bad way.
Though if, in testing, he's warping plays, I'll ditch the discard clause and maybe make it an exiling-mill for 2 and a sacrifice of 1 (I like the 321 progression).
Caldera Firebird: You don't have to say "other", because it doesn't say CIP, so I'm assuming it's still on the stack when it triggers. (Like Rumbling Aftershocks.)
Noted. One of my favorite retrace designs, btw. Just imagine him bursting out of a volcano, splashing onlookers with magma as he climbs into the sky, smoke trailing behind like an obscene tail.
Cinder Winds: Hey, it's Pyrohemia!
I figured the set could use some clean sweeping, especially for weenies.
Earthstunner Warrior: I'm assuming you use this in combination with either green or white? Otherwise the keyword abilities don't do anything.
Exactly. It's a red rendition of that 8/0 trampler, but with at least a little board effect. It's a pure Johnny card for sure, and there are a few cards in the set to help him out.
Effigy of Fury: It seems to be balanced at common by not hitting players and being harder to untap, and it's a Treasure to boot.
I like that it can win you a game, but not by damaging players. That twist was interesting. I liked taking effects that wouldn't ordinarily win you games on their own and marrying them to Treasure to make players think differently about the card than they usually world. Utility control commons become potential game winners. It's a very interesting layer, especially in draft.
Shed the Florid: My mental image of this card is Jhoira polishing a Mox while tossing Lucky Charms and Enatu Golems over her shoulder into a chute marked "TO SCRAP HEAP".
Hahahaha, yes! That's exactly the idea. Remember that for every group of adventurers in Excellion, there's a high-society financier paying for them to retrieve something shiny. And heaven help you in your collection isn't better than everyone else's. That's a little nod to the flavor of the Treasure mechanic itself.
Lyciabarb Pod: What are these, killer plants? A great way to close out a game for the lifegain/stall deck.
The green traps shy away from traditional artifice and use nature-based mechanisms like vines, thorns, etc.
Continuing on with the oversaturation of white, can you share some snippets of Kithkin lore?
The Kithkin are industrious little adventurers. Their dexterity make them fantastic trapslippers and their nigh-psychic teamwork make them adept survivors. They claim a small territory along the Kithwash River as it slides through the Caloris Panitia, a large arid grassland on western Kinshasa.
Typically found assisting adventuring bands or teaming up to herd large game, the kithkin have grown interested in Stelmarria's enlightenment-focused teachings and many kithkin have given up life in the open wilds for places in cities like Razalen and Libreton, which feature Stelmarran Colleges
Braver of the Kithwash 1W
Creature — Kithkin Scout Ally (C)
Flash
When Braver of the Kithwash or another Ally comes into play, untap all creatures you control. “The roughest river in all of Excellion demands the brightest navigator.”
2/1
Diversionary Tactics 3W
Enchantment (U)
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Tap target creature. “Catching viculga beasts is done best by distracting one from the front as your trapper closes in from behind. And no one works together as one better than the Kithkin.” -Degan, herder of Caloris Panitia
Divider of Spoils W
Creature — Kithkin Cleric (C)
Whenever a Treasure comes into play under your control, gain 1 life. No adventuring party is without one all joiners can trust to fairly parcel out each man’s take of the bounty.
1/1
Kithwash Journey W
Enchantment — Quest (U)
Whenever a 1/1 creature comes into play under your control, put a quest counter on Kithwash Journey.
1W: White creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn. Play this ability only if there are four or more quest counters on Kithwash Journey.
Scathewalker Kithkin W
Creature — Kithkin Rogue (C)
When Scathewalker Kithkin attacks, prevent all damage that would be dealt to it this turn if the defending player controls a Ruins. Deft fingers and nimble feet make for the best explorers of Excellion’s forgotten cities.
1/1
Scathewalker's Fortune 1W
Instant (C)
Target creature gains protection from artifacts until end of turn.
Gain 3 life. “The ruins of ancient Am Bongor are rigged with many kinds of traps. Knowing how to evade them all is the only chance to discover the riches within.” Fagrizzi, scathewalker
Yea, peril is a mess as is. I think it could be worded as this:
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
Word cards like this:
Lyciabarb Pod3GG
Enchantment (U)
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
If an opponent controls two or more creatures with flying and Lyciabarb Pod is exiled with a peril counter on it, you may remove the counter and put Lyciabarb Pod onto the battlefield.
When Lyciabarb Pod enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkepp, Lyciabarb Pod deals 2 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
I don't know. I know it's isn't an artifact, which is probably the reason why you put made it like that. However, having facedown anything that isn't a morph is insane. Mainly because you can't ever know if your opponent's facedown creature is a morph or peril.
There's a reason why traps in Zendikar are the way they are. They couldn't get them to work as facedown permanents or exiled permanents. I think your perils could work in the exile zone because they feel like they could. You're the designer though; it's your call.
HOWEVER, despite having an absolute rules headache with Peril, I hate innervate. It doesn't do anything besides itself. There is no visual clue or anything. It does nothing.
I had to read a couple cards to even grasp what it is trying to do. You said that a card has several states and that innervate was just like tapped or untapped and flipped and unflipped. However, it's not anything like that at all. What happens if you accidently get your permanents mixed up when you're playing with them. "Erm... I think this permanent is innervated. No, wait... Those two are." Thinking that the player will separate them on the battlefield is a bad solution because of the accidental mixing up and a lot of times, especially at FNMs, there isn't really that much space to give adequate separation to the creatures. More often than not, I see players using counters to distinguish the innervated versus the non, and if the players will use counters anyway...
Innervate makes players do something they don't want to do: Keep their creatures tapped. Tapped creatures don't do a lot of stuff. Players love doing stuff. Specifically with their creatures. "Oh, let me innervate this creature. Wait... I can't do anything with this creature the turn I cast it. Next turn I can't attack with it... I have to pay mana to innervate it? Okay... WAIT! Then it has to stay tapped the entire next turn?" [This is regarding one of the proposed options for innervate. The original one still applies here but only for two turns.] See the problem? [I have a lot more to say, but I'll move on.]
Also, it seems like an incredibly parasitic mechanic, and ever more than soulshift and Arcane in Kamigawa. Seriously, you would need every creature in your deck for this to ever work because you need six of these on the battlefield. In any single game there are hardly ever that many on one side at a time. Besides seeming like an impossible feat, if you really want to use the cards, you have to exclude every other creature you would want to put into the deck because it would dilute the innervate cards. Also, I could never see this happening in any type of well designed limited format; one with removal.
BUT
I like the inherent idea of this mechanic, and I like the multiple win condition theme in the sit.
So, what to do here?
I know this is kind of going on a completely different take on what you're are doing, but I think it might be what you're looking for.
Stalwart Observer3G
Creature — Human Monk (C)
Innervate (At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may then exile that card innervating Salwart Observer. When Salwart Observer leaves the battlefield, put all cards innervating it onto the bottom of your library in any order.)
Stalwart Observer gets +1/+1 for each card innervating it.
Salwart Observer gains shroud if three or more cards are innervating it.
3/3
I know it is definitely not in the same vein as the other win conditions, but I feel it kind of captures the original feel of the mechanic because you're slowly building up. This time, you're building up to something that you can actually see and notice.
It's also a much more player friendly mechanic. It's card filtering, and not mandatory. (You don't have to innervate your awesome planeswalker, so you can draw it, but if you do, it gets shuffled back to your deck! Also, no worries about self-milling!) It definitely works a lot better than the older innervate, but does something completely different. Again though, I think it feels close enough to the original.
Seriously, if there's one thing that you get from this message is this: Innervate needs to go in its current form.
And I'll critique other stuff soon.
(Mainly the planeswalkers... I'm not liking them.)
But I'll leave off on a positive note. WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH QUESTS ARE AMAZING. The creatures that care about quests is something that Zen/WW were obviously hinting at with future design space. You've pretty much nailed it with them. Also, the quests without limits is great too. The quests and the related creatures are the best part of the set, hands down.
Yea, peril is a mess as is. I think it could be worded as this:
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
Word cards like this:
Lyciabarb Pod3GG
Enchantment (U)
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
If an opponent controls two or more creatures with flying and Lyciabarb Pod is exiled with a peril counter on it, you may remove the counter and put Lyciabarb Pod onto the battlefield.
When Lyciabarb Pod enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkepp, Lyciabarb Pod deals 2 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
I don't know. I know it's isn't an artifact, which is probably the reason why you put made it like that.
Indeed. The set was crying for an artifact-themed mechanic beyond Treasure to balance the type out. I needed a reason for artifacts to feel important in the set beyond treasure. Without that balance, the dozen or so non-treasure artifacts left really stick out like a sore thumb. I didn't want players to start asking themselves "Wait, why couldn't this card just be a Treasure like most of the other artifacts in the set? Why doesn't this card that cares about artifacts just care about treasure, wouldn't that be better?"
Because, really, those are fair questions. Why aren't all the cards just treasures? Well, for starters not everything of artifice in the world is a priceless relic. There's still modern weapons, adventuring gear, state-of-the-art navigation devices, etc. And in terms of design, I think it's important to provide contrast, give players other artifacts to judge the value of treasure against. And why doesn't every artifact-related card not just relate to treasure somehow? Because at the end of the day, I'd like for the set to not be self-referential more than needed. There approaches a point in a set design where the set just starts pointing in at itself far too much and whenever possible you need to keep that balanced. You want at least some cards to play well not just with in-set concepts, but also with the environment the set itself exists in.
To that end, I felt a second artifact related theme would help pull the set back on track. It provides a stable reason for artifact related cards in the set not to be confined solely to treasures and reinforces that not everything in the setting or the set is a treasure by virtue of being an artifact.
So I did what I always do in situations like this, I went back to the inspiration for the set. In this case, movies like Indiana Jones and games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted. In all of these stories, there are very real, physical dangers beyond villains and antagonists. The old temples and ruined cities the protagonists explore are rife with traps and mysterious ancient puzzle mechanisms. It's a huge part of the lore of this kind of genre and it was something I knew the audience would immediately connect with.
So I was looking for an artifact-related theme and at the same time, I was looking for a way to depict physical traps and dangerous puzzle devices in mechanical terms. The connection there was obvious. That it would also allow me to both echo Zendikar's Traps without essentially copying them was a good bonus as well.
Traps wanted to have a physical, artifact presence, but one of mystery flowing into surprise. Mechanically, the morph mechanic was exactly the sort of thing Traps wanted to be, but obvious flavor issues with traps being 2/2 creatures put a quick kibosh to just using morph as is. Not to mention that wouldn't help my desire to use this as an artifact mechanic. The clear next step was just to adapt a morph-like mechanic to better suit my needs.
However, having facedown anything that isn't a morph is insane. Mainly because you can't ever know if your opponent's facedown creature is a morph or peril.
Yeah, I know, I can't say I'm overly stoked about that either. I think at one point I used a peril counter to denote the difference in play that got removed in the flip over (since to a large extent, my only concern was differentiating the two and not cheating with them since it was my understanding that there are already rules in place that check to make sure face-down things weren't misused during a game) but as I'll explain momentarily, the set at one point was just [I]insanely[/I] counter-happy.
There came a point where I just let it go. As mentioned earlier by another poster, peril and morph aren't going to commonly be in the same environment (not in the same block, likely not in the same T2, etc). And in situations where they do cross paths, I decided just to let the rules take care of some of the issues (potential cheating with attacking with face-down "morphs" that are actually face down traps) and players themselves take care of the rest (differentiating the two face down permanents). Honestly, there was a level of taking a deep breath, saying a few hail Marys and hoping that someone on the forum would grasp the intent and have a rules savvy solution to make everything okay.
There's a reason why traps in Zendikar are the way they are. They couldn't get them to work as facedown permanents or exiled permanents. I think your perils could work in the exile zone because they feel like they could. You're the designer though; it's your call.
As the designer, I just want to stamp my feet until the world just makes things work the way I want. Hahahahahaha.
Seriously though, I knew I could make the mechanic work via exile, but that made the mechanic avoid a lot of the work I intended for it to do for carrying an artifact matters theme. And it also involved a great deal of interaction with exile which is something I ultimately always try to avoid. Traps were something I wanted to have a certain level of interaction with since the denizens of Excellion interact with them daily. The cards that do that can be reworked to do the same thing if peril exiled as part of its effect, but then we're left with that niggling issue of the artifact theme I was hoping traps could fill.
I think at some point I may have to just suck it up and use exile since it provides all the technical function I require, but a part of me wants to fight tooth and nail to find some way for the mechanic to make artifacts matter (I suppose that I'll have to suck up, too, since technically around 60% of peril cards end up being artifacts when turned up anyway).
HOWEVER, despite having an absolute rules headache with Peril, I hate innervate. It doesn't do anything besides itself. There is no visual clue or anything. It does nothing.
I had to read a couple cards to even grasp what it is trying to do. You said that a card has several states and that innervate was just like tapped or untapped and flipped and unflipped. However, it's not anything like that at all. What happens if you accidently get your permanents mixed up when you're playing with them. "Erm... I think this permanent is innervated. No, wait... Those two are." Thinking that the player will separate them on the battlefield is a bad solution because of the accidental mixing up and a lot of times, especially at FNMs, there isn't really that much space to give adequate separation to the creatures. More often than not, I see players using counters to distinguish the innervated versus the non, and if the players will use counters anyway...
Ah, counters, the secret dependency I never knew I had until this set.
This isn't the first version of innervate. Originally, it put an innervate counter on the creature if you paid the cost and kept it tapped (and I'll get to my reasons for keeping the creature tapped down). It was rather clean, was very straightforward, etc.
But, here were my mechanics at the time. Innervate (which used counters). Quests (which used lots of counters, not to mention the tiny overflow into creatures using quest counters as well). Poison (because players wanted in on the action, too). Treasure (which at one point had its Treasure Value work like Loyalty and put treasure counters on it so treasures could fluctuate in value while in play - interesting, but inevitably too complex for the meager benefit so I removed the counter aspect from the type and relegated the 'fluctuating value' concept to two cards). Add that to the usual +1/+1 counters (which, minimized from their average use, are still utilized), and the set had counter bloat.
Once I reined treasure in, the set still felt like the counter complexity was too high. Poison and Quests absolutely needed counters to function, so innervate drew the short straw.
That said, a very rare concession. Only about 10 cards in the whole set use +1/+1 counters (most of which are taken up by a cycle of 5 Allies), most of which can be reworked to greatly diminish the amount of counters in use on creatures (without +1/+1, only two rare creatures receive quest counters). If that's done and I revert innervate back to its original wording involving an innervate counter rather than a status, would that solve a bulk of the issue here?
Innervate makes players do something they don't want to do: Keep their creatures tapped. Tapped creatures don't do a lot of stuff. Players love doing stuff. Specifically with their creatures. "Oh, let me innervate this creature. Wait... I can't do anything with this creature the turn I cast it. Next turn I can't attack with it... I have to pay mana to innervate it? Okay... WAIT! Then it has to stay tapped the entire next turn?" [This is regarding one of the proposed options for innervate. The original one still applies here but only for two turns.] See the problem? [I have a lot more to say, but I'll move on.]
The environment being built by Excellion is one that really doesn't want creatures attacking. That's the primary win condition of the game, this set is about alternate win conditions. That goal fails if players still just use creatures to swing and everyone just wins that way. That said, I'm not utterly stunned, I realize that the set still needs to be at least around half creatures. So what do I do with the creatures in the set if I want to reduce the usage of them to attack? Well, activated abilities with a tap help, they're there. But what dawned on me was this: why not design an ability that will win the game using creatures for something other than attacking? Something new, something to make players think about using their creatures in ways they wouldn't usually.
So I thought about what creatures did. One of the things they do a lot is tap. They tap a lot. Tap to attack, tap to activate abilities, tap to fuel other cards' effects, get tapped by an enemy to stop them from doing the rest. Players are already tapping their creatures a lot in every game. That was my way in, whatever new win-con I was going to try to make, I knew tapping was the key. So they tap, that's the start, but what happens next is that they untap. What if, instead of untapping, something happens to them (what happens ended up being flavored as a moment of transcendent awakening, a moment of pure enlightenment), something that changes that creature's whole view on its existence (a little extreme, I know, but just go with it for a second). And if enough of your creatures have this awakening, when you hit this critical mass, you win.
I liked it, it was simple, a common enough occurrence that it wasn't a radical departure from what players were used to expecting from creatures. Creatures tapped and untapped all the time at every rarity, this wasn't going to be a mechanic that really made creatures into something they're not. It did what I wanted to do, just made what creatures usually do mean something a little different.
Now. Why keep them tapped? Well, flavor-wise, the innervated creatures have a new goal in life and for the most part are just above petty, simple-minded crap like fighting. But in terms of function, I wanted to continue to diminish an innervated creature's presence in combat, reinforce the non-attacking 'theme'. Why innervate when you're just going to keep swinging? It also made it feel like more of a cost, that innervating had to be earned.
I almost made these creatures like the "choose not to untap X during your untap step" cards of old. And instead of a cost, you could just leave these guys tapped and then if you had X of them you won. But I felt that really decreased the interaction with them too much. Abilities couldn't be used, they couldn't do much for combat, they were just junking up the field. But, I did like the notion of an extended tap duration to distance the cards from other creatures. With that said, I'm not as married to keeping them tapped for an extra turn as I am to aspects of other mechanics. In fact, most of the details of innervate (the name, the exact costs, the tap duration, when things trigger, the number of innervated creatures needed to win, counter/no counter, etc) are subject to change for me as long as the basic philosophies of it (the tap and untap trigger, the distancing from combat while still leaving it an option, using creatures to win by means other than attacking with them, etc) are met, I'm very open to new takes.
That really goes for everything in the set. Except for Treasure, which I think mechanically is exactly right as is. Individual Treasure card details may need to change, but the overall mechanic is as solid as I think it can be.
Also, it seems like an incredibly parasitic mechanic, and ever more than soulshift and Arcane in Kamigawa. Seriously, you would need every creature in your deck for this to ever work because you need six of these on the battlefield. In any single game there are hardly ever that many on one side at a time. Besides seeming like an impossible feat, if you really want to use the cards, you have to exclude every other creature you would want to put into the deck because it would dilute the innervate cards.
I decided to allow myself one parasitic mechanic. Parasitism isn't intrinsically bad, it just doesn't make a set play exceptionally well outside of itself once parasitic elements comprise the majority.
Quests really can go anywhere. Cards that play off of quest counters still have Zendikar for help as well. Same with Allies
Treasure is awesome in that it's both very insular (it wants you playing with as many treasures as possible, currently only possible with this set) but also very modular (treasures have abilities that can be quite useful to decks even if the alt-win-con isn't going to be utilized).
Poison is reasonably insular, but it both draws on past cards for help as well as exists on its own. Some of the "get effect, get poison counters as a drawback" are in fact even better once away from the set where the drawback is lessened.
Retrace is entirely modular, as is Hideaway.
Traps want you to play more of their kind to increase doubt, but truth be told most of the individual cards are modular in nature in that they don't [I]need[/I] other trap cards to play well on their own, the peril mechanic just likes the additional mind games.
In the end, so little of the set was parasitic that I felt I'd earned one mechanic to be selfish and turn inwards. Innervate likes help from outside its set by way of tap/untap cards which are not in Excellion en masse so I feel that an Innervate deck wouldn't be more than 60-70% Excellion cards. Remember that that's what was the real issue with parasitism, Standard decks were really just block decks plus a few cards (Invasion-Odyssey T2 had decks that were wildly slanted one way or the other, for example, which also helped birth interblock synergy). I felt that having one potential deck of the whole set concentrating high like that wasn't a huge deal. Truth be told, I wouldn't expect a mechanic like innervate to make a huge splash in constructed outside of Block and Casual anyway. Its main purpose was for Limited, to give Limited creatures a way to win beyond attacking.
But I'll leave off on a positive note. WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH QUESTS ARE AMAZING. The creatures that care about quests is something that Zen/WW were obviously hinting at with future design space. You've pretty much nailed it with them. Also, the quests without limits is great too. The quests and the related creatures are the best part of the set, hands down.
Thank you very much.
I don't even think I've shown a whole lot in the way of the Quest-related stuff yet.
Caller of the Void 3UU
Creature — Vedalken Wizard (R)
Whenever a spell an opponent controls is countered by a spell or ability, put a quest counter on Caller of the Void. Then you win the game if there are five or more quest counters on Caller of the Void.
Whenever a spell an opponent controls resolves, remove a quest counter from Caller of the Void.
1U: Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2.
2/4
Blue has a faint bit of a counterspell theme in the set. Nothing outrageous, just five cards across all rarities and very little of it is hard counters. But what a lot of it is is repeatable, to an extent. Between retrace and Quests, a few repeatable Mana Leak-esque effects sneaked in, crowned by this guy.
Permission-control based strategies felt right in a set where aggro is downplayed and combo of varying styles are at home. But graveyard tech, retrace chief amongst it, keeps counters in check overall.
Seascape Idealist U
Creature — Human Pirate Rogue (C)
Whenever a quest counter is put on a permanent you control, Seascape Idealist gets +1/+0 and gains flying until end of turn.
[i]“Push on, friends! I can see the end of our journey is at hand.”[/i]
1/1
Green, blue and red get a few little guys like this that reward you for "gaining a level" in your quests. Just fun little limited filler commons to highlight a theme and lend some flavor.
Aberrant Growth 4G
Enchantment (R)
If an effect would give a player one or more counters, it gives twice that many of those counters instead.
If an effect would place one or more counters on a permanent you control, it places twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead.
Planeswalkers, poison, Allies and Quests? What better time to introduce a Doubling Season riff? If green-based poison aggro is going to happen, this card will drive it while also murdering suicide black poison. As a bonus, it pushes Quests as well.
Depth of Progress 3G
Sorcery (C)
You gain 2 life for each quest counter on permanents you control.
[i]“We seek only to know of our ancestors, of where our kind originated. Your kind takes such things for granted, but every clue of our past we uncover brings the frogling nation one step closer to home.” -Krokas, Fanholt homeseeker [/i]
A Wandering Stream variant. (See, when I splurge a lot of the flashy stuff up front, what we often have left are the simple on-theme Limited commons)
Also, I love the concept of frog-folk. I used them in my last set and a few found their way in here. And every time I use them, they're the kicked puppy race. They get no respect and they're eternally kicked while they're down. These poor guys emerged from presumed extinction after having been unseen in hundreds upon hundreds of years. And they reemerged with no records of their history during that span. More than any ruins researcher, they want answers.
Journeying Elder 1GG
Creature — Elf Warrior Rogue (U)
Trample
Journeying Elder gets +1/+1 for each quest counter on permanents you control.
[i]“In my years, I have seen much. Wars between great nations, discoveries of pasts long forgotten, journeys of untold value. Come, child, let me teach you that which I’ve learned.”[/i]
2/2
With even one active Quest, this guy is good. With a few on the go, he's a monster. A monster with a walking stick.
One little note. Attack-worthy creatures aren't absent from the set, there are more than a few creatures in the set that I think would see a lot of great time in the red zone. But for the most part, these creatures are tied to a theme. The Elder here is a cheap beater, presuming you're playing with quests. Covetous Dragon (which I mentioned as a reprint) is a big flying beater, but really wants you to play with treasures. Creatures with poisonous need to attack, but their damage isn't the real fear. You get guys to swing with in Excellion, they just tend to be themed to an extent.
Titanic Ascension G
Enchantment — Aura Quest (C)
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to an opponent, put a quest counter on Titanic Ascension.
Enchanted creature gets +4/+4 and has trample, vigilance and reach if there are four or more quest counters on Titanic Ascension.
Yes, another cycle. Yes, I like cycles. No, the cycles aren't all identical and strict. The personal win condition creatures at rare are all very different, it's a very loose cycle. And the Ascensions here all have different, on-color effects as well as varying quest counter triggers.
The set's pretty big (375 cards, though some may get pushed out and into the next set since I have a great interest in exploring all this further) and cycles account for a fair bit of that. More than most non-gold sets.
Untouched Isle
Land (R)
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls is countered by a spell or ability, put a quest counter on Untouched Isle.
1U, T, Sacrifice Untouched Isle: Search your library for a nonland card and play it without paying its mana cost. Shuffle your library. Play this ability only if there are five or more quest counters on Untouched Isle.
I still don't know if this cycle needs to restrict color on the free card. I want to say they do, but we'll see.
As the designer, I just want to stamp my feet until the world just makes things work the way I want. Hahahahahaha.
And that's why standing behind every good designer is a good development team. With a whip and straitjacket. Or so I've heard the saying goes.
With Caller, in two-player, if you control more lands than they do, can't you basically lock them out for the rest of the game? Sure, you might control an odd number of lands or something, but typically their spells are going to cost more than 0, so you're still coming out ahead in the mana expenditure game.
Titanic Ascension seems it would play beautifully with Aura Gnarlid.
The Untouched Isle cycle, really, really needs to enter the battlefield tapped. Also, it seems a bit incongruent with Caller; they're both blue cards that do something awesome when they reach five quest counters, but Caller cares about spells only while Isle counts spells and abilities. I foresee a lot of players failing to RTFC if the Draw-Go archetype becomes popular.
With Caller, in two-player, if you control more lands than they do, can't you basically lock them out for the rest of the game? Sure, you might control an odd number of lands or something, but typically their spells are going to cost more than 0, so you're still coming out ahead in the mana expenditure game.
Ability cost 2U? Fairs things up a bit, yes?
Titanic Ascension seems it would play beautifully with Aura Gnarlid.
Secret time: I have always had a soft spot for Auras. Even when they aren't a theme I try to at least make a cycle or a few one-offs that really push them.
The Untouched Isle cycle, really, really needs to enter the battlefield tapped. Also, it seems a bit incongruent with Caller; they're both blue cards that do something awesome when they reach five quest counters, but Caller cares about spells only while Isle counts spells and abilities. I foresee a lot of players failing to RTFC if the Draw-Go archetype becomes popular.
Duly noted on the tapped thing.
And the inconsistency is addressed. It now only triggers off of countered spells. See, that's the trouble with designing cards like this, the months between them can obscure details. Caller came first, months ago, the land cycle came much later.
For those still caring, I reverted Innervate to an early version melded with a version suggested by a very kind commenter earlier in the thread.
Isuri Watchman 2GG
Creature — Frog Warrior Shaman (U)
Innervate 1G (Whenever Isuri Watchman would untap, you may leave it tapped. If you do, at the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 1G. If you do, put an innervate counter on it. If you don't, untap it. At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control six or more creatures with innervate counters, you win the game.)
Isuri Watchman has poisonous 2 as long as it has an innervate counter.
3/2
This change seems slight, but it'll result in several functional changes.
-Addition of a counter itself. I didn't want to be counter-happy, but this was a compromise I was willing to make. Now counters-matter cards play with innervate. Though seemingly not a big deal, that is a fairly significant shift in function.
-Multiple activations. Always possible before but now actually means something as it grants additional counters.
-The timing. Now innervate will typically set a delayed trigger based on the untap at the start of your turn and the counter is placed if the cost is paid at upkeep. But the win trigger, if I understand correctly, won't happen until your next turn's upkeep. A rather significant shift. Given the larger window for disruption and the added vulnerability that and counters create, I may yet have to go back and readjust overall power levels of the mechanic. Six innervated creatures may be too many, for a start.
-The wording. It's a lot. I don't believe it's too complex, it's just wordy. It's 7 lines on a card, which I wish I could streamline to reduce the squeezing out of other abilities. I've shaved where possible but more help would be greatly appreciated.
I think the mechanic is slowly starting to settle into a more workable form, but it still needs work. And your comments.
As does my version of traps, which is apparently more or less stillborn and likely needs the most work out of everything.
Nice revisions. Your current version may cause some concern with untapping-as-cost, but that won't appear in this block and a hefty rulings section should deal with that. If it's tapped and you find some way to untap it during your opponent's turn, you can choose to innervate, then untap it during your untap step and put on the counter anyway, but I don't think that's too big of a problem either.
Six innervates: How many Allies do you need to "get there," anyway?
The mechanic I'm more concerned about is the 25 point requirement for Treasure. Consider that your average Limited deck has 21-24 spells, of which it's rare that you'll see more than half during a game. Unless there are a ton of common Treasures with Treasure Values of 3+, this doesn't seem like a viable wincon for Limited (since even your non-Treasure drafting neighbors will be incentivized to take Treasures for their abilities and colorlessness).
Nice revisions. Your current version may cause some concern with untapping-as-cost, but that won't appear in this block and a hefty rulings section should deal with that. If it's tapped and you find some way to untap it during your opponent's turn, you can choose to innervate, then untap it during your untap step and put on the counter anyway, but I don't think that's too big of a problem either.
Agreed. I don't see any real confusing rules issues here (of course, I also thought my version of morph-traps worked, so your mileage may vary). And the counter solves memory issues (and opens up a faint amount of design space).
Six innervates: How many Allies do you need to "get there," anyway?
That I couldn't tell you.
Innervate originally started off triggering from five creatures, I upped it to six to play it safe. I fear I played it too safe and five may have been the better call.
The mechanic I'm more concerned about is the 25 point requirement for Treasure. Consider that your average Limited deck has 21-24 spells, of which it's rare that you'll see more than half during a game. Unless there are a ton of common Treasures with Treasure Values of 3+, this doesn't seem like a viable wincon for Limited (since even your non-Treasure drafting neighbors will be incentivized to take Treasures for their abilities and colorlessness).
There are 17 common Treasures, all costing 3 or less, but none have a treasure value greater than 2.
There are 13 uncommon Treasures, all save for one have a TV of 2 or more, mostly 3.
There are 11 rare Treasures, typically all with a TV of 3-5.
Since I can never seem to operate the booster generator in MSE2 reliably, I can't accurately say what the frequency of treasures are or how frequently you'll hit a TV of 25 in Limited.
To be honest, like innervate's count of 6, Treasure's reliance on 25 has always been mutable to me. I think way back when a group of us discussed this, we just landed on 25 and stayed there cuz it sounded good. I doubt any of us thought of the Limited realities of it. What about 20 to mirror life totals' starting point?
So, it's a bit of a good news, bad news, good news, news update.
Good news: Some lovely people over in CCRulings helped me with Peril.
It now reads - Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you, you may pay its peril cost to turn it face up.)
Turning things face up now has a standardized trigger. Not exactly what I'd intended, but I think it really conveys the flavor of intruding ruins-goers accidentally setting off ancient traps. It also really freed up space on cards and makes the overall mechanic much more streamlined and smooth to understand. As a sweet side effect, it in its own way wards off aggro strategies.
Bad news: You won't see as many peril cards in the set. A lot of them are getting removed, along with several other cards. The set was large to start off with, and that made it hard for some of the alt-win-cons to get a solid foothold in Limited. As a result, a lot of cards that aren't really supporting one of those themes are getting bumped out. That lowers overall card numbers and increases the concentration of each theme. 42/~300 is much better for Treasure in Limited than 42/375, etc.
Good news: The cards bumped out aren't just disappearing. I decided that the themes here can really be followed up on and expanded, so Excellion here is getting a second set. It's in the planning stages now as I finish up this set but I already have several ideas for exploration of the design space here (chief amongst them peril on creatures, which will no longer be in Excellion, but will be a logical progression of the mechanic in set 2).
With peril pretty much solid at this point, only the finer details of innervate and treasure (in particular the numbers needed to win) need any work.
Treasure's wincon being 20 sounds good for the reasons you stated.
Regarding peril: Should you be allowed to turn it face up if the creature is attacking a planeswalker you control?
I'd like it to be worded something like "Whenever you or a planeswalker you control is attacked, you may pay the peril costs of any number of face-down permanents with peril you control to turn them face up." This is again a MTGO consideration as it slims it down to one delayed trigger, rather than one trigger per peril card per attacker. (Well, it would still be one trigger per card, which you'd have to order on the stack, and...argh.)
A "turn-based trigger" perhaps?
After the active player declares attackers, each defending player who controls cards that were put onto the battlefield face-down with peril, in turn order, decides whether to pay the peril costs to turn those cards face up. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. After the last player in turn order finishes making his/her choices, state-based actions are checked, then all abilities that triggered when permanents are turned face up with peril (and all abilities that triggered when a creature attacks) go on the stack in APNAP order. Then the active player has priority to cast spells or activate abilities.
But that's just my interpretation - you should post the revision to CC Rulings.
And yeah, the set was rather large and somewhat unwieldy. By focusing Excellion primarily on alt-wins and expanding on some of the secondary mechanics like peril and quests in a later set, it would make Excellion feel more cohesive, and give each set in the block(?) its own focus.
Treasure's wincon being 20 sounds good for the reasons you stated.
I'm of two very divided minds about this.
One is that too many important numbers can cause confusion. 10 poison counters loses the game, 5 (probably 5) innervate creatures loses the game, the number of cards in your library matters for mill, life goes from 20 -> 0, etc. I feel like to minimize confusion, TV as a win-con should not add an additional number to the mix.
On the flipside, I think since it's the primary alt-win-con in the block, perhaps it should involve a unique number to truly distance itself from everything else. I think that's why 25 was chosen to begin with, it was a reasonable round number that wasn't typically used for much else in the game.
15 is another number that might be viable. The numbers that matter seem to be increments of 5, but thus far 15 doesn't matter. It certainly makes treasure much easier to win with, but is it too easy?
I think once the set is otherwise finished, I'd have to playtest treasure decks with all three numbers to see which strikes the best balance. I think 20 is likely the safest.
Regarding peril: Should you be allowed to turn it face up if the creature is attacking a planeswalker you control?
Great question. Probably, yes. It'd probably irritate and feel wrong if a trap triggered on an attack on you, but not an attack on your 'partner'.
And yeah, the set was rather large and somewhat unwieldy. By focusing Excellion primarily on alt-wins and expanding on some of the secondary mechanics like peril and quests in a later set, it would make Excellion feel more cohesive, and give each set in the block(?) its own focus.
With the complex twists on traps and quests moved off, I think it reemphasizes the focus on alternate win conditions while keeping those secondary themes exactly that - secondary. With only 3 quests per color and no cards playing with the counters, Quests are still an interesting part of the set, but they don't hog space. Same for Allies, which were similarly diminished in number. Traps are there in moderately large numbers, but still less than Treasure, Poison and Innervate. Hideaway got halved (it was the first place I trimmed) down to 11 cards which kept them there for interest and flavor, but greatly diminished the focus on it.
The only secondary theme I haven't really shipped off has been retrace and the few cards that trigger on retracing a card. I felt that it was already such a small part of the set to begin with and essentially not really much new (retrace is a repeated keyword that isn't complex and triggering off it isn't exactly wild and unusual design space) that it wasn't worth ripping it out.
Excellion is probably only a few days away from being posted in its entirety. At that point, help with additional cards to push off or delete entirely will be most welcome. As well as rules concerns and poor wording, as you've been amazing with that.
Anyway you can post renders (even without art)? Or at least consolidate all of the "spoiled" cards to the first post? Its hard to tell what's going on when the cards are spread apart.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Anyway you can post renders (even without art)? Or at least consolidate all of the "spoiled" cards to the first post? Its hard to tell what's going on when the cards are spread apart.
At this point, half the spoiled cards have either been shunted out of the set or altered in some way. It's probably best if we just wait the day since I'll likely post the whole set as it stands by Monday. I'm paring it down now. White and blue are just about done, as are lands. I'm hoping to have the set as a whole down to about 280 cards or so by end of the day tomorrow.
With the complex twists on traps and quests moved off, I think it reemphasizes the focus on alternate win conditions while keeping those secondary themes exactly that - secondary. With only 3 quests per color and no cards playing with the counters, Quests are still an interesting part of the set, but they don't hog space. Same for Allies, which were similarly diminished in number. Traps are there in moderately large numbers, but still less than Treasure, Poison and Innervate. Hideaway got halved (it was the first place I trimmed) down to 11 cards which kept them there for interest and flavor, but greatly diminished the focus on it.
The only secondary theme I haven't really shipped off has been retrace and the few cards that trigger on retracing a card. I felt that it was already such a small part of the set to begin with and essentially not really much new (retrace is a repeated keyword that isn't complex and triggering off it isn't exactly wild and unusual design space) that it wasn't worth ripping it out.
Here's the breakdown of themes you posted a while back:
Treasures - All colors pretty evenly though different colors use them differently (red, for instance, is much more likely to "cash them in" for a benefit), white and red seem to have just a few more Treasure-matters cards than the rest
Traps - A few in all colors (along with artifacts, like Treasures), but blue and white deal with them extensively
Poison - Black and Green almost exclusively with white and red getting a few cards that care about poison and blue getting none
Mill - Blue gets the most with black sharing a few 'milltrips' and the usual odd artifact or two
Life Matters - White primarily, with a bit of green and the usual black and red hate
Innervate - White, Blue and Green, with a very minimal amount in red and the usual hate in both black and red
Retrace - All colors use retrace, but blue, red and green have a few effects that trigger off retrace
Hideaway/Ruins - Lands of varying color affiliations, a few blue and white cards card about the Ruins type
Allies and Quests - In all colors, but quest counters matter a bit more for blue and green
Mercenaries - The type returns in black and one each for blue and red (no recruiters in this set, though, but it is a mechanical consideration)
I feel you can probably nix everything that doesn't involve the four alt-win-cons and still have an interesting set. In particular, I would move hideaway/Ruins entirely over to the (tentatively) "face down cards matter" set, where it seems you've moved the bulk of Traps; putting 11 cards in each of two large sets waters down the environment of both without significantly highlighting the theme. You're leaving in Retrace, some Allies, and some Quests; could you cut Mercenaries and Life Matters? Doing so still leaves you with a pretty good color balance.
I feel you can probably nix everything that doesn't involve the four alt-win-cons and still have an interesting set. In particular, I would move hideaway/Ruins entirely over to the (tentatively) "face down cards matter" set, where it seems you've moved the bulk of Traps; putting 11 cards in each of two large sets waters down the environment of both without significantly highlighting the theme. You're leaving in Retrace, some Allies, and some Quests; could you cut Mercenaries and Life Matters? Doing so still leaves you with a pretty good color balance.
I'm not cutting Mercenaries in general because they aren't a mechanical theme. There's no Mercenaries-matters cards, they're just there for flavor and as a little bonus to Masques-era decks. For now. If there's room in Set 2, I may toss in a card or two to make Mercs matter. Right now they exist without squeezing out other themes (on the contrary, several of the Mercs play into the poison theme).
Life Matters is left behind only in a couple cards a la Spike Drone to hint at a future theme. And a couple cards that gain life as part of the effect (like Awe Strike) to assist the theme when it shows up in greater numbers in Set 2.
There's only three Quests per color now (one at each rarity) and all the twists on the theme (Quest Auras, cards that count Quest counters, etc) are all in Set 2. Except the Rumormonger, which I felt was a cute worldbuilding one-off that doesn't feel strange by itself.
Allies are trimmed way down (2 commons and an uncommon and rare per color)
I'm down to about 25 traps, but a couple will be removed and a few added since certain colors (white in particular) lost a lot of them when all the funky ones (creatures, mainly) were bumped. White really wants to be a primary color for traps, but that's rough when you only have 2 in color. Most of the Trap-matters cards got bounced save for the odd few (mostly the Trap-spying or hating cards).
Hideaway's down to a rare cycle and one common, which I think is fine. It's still there and playable, but not dominating the set, or even the lands.
Retrace is my set's Cycling, a basic utility mechanic for all card types. It's mainly in green and red, with a nice secondary showing in blue and black. I think the set needs a simple mechanic like this, particularly one that can help give creature-light and creature-free decks a bit of long-lasting juice.
At this point, I'm thinned down to about 275, with a bit more left to get picked through in Artifacts, but a few cards still left to get added in to smooth everything out.
Well, I skimmed over the thread, so excuse me if you've explained these things before. (Take it as a "multiple people see this problem" kind of thing.)
Treasures are very nice. Props to Pichoro for getting the treasure value up.
Traps I don't like, for multiple reasons. The first and foremost is that we already have traps, and they work completely different from these. Not calling them traps solves this problem, but even if you were to call them "peril," I have a bad feeling that these cards wont work. WotC played around with "setting" traps face down and there were apparently some problems there. IMO, these traps should actually be traps. Even if it swings dangerously close to zendikar's design space, including traps in your set would be a nice spell-based mechanic in a set dominated by permanents.
Always loved poison. From what it looks like though, it kind of seems over used. One of the ways poison has been kept under check for so long is the fact that very few cards actually give you poison counters. Now with a large chunk of the set involving poison, you have an environment where very aggressive poison decks can win with little opposition. My suggestion (if you haven't already done this) is to include lots of remedy cards to remove poison counters.
I think that Mill, Life matters, and retrace can all go. Even if it is an alt. win con, Mill doesn't seem to fit in this set.
Ruins I like. Makes sense for a treasure to be hidden in a temple and revealed when you achieve something. I think this should take up a larger part in the set. (For instance, graverobbers that can steal the hidden cards.)
I don't get Innervate. It doesn't really make sense to me both flavorfully and mechanically. Even the name is kind of confusing. I have an idea, but it might take a large amount of redesign.
Instead of making Innervate its own separate mechanic, I suggest you integrate this alt. win into a known entity; allies. Certain allies (nicknamed leaders or something) have another ability:
Alliance(At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control N or more allies with different names, you win the game.)
The different names clause is just there to make sure you don't spam Join the Ranks and Hada Freeblade like cards. Even so, this might seem a bit too easy. That's where mercenaries come in.
Disband(As long as this creature is on the battlefield, Alliances cannot be formed.)
Alright, that might be a little too flavorful for rules text, but you get the idea. Other kinds of ally hate could be thrown in as well to make sure alliance doesn't get out of hand.
Not sure about so much quest love. I think quests should be a small part of the set, if any part at all. (Perhaps the "questing" could be replaced by more hideaway stuff.)
Well, that's are my two cents. I really think you should look more into the alliance/mercenary thing, but its your set. As I said before, it would be easier to understand what's going on (especially with flavor) if the OP was a hub.
EDIT: Disband may be too narrow of an ability. But what if it hosed all kinds of "alt win"
Sabotage(As long as this creature is on the battlefield, alliances cannot be formed, treasure cannot be claimed, and players do not die from poisoning.)
or, as it probably should be written:
Sabotage(As long as this creature is on the battlefield, players cannot win the game through alliance abilities or treasure values. Players cannot loose the game through poison counters.)
It may need some flavor work, but having alt. win killers in the alt. win set might be something to look into.
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Treasures are very nice. Props to Pichoro for getting the treasure value up.
Indeed.
Traps I don't like, for multiple reasons. The first and foremost is that we already have traps, and they work completely different from these. Not calling them traps solves this problem, but even if you were to call them "peril," I have a bad feeling that these cards wont work. WotC played around with "setting" traps face down and there were apparently some problems there. IMO, these traps should actually be traps. Even if it swings dangerously close to zendikar's design space, including traps in your set would be a nice spell-based mechanic in a set dominated by permanents.
Thanks to the CCRulings forum, we now have a great, workable version of Peril that's straightforward and rules-compliant.
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may pay its peril cost to turn it face up.)
The uniform condition was a big shift, but it really makes a lot of sense both within the mechanical needs of the set as well as the flavor of the mechanic itself. As a nice bonus, it distances the mechanic even further from the Trap mechanic of Zendikar. They both use the concept of "enemy does something to spring a devious hidden trap" to very different ends.
Which was important to me. I wanted to emulate a lot of the same genres and cliches as Zendikar without copying too much of its mechanical identity. Quests and Allies made sense as they were and could, I felt, be explored in a different way. Traps were, on the other hand, executed poorly and the concept had room to grow in other ways.
As far as spell-based mechanics go, spells don't get the short straw here. In addition to retrace being a major mechanic for spells, sorceries and instants get to enhance the existing themes in their own ways. Mill-trips, poison-fiddling, Life-tripping (a tiny theme in white here that pays off in Set 2). Beyond that, the set has a subtle theme of allowing creature-free or creature-light decks to flourish, so the spells here are pushed just a little bit in terms of efficiency and utility.
Always loved poison. From what it looks like though, it kind of seems over used. One of the ways poison has been kept under check for so long is the fact that very few cards actually give you poison counters. Now with a large chunk of the set involving poison, you have an environment where very aggressive poison decks can win with little opposition. My suggestion (if you haven't already done this) is to include lots of remedy cards to remove poison counters.
Lots? No. The set isn't brimming with poison-hate. White in particular gets a few ways to combat poison (in lieu of playing with the mechanic itself). But I made sure to place an artifact or two in the set to make sure any deck can keep poison in check.
Poison is the main theme for two colors, so it shows up in decent numbers there, but a solid third of the cards that mention poison are giving you poison counters, which can be very dangerous indeed. For many decks, the best counter to an aggressive poison deck is just to toss them a poison counter or two. There's a rare artifact that can tap to give a player a poison counter, I suspect it'll be very useful as a sideboard card against poison.
Not to mention that aggressive poison decks will be relying heavily on creatures, which is harder than usual here. Attacking into traps can be disastrous, and control will have enough anti-aggro cards to slow down hordes.
I think that Mill, Life matters, and retrace can all go. Even if it is an alt. win con, Mill doesn't seem to fit in this set.
Life Matters is now only a tiny hint here and not a full theme until later.
Retrace is filling my simply utility mechanic role (with the happy bonus of being flavorful with the setting) and giving many decks that bit of extra steam to last in longer games.
And Mill isn't here in any great number. Since that tactic usually gets several cards in every block/Core combo to help it, I didn't feel it needed to be really pushed here. It's a few cards at all rarities for blue (and partially black) and the odd artifact. Just enough to be there and remind everyone who the original alt-win-con was.
Ruins I like. Makes sense for a treasure to be hidden in a temple and revealed when you achieve something. I think this should take up a larger part in the set. (For instance, graverobbers that can steal the hidden cards.)
I think expanding on Hideaway is something that ought to wait until a second set. The mechanic is already so rare and isolated in the game that i think it needs a bit of room initially just to get everyone reacquainted with it. But expansion is certainly in the works for them.
I don't get Innervate. It doesn't really make sense to me both flavorfully and mechanically.
Mechanically, it was my way of making creatures matter in winning games for something other than attacking. It made sense to simply take advantage of something creatures do naturally and for a variety of reasons: tapping. Players still get to do everything they like to do with creatures: playing them, attacking, blocking, playing abilities, tapping them for other effects, etc. But for the trade-off of keeping one blocked an extra turn, a player can get one step closer to a victory without attacking.
In terms of flavor, it's the representation of enlightenment. These creatures, upon a moment of clarity (while tapped and on the verge of untapping or 'waking') discover a new kind of inner peace, a perfect center of awareness and thought. They reach a transcendent form of being, and in doing so become a kind of beacon for energies from the Blind Eternities. They aren't planeswalkers, but they act as sort of living magnets for the energies that make up the reality between planes. A planeswalker able to collect enough of these positively charged pawns can use them to harness the power of the Blind Eternities for themselves and reach their own version of transcendent being: as in winning the game.
The ability has gone through a bunch of versions, probably more than any of the other abilities. But I think it's pretty well settled into something a little smoother and something with a lot of design space for exploration.
Even the name is kind of confusing.
Though I do agree with you on the name. I've never been particularly enamored with it, it's just the only word I found that fit all the slight variations in flavor the mechanic represents (keep in mind that white, blue and green see the same spiritual awakening through different lenses, so the word used can't be too specific yet also needs to be interesting enough to evoke a fantasy setting).
Instead of making Innervate its own separate mechanic, I suggest you integrate this alt. win into a known entity; allies. Certain allies (nicknamed leaders or something) have another ability:
Alliance(At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control N or more allies with different names, you win the game.)
The different names clause is just there to make sure you don't spam Join the Ranks and Hada Freeblade like cards. Even so, this might seem a bit too easy. That's where mercenaries come in.
Disband(As long as this creature is on the battlefield, Alliances cannot be formed.)
Alright, that might be a little too flavorful for rules text, but you get the idea. Other kinds of ally hate could be thrown in as well to make sure alliance doesn't get out of hand.
That just seems exceptionally narrow to me. I've never been a huge fan of creature type specific mechanics, especially when the types involved are so rarely used. Outside of this block, Allies only have support of two sets (Zendikar and Worldwake, along with Changelings and to a lesser extent, Mistforms). Innervate may be insular on its own, but it can make use of tap/untap effects from dozens of sets and its new wording to involve a counter can play into any number of counters-matter cards.
Not sure about so much quest love. I think quests should be a small part of the set, if any part at all.
Quests, I felt, were a great representation of alternate play styles. They typically aren't win conditions on their own, but they feel like smaller, card-sized versions of the bigger themes. You play a certain, unique way to achieve a victory. With Quests, those victories are smaller, but they feel very much like a tinier version of what the set itself was focused on.
In terms of numbers, they certainly shrank. There's now only three per color and no funky Quests-matters cards. But they'll be explored deeper in Set 2 for sure.
(Perhaps the "questing" could be replaced by more hideaway stuff.)
It's interesting, they both fill very similar flavor roles (representing dangerous adventures in search of fortune and glory) but are rather dissimilar in mechanical execution.
Ironically, both mechanics were replaced by nothing. A lot of their numbers were cut for space.
As I said before, it would be easier to understand what's going on (especially with flavor) if the OP was a hub.
Eventually, the OP will contain the set as a whole. I didn't figure a two-page thread was that complex to follow.
Thanks to the CCRulings forum, we now have a great, workable version of Peril that's straightforward and rules-compliant.
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may pay its peril cost to turn it face up.)
I understand the rules, I just don't like them. It feels very much like a gimmick, and it raises the same problems the original facedown traps had during zendikar design. For one thing, you must telegraph the attack, making it incredibly easy to tell when "traps" are set, lessening the excitement of springing one and the tension of wondering what your opponent is up to. (In general.) Also, the power level and "spring" on all the traps have to be the same, which is incredibly limiting in design. If anything, WotC themselves tried and failed with this, so i don't have much faith in it.
Traps were, on the other hand, executed poorly and the concept had room to grow in other ways.
I disagree wholeheartedly. traps were, although not key to the set, a welcome addition that added new dynamics and pretty much fit the flavor without bending over backwards. Traps are fun to play with and against with little confusion or rule mending, truly elegant design. IMO, "peril" seems rather awkward and clunky in comparison.
As far as spell-based mechanics go, spells don't get the short straw here. In addition to retrace being a major mechanic for spells, sorceries and instants get to enhance the existing themes in their own ways. Mill-trips, poison-fiddling, Life-tripping (a tiny theme in white here that pays off in Set 2). Beyond that, the set has a subtle theme of allowing creature-free or creature-light decks to flourish, so the spells here are pushed just a little bit in terms of efficiency and utility.
2 of the 3 main alt. wins you're considering are permanent based, and the third will probably strike an even match. I'm not really sure how the spells fit into this. All in all that's not a bad thing (lorwyn and RoE both consolidate into permanents, and they still work wonderfully) but it is something to be aware of.
Lots? No. The set isn't brimming with poison-hate. White in particular gets a few ways to combat poison (in lieu of playing with the mechanic itself). But I made sure to place an artifact or two in the set to make sure any deck can keep poison in check.
Poison is the main theme for two colors, so it shows up in decent numbers there, but a solid third of the cards that mention poison are giving you poison counters, which can be very dangerous indeed. For many decks, the best counter to an aggressive poison deck is just to toss them a poison counter or two. There's a rare artifact that can tap to give a player a poison counter, I suspect it'll be very useful as a sideboard card against poison.
The fact cards give you poison counters, even your own, is a reason to include lots of poison hate. To put it in perspective, there are only 10 cards in existence that care about poison, and the most that have been in a single set is 3. That's one of the main reasons why poison flies under the radar. But if you bring poison out into the fore front, people need ways to combat it. (Also note that giving yourself poison counters isn't that dangerous if your opponent isn't playing poison.)
Retrace is filling my simply utility mechanic role (with the happy bonus of being flavorful with the setting) and giving many decks that bit of extra steam to last in longer games.
extraneous but necessary.
And Mill isn't here in any great number. Since that tactic usually gets several cards in every block/Core combo to help it, I didn't feel it needed to be really pushed here. It's a few cards at all rarities for blue (and partially black) and the odd artifact. Just enough to be there and remind everyone who the original alt-win-con was.
The problem with mill is that it either needs to be full on or not at all. For instance, m10 features a "few" mill cards, and because of that, very few people would play mill in m10 constructed. But if we look at something like Ravnica, which has a whole guild dedicated to mill, then milling becomes a viable strategy. Mill is one of those things you can't just "splash". You have to commit to mill for it to work, which means you should have lots of mill cards or none at all.
Mechanically, it was my way of making creatures matter in winning games for something other than attacking. It made sense to simply take advantage of something creatures do naturally and for a variety of reasons: tapping. Players still get to do everything they like to do with creatures: playing them, attacking, blocking, playing abilities, tapping them for other effects, etc. But for the trade-off of keeping one blocked an extra turn, a player can get one step closer to a victory without attacking.
In terms of flavor, it's the representation of enlightenment. These creatures, upon a moment of clarity (while tapped and on the verge of untapping or 'waking') discover a new kind of inner peace, a perfect center of awareness and thought. They reach a transcendent form of being, and in doing so become a kind of beacon for energies from the Blind Eternities. They aren't planeswalkers, but they act as sort of living magnets for the energies that make up the reality between planes. A planeswalker able to collect enough of these positively charged pawns can use them to harness the power of the Blind Eternities for themselves and reach their own version of transcendent being: as in winning the game.
The ability has gone through a bunch of versions, probably more than any of the other abilities. But I think it's pretty well settled into something a little smoother and something with a lot of design space for exploration.
Though I do agree with you on the name. I've never been particularly enamored with it, it's just the only word I found that fit all the slight variations in flavor the mechanic represents (keep in mind that white, blue and green see the same spiritual awakening through different lenses, so the word used can't be too specific yet also needs to be interesting enough to evoke a fantasy setting).
I'm not really sure what's going on with Innervate. It's got a strange untap thing paired with a strange "needs others" thing and strange flavor. All in all, i don't think the mechanic works. The only defining thing about a creature with this ability is the fact that it can win the game if you have others with the same ability, and even then you have to switch it on. The innervation doesn't do anything for me, and the time it takes to set up is a gigantic window of opportunity for my opponents
That just seems exceptionally narrow to me. I've never been a huge fan of creature type specific mechanics, especially when the types involved are so rarely used. Outside of this block, Allies only have support of two sets (Zendikar and Worldwake, along with Changelings and to a lesser extent, Mistforms). Innervate may be insular on its own, but it can make use of tap/untap effects from dozens of sets and its new wording to involve a counter can play into any number of counters-matter cards.
While I agree it's narrow, I don't really understand how its more narrow than Innervate. Plus, it would create a scenario where the alt. win is just that, an alternative win. Where as decks based on treasure or poison are probably tunnel visioned towards that goal, an Alliance deck can simply be an ally deck with the added bonus of alliance sometimes going off. The difference here is that allies already synergize off of each other, allowing for alliance deck building to feel like a natural extension of allies, where innervative decks feel like they need to jump through hoops to get their wincon out.
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
I understand the rules, I just don't like them. It feels very much like a gimmick, and it raises the same problems the original facedown traps had during zendikar design. For one thing, you must telegraph the attack, making it incredibly easy to tell when "traps" are set, lessening the excitement of springing one and the tension of wondering what your opponent is up to. (In general.)
My traps are the ultimate 'rattlesnake' cards. Their presence isn't a surprise (and, really, is it much of a surprise for an adventurer that there's traps in an infamous ancient ruin?), but what exactly they'll do usually is. They create skill-testing game states. Do I attack now and risk it? What exactly is that trap? Okay, he has X mana open, is it a bluff? If not, what are the possible traps that can get turned up with what he's got open? Etc. There's a certain level of mindgamery that just isn't there with the Zendikar Traps. Which, IMO, raises the tension and excitement.
Also, the power level and "spring" on all the traps have to be the same, which is incredibly limiting in design.
I don't understand.
If anything, WotC themselves tried and failed with this, so i don't have much faith in it.
Well, I certainly hope you change your mind, but I don't personally believe that one man's failure is another man's forbidden fruit. They may have failed, they may have chosen to go in a different direction for whatever reason, that doesn't necessarily mean it's dead design space.
I disagree wholeheartedly. traps were, although not key to the set, a welcome addition that added new dynamics and pretty much fit the flavor without bending over backwards. Traps are fun to play with and against with little confusion or rule mending, truly elegant design.
Personally, I hated them when I first saw them. My opinion softened over time, but I still don't overly like them. I liked the "Gotcha!" aspect to a degree, but the fact that the opponent never knew a trap was sprung for them, though interesting in some ways, cut off much of the mechanic's interactivity. They were elegant in their way, I agree, but I felt that they were a missed opportunity for some serious mindgames and skill-testing.
IMO, "peril" seems rather awkward and clunky in comparison.
Any suggestions on how to streamline it further?
2 of the 3 main alt. wins you're considering are permanent based, and the third will probably strike an even match. I'm not really sure how the spells fit into this.
As they typically do for most win conditions: vital support and utility.
You'll see sorceries and instants that play into the main themes in one way or another, but the main role of spells here are to support those themes, particularly those that want to rely on few or no creatures. The ideal here was to facilitate an environment where combo and control can thrive, and spells play a very important role in that.
All in all that's not a bad thing (lorwyn and RoE both consolidate into permanents, and they still work wonderfully) but it is something to be aware of.
It was certainly something I was conscious of as I designed.
The fact cards give you poison counters, even your own, is a reason to include lots of poison hate. To put it in perspective, there are only 10 cards in existence that care about poison, and the most that have been in a single set is 3. That's one of the main reasons why poison flies under the radar. But if you bring poison out into the fore front, people need ways to combat it. (Also note that giving yourself poison counters isn't that dangerous if your opponent isn't playing poison.)
As I mentioned before, white is the center of poison hate and as such gets the most explicit anti-poison cards. Blue has a wacky rare that swaps the counters two players have (thus playing well with the anti-poison of white and the pro-poison of black). The other three colors have no apparent poison defense cards, mostly because black and green are too pro-poison to hate on it much (though green has a single helpful enchantment at uncommon) and red is just too damn reckless to care (though red does have its version of cauterizing the wound, so to speak).
Artifacts, however, supply a bit of help. The inefficient common equipment I posted earlier, an uncommon that heals you and punishes the guy who was taking poison counters to fuel spells, and a rare that slows poison decks down by a considerable amount (and also helps self-poisoners not die so fast).
I feel that's plenty, bordering on overly cautious.
extraneous but necessary.
The retrace triggers are a bit extraneous, I agree, but it gives players not into the alt win cons something to do. Which is important in its own way.
The problem with mill is that it either needs to be full on or not at all. For instance, m10 features a "few" mill cards, and because of that, very few people would play mill in m10 constructed. But if we look at something like Ravnica, which has a whole guild dedicated to mill, then milling becomes a viable strategy. Mill is one of those things you can't just "splash".
Yes and no. Mill was a very, very successful draft option in Champions of Kamigawa Limited based off of a single card. Old UW control decks with mill as the win con used just Millstone, if I'm not mistaken. The key is efficiency and repeatability. If mill is costed right and pushed with cards that can be used multiple times, a block doesn't need a flood of milling cards. I have Traumatize, a Millstone-Treasure and a mill spell with retrace. I could've stopped there and mill probably still could have been viable with Jace around and with counter support.
I'm not really sure what's going on with Innervate. It's got a strange untap thing paired with a strange "needs others" thing and strange flavor. All in all, i don't think the mechanic works.
I really didn't reinvent the wheel here, I just combined smaller aspects of the game in a new way.
The only defining thing about a creature with this ability is the fact that it can win the game if you have others with the same ability, and even then you have to switch it on.
Okay. And?
The innervation doesn't do anything for me, and the time it takes to set up is a gigantic window of opportunity for my opponents
If you're talking about innervate counters mattering beyond the win condition, I used to have several cards that cared. But they were moved off since the introductory set really should be just that. Expansion of the mechanic can come later.
As far as the window of disruption goes, yes, that was intentional. Winning like this should take work, not be incredibly easy.
While I agree it's narrow, I don't really understand how its more narrow than Innervate.
It only works with a few dozen cards in all the game, for a start.
And yes, I realize Innervate itself exists on half that, but the number of cards with effects/mechanics that have great synergy with it are in the hundreds. While Innervate may not appear on a wide variety of cards, the scope of cards you can play well with it is very wide.
Plus, it would create a scenario where the alt. win is just that, an alternative win. Where as decks based on treasure or poison are probably tunnel visioned towards that goal, an Alliance deck can simply be an ally deck with the added bonus of alliance sometimes going off.
The set really wants the alt win cons to be the focus, not an afterthought.
The difference here is that allies already synergize off of each other, allowing for alliance deck building to feel like a natural extension of allies, where innervative decks feel like they need to jump through hoops to get their wincon out.
And I don't think the hoop you have to jump through with Alliance is interesting at all. If I have to gather up five different creatures, including at least one creature with this ability and then play them all and keep them out, why am I not just attacking with them (considering that's what Allies thus far are great for)?
There's no sense of work or achievement with Alliance. And no real incentive to use creatures for anything other than attacking.
My traps are the ultimate 'rattlesnake' cards. Their presence isn't a surprise (and, really, is it much of a surprise for an adventurer that there's traps in an infamous ancient ruin?), but what exactly they'll do usually is. They create skill-testing game states. Do I attack now and risk it? What exactly is that trap? Okay, he has X mana open, is it a bluff? If not, what are the possible traps that can get turned up with what he's got open? Etc. There's a certain level of mindgamery that just isn't there with the Zendikar Traps. Which, IMO, raises the tension and excitement.
It's nothing we haven't seen before with morph. But even if this is "morph 2", it doesn't really feel as exciting.
IMO, placing the traps facedown takes away a large portion of the tension. From a limited standpoint, "traps" are much better than "peril," because the same decisions you would make with these traps must be made more often and about a wider variety of things. For instance, many "traps" feature attack triggers. When these are in play, players must make the same decisions. (Do I attack now and risk it? What exactly is that trap? Okay, he has X mana open, is it a bluff? If not, what are the possible traps that can can he play with what he's got open?) The only difference is that there's another level, does he even have the trap. With "peril", you know your opponent has something up his sleeve. Things are much more clear; your opponent has a trap on the field and if you attack, it might trigger. "Traps" not only have this decision, but also wether or not the trap actually exists, which adds even more tension.
But that's not all, in addition to all the "attack" triggers, other traps trigger off of anything from land drops to counters. All of those decisions are multiplied for each instance a trap exists, which pushes the mindgamery much past the point of "peril" traps which must be revealed and can only activate on attacks.
I don't understand.
Sorry, misread the cost thing, but what i meant with the trigger is that "peril" traps only trigger when a creature attacks, which limits what they can do. This really seems limiting in an environment where there won't be a lot of attacking.
Well, I certainly hope you change your mind, but I don't personally believe that one man's failure is another man's forbidden fruit. They may have failed, they may have chosen to go in a different direction for whatever reason, that doesn't necessarily mean it's dead design space.
I only have doubts because WotC are professionals, they have a large team of people dedicated to this kind of stuff, and they probably know much more than both of us combined. While it doesn't really condemn any idea they couldn't make work, it does send an important message: Some things just don't work.
Any suggestions on how to streamline it further?
Well the main flaw with the design is that they have to turn into some kind of permanent with an etb effect, which doesn't seem like a trap at all. I would suggest making them "instants with morph" but this forum seems to think poorly of that idea
One idea is to make instants that cast from facedown instead of flip. For instance:
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may cast it for its peril cost.)
Not sure if that works though. Another idea: switch up the flavor a bit.
Ambush [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may pay [COST] and turn ~ face up.)
By changing all of the "peril traps" to creatures, the mechanic makes a bit more sense. While you loose the "trap" flavor, the idea of a band of goblins or a sneaky assassin or some ancient elemental striking when they least expect it isn't hard to grasp both flavorfully and mechanically. (Of course, turning into an artifact is a bit weird, and it might be too much like morph).
One last thing would be to make all "peril" cards auras.
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you pay [COST], turn ~ face up, and attach it to an attacking creature.)
Flavorfully, its a magical trap that curses those who are caught in it. Mechanically, it's a little less awkward.
If I understand the mechanic correctly, you must pay a cost that replaces an untap and gives a creature a state. That's pretty strange. As far as I know, there are no abilities that "replace" an untap with a cost, and there are very few abilities that give creatures states without representation. (If you're using counters, then that's a little better.)
The point is that abilities need other cards, not other mechanics. One of the things WotC talked about when designing the Ally mechanic was wether or not to make it a creature type. In the end, they decided to because an ability that looked for cards with that ability was awkward. Cards can look for other cards (Slivers), Cards can look for other abilities (Defenders in RoE), Abilities can look for other cards (Kinship), but very rarely does a ability itself look for others with the same ability. (By ability, I mean keyword ability)
As far as the window of disruption goes, yes, that was intentional. Winning like this should take work, not be incredibly easy.
The difference is that jumping through hoops to get innervate up isn't nearly as "fun" as treasure or poison. Take a look at treasure. Treasure represent alternate wins, but they're also okay cards on their own. If you kill my last treasure, that's ok, because the cost for it was relatively low, and most of my treasures still have effects and abilities that can help me out. Plus artifact removal isn't that mainstream, so the chances my treasures could be destroyed are pretty small.
But now look at innervate. Not only do I have to play the creature, but I have to waste a turn and mana with it paying an untap cost, and then keep it alive while I get the rest out. Creature removal is so prominent that its easy to keep innervate cards off the battlefield, and in the end you've sunk time and mana into something that wasn't really worth it.
I would play treasure, I would play poison, but Innervate seems like too much work with too many weaknesses.
My suggestion would be to make innervate mean something. Make them flip cards that flip into something else, or make them turn into indestructible enchantments, or do something to make me want to put effort into these guys and know that all the time and effort put into something other than killing my enemy won't be wiped away Day of Judgement.
It only works with a few dozen cards in all the game, for a start.
And yes, I realize Innervate itself exists on half that, but the number of cards with effects/mechanics that have great synergy with it are in the hundreds. While Innervate may not appear on a wide variety of cards, the scope of cards you can play well with it is very wide.
I don't really get this. I'm not sure if you can count a card that untaps something as having synergy with Innervate. Bottom line; both mechanics need others to work. I don't care if you have 50 cards that can untap your innervate dude, if you only have one there's no point.
The set really wants the alt win cons to be the focus, not an afterthought.
Remember that sets should be designed for everyone. Some people don't wanna play a deck that alt wins, some of them want to just beat down. Alliance gives an alt win (the point of the set) to an already established strategy, and can be used to bring alt wins closer to those who don't want to play a deck made specifically for them.
And I don't think the hoop you have to jump through with Alliance is interesting at all. If I have to gather up five different creatures, including at least one creature with this ability and then play them all and keep them out, why am I not just attacking with them (considering that's what Allies thus far are great for)?
Well the point is to give an alt. win to an already viable tactic. Think of Coalition Victory. There's a very small chance you'll go through all that work and not actually attack in the mean time, but that's the beauty of it. Alt. wins don't always have to be the meaning of the deck. Often some of the best alt. wins are the ones who don't rely on it and have a plan B as well.
There's no sense of work or achievement with Alliance. And no real incentive to use creatures for anything other than attacking.
Work =/= wastes time. Just because something doesn't take forever to pull off doesn't mean it doesn't require work. When's the last time you've seen more than 5 or 6 unique creatures on the battlefield, especially ones that are a threat. Most games never get up to 5 creatures on the battlefield total (slightly more in limited), so amassing a bunch of allies would probably just as if not harder than innervate to pull off. The difference would be that allies give boosts and bonuses, making them good cards to have even when you're not "winning the game" with them, and they don't require extra resources to "turn on."
Also, how many cards did the set start with? You say you've narrowed it down to 270 or so, but sets normally don't have more than around 240. Cutting cards and mechanics is almost harder than creating them, but "less is more," as they say.
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
This, again, would be a special action akin to morph, although the way it's worded makes it seem like a static ability with a choice, which Wizards doesn't do. I just integrated this rules text into the cost and reminder text of "Trap" itself.
The problem lies more with cards like this:
Morbid Spellbomb
Artifact (C)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
Whenever a creature with toughness of 4 or greater comes into play, you may pay B to turn Morbid Spellbomb face up.
When Morbid Spellbomb is turned face up, target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn.
The card is clearly designed to "trap" like a counterspell, in that you can turn it face up immediately after something "triggers" it - but if you choose not to, then change your mind, you'll have to wait to spring the trap until a different creature enters the battlefield.
Let's see what might happen in actual gameplay. For this example, our opponent controls a Noble Hierarch and four lands. We control a face-down Morbid Spellbomb that says: "B: Turn Morbid Spellbomb face up. Activate this ability only if a creature with toughness 4 or greater entered the battlefield this turn." Our opponent taps three lands for Knight of the Reliquary. What could go wrong now?
1) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent immediately plays a fetchland and cracks it, meaning there is no time when Knight is a 4/4 on the battlefield and we have priority to kill it with Morbid Spellbomb. Under original functionality, the trigger would go on the stack immediately, and our opponent (even though he had priority) couldn't respond by playing a land.
2) Knight enters the battlefield as a 4/4. Our opponent passes priority and swings with the Hierarch. During his postcombat main phase, assuming we can't use our trap, our opponent plays a Forest. We then turn Spellbomb face up during his end step, long after the triggering event occurred.
3) Knight enters the battlefield as a 3/3. Our opponent activates the ability of Oran-Rief the Vastwood to put a +1/+1 counter on it. We can now kill Knight with Morbid Spellbomb, even though under original functionality, we shouldn't have been able to turn it face up at all.
--
I really like the way you integrated "blue likes artifacts" with "blue likes hiding and revealing information", though.
Is there a card in this set that bounces traps back to their owner's hands?
You have traplayers on one side, then trapscouts, trapslippers, and trapnullers on the other. Does no one on Excellion find this overly complicated?
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I really like the top down design of this set, with a tight flavor/mechanic relationship. The colored artifacts, colorless artifacts, treasures and Perils are all really unique. Inntervated, poison, and all the other win conditions present a fresh take on a set and make me wonder how it will play in constructed and limited.
I'm especially curious about whether the board gets swamped with permanents, or if there are enough removal and sweeper spells to keep things neat. The problem with large board presences is the confusion and complications they create that can create bad play and bad experiences.
Here are the cards that have spoiled so far. Notice the large number of White (nearly as many as blue, black, red and green combined.)
Common
Awe Strike
Burst of Energy
Chryst of Kings
Disciple of Mada'Zyl
Journeyman's Mount
Keeper of the Southern Span
Unarm
Uncommon
Chryst-King Liege
Diversionary Tactics
Elixir Vitae
Frontier Healer
Giltwall Champion
Paladin of Razalen
Pilgrimage to Gold Horizon
Seal of the Luminarch
Shield of Naloa Tor
Stoneform Gargoyle
Rare
Azella Kinneas, Tomb Raider
Cult of the Sacred Breath
Shallow Comfort
Terminal Reprieve
Voyage of Chryst-Kings
Wandering Dreamwalker
Mythic Rare
BLUE 7
Common
Trapscout
Uncommon
Mirror of Treachery
Repentant Thief
Silent Traplayer
Unscrupulous Journeyman
Rare
Sands of Ill-Fate
Traumatize
Mythic Rare
BLACK 7
Common
Defiling Contagion
Delving the Darkest Tombs
Gis Bangou Sentry
Uncommon
Eldergorge Traitor
Rare
Advice of the Witchdoctor
Lord of Agonies
Spoilcleave
Mythic Rare
RED 7
Common
Imprisoned Sentinel
Tavern Rumormonger
Uncommon
Burn Off
Rare
Aged Spellcaster
Coveteous Dragon
Trash for Treasure
Mythic Rare
Picaro Makama
GREEN 6
Common
Gis Bangou Underling
Lay of the Land
Needlebrake Sporopod
Stalwart Observer
Uncommon
Hunt of the Sable Wolf
Lifetwister Monk
Rare
Mythic Rare
MULTICOLOR 2
Mythic Rare
N'Longo Ugo
Stelmarria Jonell
ARTIFACT 6
Common
Hidden Spiketrap
Medic's Satchel
Morbid Spellbomb
Pinlock Caltrops
Quartz Cameo
Uncommon
Rare
Mythic Rare
Eskriba, Sacred Blade
LAND 2
Common
Perilous Tomb
Uncommon
Rare
Mythic Rare
Naloa Tor, Seat of Chryst-Kings
As you could probably guess by now, I'm not rules savvy at all. As far as fixing the traps to make them function much more cleanly, I'm at a loss. I'd hoped the concept functioned well enough on its own or (like innervated) required only a little tweak. At this point, I sort of just have to defer to you on it. I may have to take the issue to the Custom Rulings area for a comprehensive overhaul.
Blue and White are the two very clear leaders in the use of traps. They have many and they quite clearly benefit the most from them. Blue in its love (as you say) of both artifice and trickery. White in its defensive nature also loves the idea of leading the menacing and reckless into a trap.
For future reference, here's the major breakdown of the themes and the colors of concentration:
Treasures - All colors pretty evenly though different colors use them differently (red, for instance, is much more likely to "cash them in" for a benefit), white and red seem to have just a few more Treasure-matters cards than the rest
Traps - A few in all colors (along with artifacts, like Treasures), but blue and white deal with them extensively
Poison - Black and Green almost exclusively with white and red getting a few cards that care about poison and blue getting none
Mill - Blue gets the most with black sharing a few 'milltrips' and the usual odd artifact or two
Life Matters - White primarily, with a bit of green and the usual black and red hate
Innervate - White, Blue and Green, with a very minimal amount in red and the usual hate in both black and red
Retrace - All colors use retrace, but blue, red and green have a few effects that trigger off retrace
Hideaway/Ruins - Lands of varying color affiliations, a few blue and white cards card about the Ruins type
Allies and Quests - In all colors, but quest counters matter a bit more for blue and green
Mercenaries - The type returns in black and one each for blue and red (no recruiters in this set, though, but it is a mechanical consideration)
Red is the only color without a really strong secondary theme after treasure, but it has its fingers in pretty much everything else to some degree which makes sense since the would of Excellion is like a candy store to the kid that is a red mage. So much to see and do and steal and destroy and experience and fight.
Not specifically.
But we do have:
Preserve 1WW
Instant (U)
Shuffle target artifact into its owner’s library.
“I would rather see the Pyxis fade into obscurity for another thousand years than see it fall into the hands of those who’d abuse it.” -Azella Kinneas to Picaro
Katoum Pathmaker 1UU
Creature — Merfolk Wizard Ally (R)
1U, T: Return target artifact with a converted mana cost of X or less to its owner’s hand where X is the number of Allies you control.
2/2
Arthrozan Scale 5
Artifact (R)
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, he or she returns a nonland permanent he or she owns to its owner’s hand.
“Glory fades and kingdoms are forgotten. Can anyone truly be equal in such a world? There is no justice in that and not even the Arthrozans of old could argue.” -Picaro
Sheltered Cove
Land (U)
T, Return a face down artifact you control to its owner’s hand: Add W or U to your mana pool.
Note how the first three are good both in and against decks sporting treasure and/or traps (and the Scale gets a good load of hurt in on various other strategies as well). And yes, that last card is part of another cycle of duals (each one sacrifices the advantage of one of the major play styles - treasure, traps, innervated creatures, cards in library and poison).
Hahahaha, it would seem that way, but Excellion is so full of traps and the like that it's a bit like snow for the Inuit - so commonplace that they have many words and activities associated with it.
Traplayers are the obvious rogues who use traps to hunt and protect.
Trapscouts are adept at using stealth and finesse to plot a path past deadly traps.
Trapslippers are the people crazy enough to try to disarm these ancient perils.
Trapnullers are those who have a knack for using magic to disarm or otherwise dispel traps, the rare hands-off version of the trapslipper.
I find it's also sooooo much better for posters who may want to comment since smaller, thematic chunks of a set are so much easier to digest than the whole thing dropped at once.
Thank you very much, by the way. Posting this way can be as much if not more time and effort than just posting it in one huge spoiler tag.
Uniquely, if all goes as planned. I would like to think that the set supports a diverse band of deck types since each win-con is being pushed for competitive play. Treasures, I imagine, fare the best since they fit all color combinations and a wide variety of decktypes. Poison is likely the aggro deck of choice (suicide black poison with a touch of green is I think the logical play here). Innervate may prove too fragile for really serious T2 play, but it'll be a monster for block. Traps and the overall UW creatureless control build is incredibly possible but whether it uses treasures, mill, or dips back into creatures for innervate is a little hazy. Retrace may be a sleeper until someone finds a way to really abuse it (green has a couple ways to fetch from the graveyard, and I think it would be very interesting indeed to see a GRu creature-light control deck). Mill is weak in block but receives the most overt support outside the block.
The key here for all of this is difference. Very few of these follow the usual (creature, creature, removal, swing, swing, game winner) model. The set gives us the tools to hopefully make non-combat decks not just function but thrive. Which we more or less haven't seen since the terrifying days of Combo Winter. With any luck, this environment is a bit slower and more interactive than that.
Two of the big alt-win-cons thrive on extending board presence. So, yes, to a degree we'll see more permanents in play. Players will want to amass their collection of treasure, get innervating, build that quest to its end. That said, removal isn't nonexistent.
Aside from what's already been posted (such as Picaro, who has a great, multipurpose artifact sweep as one of his tricks that even fuels his ultimate), here are a large chunk of the cards in the set that will likely nullify multiple cards:
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. Each player gains 1 life for each creature destroyed this way.
Piercing Rain 1WW
Instant (R)
Exile target attacking creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
^ This card is in fact a stand-in for every card with retrace that will technically sweep over time given mana and lands to discard. While not technically sweepers, removal that becomes better over time is fairly common here.
Urdras Sea Voidcaster 4UU
Creature — Merfolk Wizard Ally (C)
When Urdras Sea Voidcaster or another Ally comes into play, return target nonland permanent to its owner’s hand.
2/3
Wipe Away 2U
Instant (C)
Return up to two target attacking creatures to their owners’ hands.
“Your vulgarity and impudence is neither appreciated nor ignored. You wanted attention? You got it, now be gone and never return.” -Stelmarria Jonell
^ For Blue, its 'sweepers' are fairly Limited. Much of its control is in the form of counters, which are multiple and varied.
Dreadbaron of Zehaan 3BB
Creature — Zombie Shaman (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you win the game unless a player pays 3 life, sacrifices two permanents, and discards a card.
3/1
Endermire Journey B
Enchantment — Quest (U)
Whenever a creature with poisonous comes into play under your control, put a quest counter on Endermire Journey.
1B: Target player sacrifices a creature. Play this ability only if there are three or more quest counters on Endermire Journey.
^ Takes a while and a tight focus to get going, but once rolling, this will shred enemy lines.
Inscribed Slab 3BB
Artifact — Treasure (R)
(At end of turn, if the total combined treasure value of Treasures you control is 25 or more, you win the game.)
Whenever a creature would deal combat damage to you, destroy it instead.
“... mercy deprived ... vengeance of .... gods .... death everlasting ..” -slab’s etchings, partial translation
[3]
^ No Mercy, but easier to destroy (especially in this set), potentially adding to a game win and a nifty clause that replaces the damage.
Into the Pit 2B
Instant (U)
Target opponent sacrifices a creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
^ Another retrace card that gets better the more you use it.
Primordial Death Chant 5BB
Enchantment (C)
Creatures you control have deathtouch and poisonous 1.
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
When an opponent controls five or more creatures, you may pay 2B to turn Primordial Death Chant face up.
^ A very potent common and one of the few that really rewards playing creatures for their attacking ability (there's a few amongst black, red and green).
Caldera Firebird 2RRR
Creature — Phoenix (R)
Flying
Whenever Caldera Firebird is retraced, it deals 2 damage to each other creature.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
3/3
Cinder Winds 3RR
Enchantment (U)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
Whenever an opponent gains life, you may turn Cinder Winds face up.
1R: Cinder Winds deals 1 damage to each creature and each player.
Earthstunner Warrior 4RR
Creature — Giant Warrior (U)
Haste, trample
When Earthstunner Warrior comes into play, it deals 4 damage to each creature without flying.
6/4
^ Yes, it kills itself.
Effigy of Fury 2R
Artifact — Treasure (C)
(At end of turn, if the total combined treasure value of Treasures you control is 25 or more, you win the game.)
T: Effigy of Fury deals 1 damage to target creature.
[2]
^ This will win games. Slaughters weenies, especially the Sporopod.
Jagged Bolt 3RR
Sorcery (U)
Jagged Bolt deals 3 damage to two target creatures.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)
Shed the Florid XRR
Sorcery (U)
Destroy all Treasures with a treasure value of X or less.
“When it became clear to me that my collection was no longer the best in Excellion, I simply had to toss away all that did not stack up against the best in other collections so I could begin anew without classless junk tarnishing my coffer.” -Lady Drezbal of Bazanda
Lyciabarb Pod 3GG
Enchantment (U)
Peril (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1.)
When an opponent controls two or more creatures with flying, you may turn Lyciabarb Pod face up.
When you turn Lyciabarb Pod face up and at the beginning of your upkeep, Lyciabarb Pod deals 2 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
Entropic Gates 6
Artifact (R)
Whenever a creature comes into play, if there are three or more other creatures in play, exile that creature. Return that card to play under its owner’s control when Entropic Gates leaves play.
^ Weeeeeeeeeeeee, Portcullis, a card I always had a soft spot for! Tempest-Urza era cards that assisted control see homages here and there in the set.
I noticed that, too. Mostly coincidental as a result of the 'extras' I posted (details on Razalen and Naloa) just happened to be white.
Pick a color or theme and I'll delve it deeper. A few previews more and I'll likely update with the full set. Most of the major themes have been covered so that allows me to post larger batches.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Dreadbaron of Zehaan: Is this in the same cycle as Aged Spellcaster? Looks absurd. If you have enough discard that they're reduced to topdeck mode (or the game goes long enough and they dump their hand as a natural result of playing out their cards), they can't play any cards that don't kill either it or you, or you just win. What with losing 3 life and 2 perms each turn they don't kill it, unless they're far ahead on board, chances are you still just win. If it was "or" (with the body embiggened to compensate) it would be far more fair, you still get to play politics in multiplayer, and you're still getting a free Bolt/Annihilator 2/Funeral Charm every turn it lives.
Caldera Firebird: You don't have to say "other", because it doesn't say CIP, so I'm assuming it's still on the stack when it triggers. (Like Rumbling Aftershocks.)
Cinder Winds: Hey, it's Pyrohemia!
Earthstunner Warrior: I'm assuming you use this in combination with either green or white? Otherwise the keyword abilities don't do anything.
Effigy of Fury: It seems to be balanced at common by not hitting players and being harder to untap, and it's a Treasure to boot.
Shed the Florid: My mental image of this card is Jhoira polishing a Mox while tossing Lucky Charms and Enatu Golems over her shoulder into a chute marked "TO SCRAP HEAP".
Lyciabarb Pod: What are these, killer plants? A great way to close out a game for the lifegain/stall deck.
Continuing on with the oversaturation of white, can you share some snippets of Kithkin lore?
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It's now Wash Away.
And Cult of Sacred Breath, yes. Some use personal quest counters, but all are individual creatures with their own alt-win-con.
Remember that this is a slower, life gainier, card drawingier, board extendingier environment. Life loss matters much less here than in aggro-orient environments, decks slants slower and with more board presence so sacrificing isn't as bad as usual and there's a fair bit more card draw (and other hand-filling) than usual. Dreadbaron, in this set at least, isn't quite the devastator he appears to be. Extremely potent, yes, but he'll probably take an average of three turns to really put one opponent in a bad way.
Though if, in testing, he's warping plays, I'll ditch the discard clause and maybe make it an exiling-mill for 2 and a sacrifice of 1 (I like the 321 progression).
Noted. One of my favorite retrace designs, btw. Just imagine him bursting out of a volcano, splashing onlookers with magma as he climbs into the sky, smoke trailing behind like an obscene tail.
I figured the set could use some clean sweeping, especially for weenies.
Exactly. It's a red rendition of that 8/0 trampler, but with at least a little board effect. It's a pure Johnny card for sure, and there are a few cards in the set to help him out.
I like that it can win you a game, but not by damaging players. That twist was interesting. I liked taking effects that wouldn't ordinarily win you games on their own and marrying them to Treasure to make players think differently about the card than they usually world. Utility control commons become potential game winners. It's a very interesting layer, especially in draft.
Hahahaha, yes! That's exactly the idea. Remember that for every group of adventurers in Excellion, there's a high-society financier paying for them to retrieve something shiny. And heaven help you in your collection isn't better than everyone else's. That's a little nod to the flavor of the Treasure mechanic itself.
The green traps shy away from traditional artifice and use nature-based mechanisms like vines, thorns, etc.
The Kithkin are industrious little adventurers. Their dexterity make them fantastic trapslippers and their nigh-psychic teamwork make them adept survivors. They claim a small territory along the Kithwash River as it slides through the Caloris Panitia, a large arid grassland on western Kinshasa.
Typically found assisting adventuring bands or teaming up to herd large game, the kithkin have grown interested in Stelmarria's enlightenment-focused teachings and many kithkin have given up life in the open wilds for places in cities like Razalen and Libreton, which feature Stelmarran Colleges
Braver of the Kithwash 1W
Creature — Kithkin Scout Ally (C)
Flash
When Braver of the Kithwash or another Ally comes into play, untap all creatures you control.
“The roughest river in all of Excellion demands the brightest navigator.”
2/1
Diversionary Tactics 3W
Enchantment (U)
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Tap target creature.
“Catching viculga beasts is done best by distracting one from the front as your trapper closes in from behind. And no one works together as one better than the Kithkin.” -Degan, herder of Caloris Panitia
Divider of Spoils W
Creature — Kithkin Cleric (C)
Whenever a Treasure comes into play under your control, gain 1 life.
No adventuring party is without one all joiners can trust to fairly parcel out each man’s take of the bounty.
1/1
Kithwash Journey W
Enchantment — Quest (U)
Whenever a 1/1 creature comes into play under your control, put a quest counter on Kithwash Journey.
1W: White creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn. Play this ability only if there are four or more quest counters on Kithwash Journey.
Scathewalker Kithkin W
Creature — Kithkin Rogue (C)
When Scathewalker Kithkin attacks, prevent all damage that would be dealt to it this turn if the defending player controls a Ruins.
Deft fingers and nimble feet make for the best explorers of Excellion’s forgotten cities.
1/1
Scathewalker's Fortune 1W
Instant (C)
Target creature gains protection from artifacts until end of turn.
Gain 3 life.
“The ruins of ancient Am Bongor are rigged with many kinds of traps. Knowing how to evade them all is the only chance to discover the riches within.” Fagrizzi, scathewalker
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
Word cards like this:
Lyciabarb Pod 3GG
Enchantment (U)
Peril [I](You may pay 1 and exile this card facedown with a peril counter on it.)[/I]
If an opponent controls two or more creatures with flying and Lyciabarb Pod is exiled with a peril counter on it, you may remove the counter and put Lyciabarb Pod onto the battlefield.
When Lyciabarb Pod enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkepp, Lyciabarb Pod deals 2 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
I don't know. I know it's isn't an artifact, which is probably the reason why you put made it like that. However, having facedown anything that isn't a morph is insane. Mainly because you can't ever know if your opponent's facedown creature is a morph or peril.
There's a reason why traps in Zendikar are the way they are. They couldn't get them to work as facedown permanents or exiled permanents. I think your perils could work in the exile zone because they feel like they could. You're the designer though; it's your call.
HOWEVER, despite having an absolute rules headache with Peril, I hate innervate. It doesn't do anything besides itself. There is no visual clue or anything. It does nothing.
I had to read a couple cards to even grasp what it is trying to do. You said that a card has several states and that innervate was just like tapped or untapped and flipped and unflipped. However, it's not anything like that at all. What happens if you accidently get your permanents mixed up when you're playing with them. "Erm... I think this permanent is innervated. No, wait... Those two are." Thinking that the player will separate them on the battlefield is a bad solution because of the accidental mixing up and a lot of times, especially at FNMs, there isn't really that much space to give adequate separation to the creatures. More often than not, I see players using counters to distinguish the innervated versus the non, and if the players will use counters anyway...
Innervate makes players do something they don't want to do: Keep their creatures tapped. Tapped creatures don't do a lot of stuff. Players love doing stuff. Specifically with their creatures. "Oh, let me innervate this creature. Wait... I can't do anything with this creature the turn I cast it. Next turn I can't attack with it... I have to pay mana to innervate it? Okay... WAIT! Then it has to stay tapped the entire next turn?" [This is regarding one of the proposed options for innervate. The original one still applies here but only for two turns.] See the problem? [I have a lot more to say, but I'll move on.]
Also, it seems like an incredibly parasitic mechanic, and ever more than soulshift and Arcane in Kamigawa. Seriously, you would need every creature in your deck for this to ever work because you need six of these on the battlefield. In any single game there are hardly ever that many on one side at a time. Besides seeming like an impossible feat, if you really want to use the cards, you have to exclude every other creature you would want to put into the deck because it would dilute the innervate cards. Also, I could never see this happening in any type of well designed limited format; one with removal.
BUT
I like the inherent idea of this mechanic, and I like the multiple win condition theme in the sit.
So, what to do here?
I know this is kind of going on a completely different take on what you're are doing, but I think it might be what you're looking for.
Stalwart Observer 3G
Creature — Human Monk (C)
Innervate (At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may then exile that card innervating Salwart Observer. When Salwart Observer leaves the battlefield, put all cards innervating it onto the bottom of your library in any order.)
Stalwart Observer gets +1/+1 for each card innervating it.
Salwart Observer gains shroud if three or more cards are innervating it.
3/3
I know it is definitely not in the same vein as the other win conditions, but I feel it kind of captures the original feel of the mechanic because you're slowly building up. This time, you're building up to something that you can actually see and notice.
It's also a much more player friendly mechanic. It's card filtering, and not mandatory. (You don't have to innervate your awesome planeswalker, so you can draw it, but if you do, it gets shuffled back to your deck! Also, no worries about self-milling!) It definitely works a lot better than the older innervate, but does something completely different. Again though, I think it feels close enough to the original.
Seriously, if there's one thing that you get from this message is this: Innervate needs to go in its current form.
And I'll critique other stuff soon.
(Mainly the planeswalkers... I'm not liking them.)
But I'll leave off on a positive note. WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH QUESTS ARE AMAZING. The creatures that care about quests is something that Zen/WW were obviously hinting at with future design space. You've pretty much nailed it with them. Also, the quests without limits is great too. The quests and the related creatures are the best part of the set, hands down.
Indeed. The set was crying for an artifact-themed mechanic beyond Treasure to balance the type out. I needed a reason for artifacts to feel important in the set beyond treasure. Without that balance, the dozen or so non-treasure artifacts left really stick out like a sore thumb. I didn't want players to start asking themselves "Wait, why couldn't this card just be a Treasure like most of the other artifacts in the set? Why doesn't this card that cares about artifacts just care about treasure, wouldn't that be better?"
Because, really, those are fair questions. Why aren't all the cards just treasures? Well, for starters not everything of artifice in the world is a priceless relic. There's still modern weapons, adventuring gear, state-of-the-art navigation devices, etc. And in terms of design, I think it's important to provide contrast, give players other artifacts to judge the value of treasure against. And why doesn't every artifact-related card not just relate to treasure somehow? Because at the end of the day, I'd like for the set to not be self-referential more than needed. There approaches a point in a set design where the set just starts pointing in at itself far too much and whenever possible you need to keep that balanced. You want at least some cards to play well not just with in-set concepts, but also with the environment the set itself exists in.
To that end, I felt a second artifact related theme would help pull the set back on track. It provides a stable reason for artifact related cards in the set not to be confined solely to treasures and reinforces that not everything in the setting or the set is a treasure by virtue of being an artifact.
So I did what I always do in situations like this, I went back to the inspiration for the set. In this case, movies like Indiana Jones and games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted. In all of these stories, there are very real, physical dangers beyond villains and antagonists. The old temples and ruined cities the protagonists explore are rife with traps and mysterious ancient puzzle mechanisms. It's a huge part of the lore of this kind of genre and it was something I knew the audience would immediately connect with.
So I was looking for an artifact-related theme and at the same time, I was looking for a way to depict physical traps and dangerous puzzle devices in mechanical terms. The connection there was obvious. That it would also allow me to both echo Zendikar's Traps without essentially copying them was a good bonus as well.
Traps wanted to have a physical, artifact presence, but one of mystery flowing into surprise. Mechanically, the morph mechanic was exactly the sort of thing Traps wanted to be, but obvious flavor issues with traps being 2/2 creatures put a quick kibosh to just using morph as is. Not to mention that wouldn't help my desire to use this as an artifact mechanic. The clear next step was just to adapt a morph-like mechanic to better suit my needs.
Yeah, I know, I can't say I'm overly stoked about that either. I think at one point I used a peril counter to denote the difference in play that got removed in the flip over (since to a large extent, my only concern was differentiating the two and not cheating with them since it was my understanding that there are already rules in place that check to make sure face-down things weren't misused during a game) but as I'll explain momentarily, the set at one point was just [I]insanely[/I] counter-happy.
There came a point where I just let it go. As mentioned earlier by another poster, peril and morph aren't going to commonly be in the same environment (not in the same block, likely not in the same T2, etc). And in situations where they do cross paths, I decided just to let the rules take care of some of the issues (potential cheating with attacking with face-down "morphs" that are actually face down traps) and players themselves take care of the rest (differentiating the two face down permanents). Honestly, there was a level of taking a deep breath, saying a few hail Marys and hoping that someone on the forum would grasp the intent and have a rules savvy solution to make everything okay.
As the designer, I just want to stamp my feet until the world just makes things work the way I want. Hahahahahaha.
Seriously though, I knew I could make the mechanic work via exile, but that made the mechanic avoid a lot of the work I intended for it to do for carrying an artifact matters theme. And it also involved a great deal of interaction with exile which is something I ultimately always try to avoid. Traps were something I wanted to have a certain level of interaction with since the denizens of Excellion interact with them daily. The cards that do that can be reworked to do the same thing if peril exiled as part of its effect, but then we're left with that niggling issue of the artifact theme I was hoping traps could fill.
I think at some point I may have to just suck it up and use exile since it provides all the technical function I require, but a part of me wants to fight tooth and nail to find some way for the mechanic to make artifacts matter (I suppose that I'll have to suck up, too, since technically around 60% of peril cards end up being artifacts when turned up anyway).
Ah, counters, the secret dependency I never knew I had until this set.
This isn't the first version of innervate. Originally, it put an innervate counter on the creature if you paid the cost and kept it tapped (and I'll get to my reasons for keeping the creature tapped down). It was rather clean, was very straightforward, etc.
But, here were my mechanics at the time. Innervate (which used counters). Quests (which used lots of counters, not to mention the tiny overflow into creatures using quest counters as well). Poison (because players wanted in on the action, too). Treasure (which at one point had its Treasure Value work like Loyalty and put treasure counters on it so treasures could fluctuate in value while in play - interesting, but inevitably too complex for the meager benefit so I removed the counter aspect from the type and relegated the 'fluctuating value' concept to two cards). Add that to the usual +1/+1 counters (which, minimized from their average use, are still utilized), and the set had counter bloat.
Once I reined treasure in, the set still felt like the counter complexity was too high. Poison and Quests absolutely needed counters to function, so innervate drew the short straw.
That said, a very rare concession. Only about 10 cards in the whole set use +1/+1 counters (most of which are taken up by a cycle of 5 Allies), most of which can be reworked to greatly diminish the amount of counters in use on creatures (without +1/+1, only two rare creatures receive quest counters). If that's done and I revert innervate back to its original wording involving an innervate counter rather than a status, would that solve a bulk of the issue here?
The environment being built by Excellion is one that really doesn't want creatures attacking. That's the primary win condition of the game, this set is about alternate win conditions. That goal fails if players still just use creatures to swing and everyone just wins that way. That said, I'm not utterly stunned, I realize that the set still needs to be at least around half creatures. So what do I do with the creatures in the set if I want to reduce the usage of them to attack? Well, activated abilities with a tap help, they're there. But what dawned on me was this: why not design an ability that will win the game using creatures for something other than attacking? Something new, something to make players think about using their creatures in ways they wouldn't usually.
So I thought about what creatures did. One of the things they do a lot is tap. They tap a lot. Tap to attack, tap to activate abilities, tap to fuel other cards' effects, get tapped by an enemy to stop them from doing the rest. Players are already tapping their creatures a lot in every game. That was my way in, whatever new win-con I was going to try to make, I knew tapping was the key. So they tap, that's the start, but what happens next is that they untap. What if, instead of untapping, something happens to them (what happens ended up being flavored as a moment of transcendent awakening, a moment of pure enlightenment), something that changes that creature's whole view on its existence (a little extreme, I know, but just go with it for a second). And if enough of your creatures have this awakening, when you hit this critical mass, you win.
I liked it, it was simple, a common enough occurrence that it wasn't a radical departure from what players were used to expecting from creatures. Creatures tapped and untapped all the time at every rarity, this wasn't going to be a mechanic that really made creatures into something they're not. It did what I wanted to do, just made what creatures usually do mean something a little different.
Now. Why keep them tapped? Well, flavor-wise, the innervated creatures have a new goal in life and for the most part are just above petty, simple-minded crap like fighting. But in terms of function, I wanted to continue to diminish an innervated creature's presence in combat, reinforce the non-attacking 'theme'. Why innervate when you're just going to keep swinging? It also made it feel like more of a cost, that innervating had to be earned.
I almost made these creatures like the "choose not to untap X during your untap step" cards of old. And instead of a cost, you could just leave these guys tapped and then if you had X of them you won. But I felt that really decreased the interaction with them too much. Abilities couldn't be used, they couldn't do much for combat, they were just junking up the field. But, I did like the notion of an extended tap duration to distance the cards from other creatures. With that said, I'm not as married to keeping them tapped for an extra turn as I am to aspects of other mechanics. In fact, most of the details of innervate (the name, the exact costs, the tap duration, when things trigger, the number of innervated creatures needed to win, counter/no counter, etc) are subject to change for me as long as the basic philosophies of it (the tap and untap trigger, the distancing from combat while still leaving it an option, using creatures to win by means other than attacking with them, etc) are met, I'm very open to new takes.
That really goes for everything in the set. Except for Treasure, which I think mechanically is exactly right as is. Individual Treasure card details may need to change, but the overall mechanic is as solid as I think it can be.
I decided to allow myself one parasitic mechanic. Parasitism isn't intrinsically bad, it just doesn't make a set play exceptionally well outside of itself once parasitic elements comprise the majority.
Quests really can go anywhere. Cards that play off of quest counters still have Zendikar for help as well. Same with Allies
Treasure is awesome in that it's both very insular (it wants you playing with as many treasures as possible, currently only possible with this set) but also very modular (treasures have abilities that can be quite useful to decks even if the alt-win-con isn't going to be utilized).
Poison is reasonably insular, but it both draws on past cards for help as well as exists on its own. Some of the "get effect, get poison counters as a drawback" are in fact even better once away from the set where the drawback is lessened.
Retrace is entirely modular, as is Hideaway.
Traps want you to play more of their kind to increase doubt, but truth be told most of the individual cards are modular in nature in that they don't [I]need[/I] other trap cards to play well on their own, the peril mechanic just likes the additional mind games.
In the end, so little of the set was parasitic that I felt I'd earned one mechanic to be selfish and turn inwards. Innervate likes help from outside its set by way of tap/untap cards which are not in Excellion en masse so I feel that an Innervate deck wouldn't be more than 60-70% Excellion cards. Remember that that's what was the real issue with parasitism, Standard decks were really just block decks plus a few cards (Invasion-Odyssey T2 had decks that were wildly slanted one way or the other, for example, which also helped birth interblock synergy). I felt that having one potential deck of the whole set concentrating high like that wasn't a huge deal. Truth be told, I wouldn't expect a mechanic like innervate to make a huge splash in constructed outside of Block and Casual anyway. Its main purpose was for Limited, to give Limited creatures a way to win beyond attacking.
Thank you very much.
I don't even think I've shown a whole lot in the way of the Quest-related stuff yet.
Caller of the Void 3UU
Creature — Vedalken Wizard (R)
Whenever a spell an opponent controls is countered by a spell or ability, put a quest counter on Caller of the Void. Then you win the game if there are five or more quest counters on Caller of the Void.
Whenever a spell an opponent controls resolves, remove a quest counter from Caller of the Void.
1U: Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2.
2/4
Blue has a faint bit of a counterspell theme in the set. Nothing outrageous, just five cards across all rarities and very little of it is hard counters. But what a lot of it is is repeatable, to an extent. Between retrace and Quests, a few repeatable Mana Leak-esque effects sneaked in, crowned by this guy.
Permission-control based strategies felt right in a set where aggro is downplayed and combo of varying styles are at home. But graveyard tech, retrace chief amongst it, keeps counters in check overall.
Seascape Idealist U
Creature — Human Pirate Rogue (C)
Whenever a quest counter is put on a permanent you control, Seascape Idealist gets +1/+0 and gains flying until end of turn.
[i]“Push on, friends! I can see the end of our journey is at hand.”[/i]
1/1
Green, blue and red get a few little guys like this that reward you for "gaining a level" in your quests. Just fun little limited filler commons to highlight a theme and lend some flavor.
Aberrant Growth 4G
Enchantment (R)
If an effect would give a player one or more counters, it gives twice that many of those counters instead.
If an effect would place one or more counters on a permanent you control, it places twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead.
Planeswalkers, poison, Allies and Quests? What better time to introduce a Doubling Season riff? If green-based poison aggro is going to happen, this card will drive it while also murdering suicide black poison. As a bonus, it pushes Quests as well.
Depth of Progress 3G
Sorcery (C)
You gain 2 life for each quest counter on permanents you control.
[i]“We seek only to know of our ancestors, of where our kind originated. Your kind takes such things for granted, but every clue of our past we uncover brings the frogling nation one step closer to home.” -Krokas, Fanholt homeseeker [/i]
A Wandering Stream variant. (See, when I splurge a lot of the flashy stuff up front, what we often have left are the simple on-theme Limited commons)
Also, I love the concept of frog-folk. I used them in my last set and a few found their way in here. And every time I use them, they're the kicked puppy race. They get no respect and they're eternally kicked while they're down. These poor guys emerged from presumed extinction after having been unseen in hundreds upon hundreds of years. And they reemerged with no records of their history during that span. More than any ruins researcher, they want answers.
Journeying Elder 1GG
Creature — Elf Warrior Rogue (U)
Trample
Journeying Elder gets +1/+1 for each quest counter on permanents you control.
[i]“In my years, I have seen much. Wars between great nations, discoveries of pasts long forgotten, journeys of untold value. Come, child, let me teach you that which I’ve learned.”[/i]
2/2
With even one active Quest, this guy is good. With a few on the go, he's a monster. A monster with a walking stick.
One little note. Attack-worthy creatures aren't absent from the set, there are more than a few creatures in the set that I think would see a lot of great time in the red zone. But for the most part, these creatures are tied to a theme. The Elder here is a cheap beater, presuming you're playing with quests. Covetous Dragon (which I mentioned as a reprint) is a big flying beater, but really wants you to play with treasures. Creatures with poisonous need to attack, but their damage isn't the real fear. You get guys to swing with in Excellion, they just tend to be themed to an extent.
Titanic Ascension G
Enchantment — Aura Quest (C)
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to an opponent, put a quest counter on Titanic Ascension.
Enchanted creature gets +4/+4 and has trample, vigilance and reach if there are four or more quest counters on Titanic Ascension.
Yes, another cycle. Yes, I like cycles. No, the cycles aren't all identical and strict. The personal win condition creatures at rare are all very different, it's a very loose cycle. And the Ascensions here all have different, on-color effects as well as varying quest counter triggers.
The set's pretty big (375 cards, though some may get pushed out and into the next set since I have a great interest in exploring all this further) and cycles account for a fair bit of that. More than most non-gold sets.
Untouched Isle
Land (R)
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls is countered by a spell or ability, put a quest counter on Untouched Isle.
1U, T, Sacrifice Untouched Isle: Search your library for a nonland card and play it without paying its mana cost. Shuffle your library. Play this ability only if there are five or more quest counters on Untouched Isle.
I still don't know if this cycle needs to restrict color on the free card. I want to say they do, but we'll see.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
And that's why standing behind every good designer is a good development team. With a whip and straitjacket. Or so I've heard the saying goes.
With Caller, in two-player, if you control more lands than they do, can't you basically lock them out for the rest of the game? Sure, you might control an odd number of lands or something, but typically their spells are going to cost more than 0, so you're still coming out ahead in the mana expenditure game.
Titanic Ascension seems it would play beautifully with Aura Gnarlid.
The Untouched Isle cycle, really, really needs to enter the battlefield tapped. Also, it seems a bit incongruent with Caller; they're both blue cards that do something awesome when they reach five quest counters, but Caller cares about spells only while Isle counts spells and abilities. I foresee a lot of players failing to RTFC if the Draw-Go archetype becomes popular.
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Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaahahaaha! Beautiful!
Ability cost 2U? Fairs things up a bit, yes?
Secret time: I have always had a soft spot for Auras. Even when they aren't a theme I try to at least make a cycle or a few one-offs that really push them.
Duly noted on the tapped thing.
And the inconsistency is addressed. It now only triggers off of countered spells. See, that's the trouble with designing cards like this, the months between them can obscure details. Caller came first, months ago, the land cycle came much later.
For those still caring, I reverted Innervate to an early version melded with a version suggested by a very kind commenter earlier in the thread.
Isuri Watchman 2GG
Creature — Frog Warrior Shaman (U)
Innervate 1G (Whenever Isuri Watchman would untap, you may leave it tapped. If you do, at the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 1G. If you do, put an innervate counter on it. If you don't, untap it. At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control six or more creatures with innervate counters, you win the game.)
Isuri Watchman has poisonous 2 as long as it has an innervate counter.
3/2
This change seems slight, but it'll result in several functional changes.
-Addition of a counter itself. I didn't want to be counter-happy, but this was a compromise I was willing to make. Now counters-matter cards play with innervate. Though seemingly not a big deal, that is a fairly significant shift in function.
-Multiple activations. Always possible before but now actually means something as it grants additional counters.
-The timing. Now innervate will typically set a delayed trigger based on the untap at the start of your turn and the counter is placed if the cost is paid at upkeep. But the win trigger, if I understand correctly, won't happen until your next turn's upkeep. A rather significant shift. Given the larger window for disruption and the added vulnerability that and counters create, I may yet have to go back and readjust overall power levels of the mechanic. Six innervated creatures may be too many, for a start.
-The wording. It's a lot. I don't believe it's too complex, it's just wordy. It's 7 lines on a card, which I wish I could streamline to reduce the squeezing out of other abilities. I've shaved where possible but more help would be greatly appreciated.
I think the mechanic is slowly starting to settle into a more workable form, but it still needs work. And your comments.
As does my version of traps, which is apparently more or less stillborn and likely needs the most work out of everything.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Six innervates: How many Allies do you need to "get there," anyway?
The mechanic I'm more concerned about is the 25 point requirement for Treasure. Consider that your average Limited deck has 21-24 spells, of which it's rare that you'll see more than half during a game. Unless there are a ton of common Treasures with Treasure Values of 3+, this doesn't seem like a viable wincon for Limited (since even your non-Treasure drafting neighbors will be incentivized to take Treasures for their abilities and colorlessness).
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Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
Agreed. I don't see any real confusing rules issues here (of course, I also thought my version of morph-traps worked, so your mileage may vary). And the counter solves memory issues (and opens up a faint amount of design space).
That I couldn't tell you.
Innervate originally started off triggering from five creatures, I upped it to six to play it safe. I fear I played it too safe and five may have been the better call.
There are 17 common Treasures, all costing 3 or less, but none have a treasure value greater than 2.
There are 13 uncommon Treasures, all save for one have a TV of 2 or more, mostly 3.
There are 11 rare Treasures, typically all with a TV of 3-5.
Since I can never seem to operate the booster generator in MSE2 reliably, I can't accurately say what the frequency of treasures are or how frequently you'll hit a TV of 25 in Limited.
To be honest, like innervate's count of 6, Treasure's reliance on 25 has always been mutable to me. I think way back when a group of us discussed this, we just landed on 25 and stayed there cuz it sounded good. I doubt any of us thought of the Limited realities of it. What about 20 to mirror life totals' starting point?
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Good news: Some lovely people over in CCRulings helped me with Peril.
It now reads - Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you, you may pay its peril cost to turn it face up.)
Turning things face up now has a standardized trigger. Not exactly what I'd intended, but I think it really conveys the flavor of intruding ruins-goers accidentally setting off ancient traps. It also really freed up space on cards and makes the overall mechanic much more streamlined and smooth to understand. As a sweet side effect, it in its own way wards off aggro strategies.
Bad news: You won't see as many peril cards in the set. A lot of them are getting removed, along with several other cards. The set was large to start off with, and that made it hard for some of the alt-win-cons to get a solid foothold in Limited. As a result, a lot of cards that aren't really supporting one of those themes are getting bumped out. That lowers overall card numbers and increases the concentration of each theme. 42/~300 is much better for Treasure in Limited than 42/375, etc.
Good news: The cards bumped out aren't just disappearing. I decided that the themes here can really be followed up on and expanded, so Excellion here is getting a second set. It's in the planning stages now as I finish up this set but I already have several ideas for exploration of the design space here (chief amongst them peril on creatures, which will no longer be in Excellion, but will be a logical progression of the mechanic in set 2).
With peril pretty much solid at this point, only the finer details of innervate and treasure (in particular the numbers needed to win) need any work.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Regarding peril: Should you be allowed to turn it face up if the creature is attacking a planeswalker you control?
I'd like it to be worded something like "Whenever you or a planeswalker you control is attacked, you may pay the peril costs of any number of face-down permanents with peril you control to turn them face up." This is again a MTGO consideration as it slims it down to one delayed trigger, rather than one trigger per peril card per attacker. (Well, it would still be one trigger per card, which you'd have to order on the stack, and...argh.)
A "turn-based trigger" perhaps?
After the active player declares attackers, each defending player who controls cards that were put onto the battlefield face-down with peril, in turn order, decides whether to pay the peril costs to turn those cards face up. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. After the last player in turn order finishes making his/her choices, state-based actions are checked, then all abilities that triggered when permanents are turned face up with peril (and all abilities that triggered when a creature attacks) go on the stack in APNAP order. Then the active player has priority to cast spells or activate abilities.
But that's just my interpretation - you should post the revision to CC Rulings.
And yeah, the set was rather large and somewhat unwieldy. By focusing Excellion primarily on alt-wins and expanding on some of the secondary mechanics like peril and quests in a later set, it would make Excellion feel more cohesive, and give each set in the block(?) its own focus.
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I'm of two very divided minds about this.
One is that too many important numbers can cause confusion. 10 poison counters loses the game, 5 (probably 5) innervate creatures loses the game, the number of cards in your library matters for mill, life goes from 20 -> 0, etc. I feel like to minimize confusion, TV as a win-con should not add an additional number to the mix.
On the flipside, I think since it's the primary alt-win-con in the block, perhaps it should involve a unique number to truly distance itself from everything else. I think that's why 25 was chosen to begin with, it was a reasonable round number that wasn't typically used for much else in the game.
15 is another number that might be viable. The numbers that matter seem to be increments of 5, but thus far 15 doesn't matter. It certainly makes treasure much easier to win with, but is it too easy?
I think once the set is otherwise finished, I'd have to playtest treasure decks with all three numbers to see which strikes the best balance. I think 20 is likely the safest.
Great question. Probably, yes. It'd probably irritate and feel wrong if a trap triggered on an attack on you, but not an attack on your 'partner'.
With the complex twists on traps and quests moved off, I think it reemphasizes the focus on alternate win conditions while keeping those secondary themes exactly that - secondary. With only 3 quests per color and no cards playing with the counters, Quests are still an interesting part of the set, but they don't hog space. Same for Allies, which were similarly diminished in number. Traps are there in moderately large numbers, but still less than Treasure, Poison and Innervate. Hideaway got halved (it was the first place I trimmed) down to 11 cards which kept them there for interest and flavor, but greatly diminished the focus on it.
The only secondary theme I haven't really shipped off has been retrace and the few cards that trigger on retracing a card. I felt that it was already such a small part of the set to begin with and essentially not really much new (retrace is a repeated keyword that isn't complex and triggering off it isn't exactly wild and unusual design space) that it wasn't worth ripping it out.
Excellion is probably only a few days away from being posted in its entirety. At that point, help with additional cards to push off or delete entirely will be most welcome. As well as rules concerns and poor wording, as you've been amazing with that.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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A Good Place to Start Designing
At this point, half the spoiled cards have either been shunted out of the set or altered in some way. It's probably best if we just wait the day since I'll likely post the whole set as it stands by Monday. I'm paring it down now. White and blue are just about done, as are lands. I'm hoping to have the set as a whole down to about 280 cards or so by end of the day tomorrow.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Here's the breakdown of themes you posted a while back:
I feel you can probably nix everything that doesn't involve the four alt-win-cons and still have an interesting set. In particular, I would move hideaway/Ruins entirely over to the (tentatively) "face down cards matter" set, where it seems you've moved the bulk of Traps; putting 11 cards in each of two large sets waters down the environment of both without significantly highlighting the theme. You're leaving in Retrace, some Allies, and some Quests; could you cut Mercenaries and Life Matters? Doing so still leaves you with a pretty good color balance.
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I'm not cutting Mercenaries in general because they aren't a mechanical theme. There's no Mercenaries-matters cards, they're just there for flavor and as a little bonus to Masques-era decks. For now. If there's room in Set 2, I may toss in a card or two to make Mercs matter. Right now they exist without squeezing out other themes (on the contrary, several of the Mercs play into the poison theme).
Life Matters is left behind only in a couple cards a la Spike Drone to hint at a future theme. And a couple cards that gain life as part of the effect (like Awe Strike) to assist the theme when it shows up in greater numbers in Set 2.
There's only three Quests per color now (one at each rarity) and all the twists on the theme (Quest Auras, cards that count Quest counters, etc) are all in Set 2. Except the Rumormonger, which I felt was a cute worldbuilding one-off that doesn't feel strange by itself.
Allies are trimmed way down (2 commons and an uncommon and rare per color)
I'm down to about 25 traps, but a couple will be removed and a few added since certain colors (white in particular) lost a lot of them when all the funky ones (creatures, mainly) were bumped. White really wants to be a primary color for traps, but that's rough when you only have 2 in color. Most of the Trap-matters cards got bounced save for the odd few (mostly the Trap-spying or hating cards).
Hideaway's down to a rare cycle and one common, which I think is fine. It's still there and playable, but not dominating the set, or even the lands.
Retrace is my set's Cycling, a basic utility mechanic for all card types. It's mainly in green and red, with a nice secondary showing in blue and black. I think the set needs a simple mechanic like this, particularly one that can help give creature-light and creature-free decks a bit of long-lasting juice.
At this point, I'm thinned down to about 275, with a bit more left to get picked through in Artifacts, but a few cards still left to get added in to smooth everything out.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Treasures are very nice. Props to Pichoro for getting the treasure value up.
Traps I don't like, for multiple reasons. The first and foremost is that we already have traps, and they work completely different from these. Not calling them traps solves this problem, but even if you were to call them "peril," I have a bad feeling that these cards wont work. WotC played around with "setting" traps face down and there were apparently some problems there. IMO, these traps should actually be traps. Even if it swings dangerously close to zendikar's design space, including traps in your set would be a nice spell-based mechanic in a set dominated by permanents.
Always loved poison. From what it looks like though, it kind of seems over used. One of the ways poison has been kept under check for so long is the fact that very few cards actually give you poison counters. Now with a large chunk of the set involving poison, you have an environment where very aggressive poison decks can win with little opposition. My suggestion (if you haven't already done this) is to include lots of remedy cards to remove poison counters.
I think that Mill, Life matters, and retrace can all go. Even if it is an alt. win con, Mill doesn't seem to fit in this set.
Ruins I like. Makes sense for a treasure to be hidden in a temple and revealed when you achieve something. I think this should take up a larger part in the set. (For instance, graverobbers that can steal the hidden cards.)
I don't get Innervate. It doesn't really make sense to me both flavorfully and mechanically. Even the name is kind of confusing. I have an idea, but it might take a large amount of redesign.
Instead of making Innervate its own separate mechanic, I suggest you integrate this alt. win into a known entity; allies. Certain allies (nicknamed leaders or something) have another ability:
Alliance (At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control N or more allies with different names, you win the game.)
The different names clause is just there to make sure you don't spam Join the Ranks and Hada Freeblade like cards. Even so, this might seem a bit too easy. That's where mercenaries come in.
Disband (As long as this creature is on the battlefield, Alliances cannot be formed.)
Alright, that might be a little too flavorful for rules text, but you get the idea. Other kinds of ally hate could be thrown in as well to make sure alliance doesn't get out of hand.
Not sure about so much quest love. I think quests should be a small part of the set, if any part at all. (Perhaps the "questing" could be replaced by more hideaway stuff.)
Well, that's are my two cents. I really think you should look more into the alliance/mercenary thing, but its your set. As I said before, it would be easier to understand what's going on (especially with flavor) if the OP was a hub.
EDIT: Disband may be too narrow of an ability. But what if it hosed all kinds of "alt win"
Sabotage (As long as this creature is on the battlefield, alliances cannot be formed, treasure cannot be claimed, and players do not die from poisoning.)
or, as it probably should be written:
Sabotage (As long as this creature is on the battlefield, players cannot win the game through alliance abilities or treasure values. Players cannot loose the game through poison counters.)
It may need some flavor work, but having alt. win killers in the alt. win set might be something to look into.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Indeed.
Thanks to the CCRulings forum, we now have a great, workable version of Peril that's straightforward and rules-compliant.
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may pay its peril cost to turn it face up.)
The uniform condition was a big shift, but it really makes a lot of sense both within the mechanical needs of the set as well as the flavor of the mechanic itself. As a nice bonus, it distances the mechanic even further from the Trap mechanic of Zendikar. They both use the concept of "enemy does something to spring a devious hidden trap" to very different ends.
Which was important to me. I wanted to emulate a lot of the same genres and cliches as Zendikar without copying too much of its mechanical identity. Quests and Allies made sense as they were and could, I felt, be explored in a different way. Traps were, on the other hand, executed poorly and the concept had room to grow in other ways.
As far as spell-based mechanics go, spells don't get the short straw here. In addition to retrace being a major mechanic for spells, sorceries and instants get to enhance the existing themes in their own ways. Mill-trips, poison-fiddling, Life-tripping (a tiny theme in white here that pays off in Set 2). Beyond that, the set has a subtle theme of allowing creature-free or creature-light decks to flourish, so the spells here are pushed just a little bit in terms of efficiency and utility.
Lots? No. The set isn't brimming with poison-hate. White in particular gets a few ways to combat poison (in lieu of playing with the mechanic itself). But I made sure to place an artifact or two in the set to make sure any deck can keep poison in check.
Poison is the main theme for two colors, so it shows up in decent numbers there, but a solid third of the cards that mention poison are giving you poison counters, which can be very dangerous indeed. For many decks, the best counter to an aggressive poison deck is just to toss them a poison counter or two. There's a rare artifact that can tap to give a player a poison counter, I suspect it'll be very useful as a sideboard card against poison.
Not to mention that aggressive poison decks will be relying heavily on creatures, which is harder than usual here. Attacking into traps can be disastrous, and control will have enough anti-aggro cards to slow down hordes.
Life Matters is now only a tiny hint here and not a full theme until later.
Retrace is filling my simply utility mechanic role (with the happy bonus of being flavorful with the setting) and giving many decks that bit of extra steam to last in longer games.
And Mill isn't here in any great number. Since that tactic usually gets several cards in every block/Core combo to help it, I didn't feel it needed to be really pushed here. It's a few cards at all rarities for blue (and partially black) and the odd artifact. Just enough to be there and remind everyone who the original alt-win-con was.
I think expanding on Hideaway is something that ought to wait until a second set. The mechanic is already so rare and isolated in the game that i think it needs a bit of room initially just to get everyone reacquainted with it. But expansion is certainly in the works for them.
Mechanically, it was my way of making creatures matter in winning games for something other than attacking. It made sense to simply take advantage of something creatures do naturally and for a variety of reasons: tapping. Players still get to do everything they like to do with creatures: playing them, attacking, blocking, playing abilities, tapping them for other effects, etc. But for the trade-off of keeping one blocked an extra turn, a player can get one step closer to a victory without attacking.
In terms of flavor, it's the representation of enlightenment. These creatures, upon a moment of clarity (while tapped and on the verge of untapping or 'waking') discover a new kind of inner peace, a perfect center of awareness and thought. They reach a transcendent form of being, and in doing so become a kind of beacon for energies from the Blind Eternities. They aren't planeswalkers, but they act as sort of living magnets for the energies that make up the reality between planes. A planeswalker able to collect enough of these positively charged pawns can use them to harness the power of the Blind Eternities for themselves and reach their own version of transcendent being: as in winning the game.
The ability has gone through a bunch of versions, probably more than any of the other abilities. But I think it's pretty well settled into something a little smoother and something with a lot of design space for exploration.
Though I do agree with you on the name. I've never been particularly enamored with it, it's just the only word I found that fit all the slight variations in flavor the mechanic represents (keep in mind that white, blue and green see the same spiritual awakening through different lenses, so the word used can't be too specific yet also needs to be interesting enough to evoke a fantasy setting).
That just seems exceptionally narrow to me. I've never been a huge fan of creature type specific mechanics, especially when the types involved are so rarely used. Outside of this block, Allies only have support of two sets (Zendikar and Worldwake, along with Changelings and to a lesser extent, Mistforms). Innervate may be insular on its own, but it can make use of tap/untap effects from dozens of sets and its new wording to involve a counter can play into any number of counters-matter cards.
Quests, I felt, were a great representation of alternate play styles. They typically aren't win conditions on their own, but they feel like smaller, card-sized versions of the bigger themes. You play a certain, unique way to achieve a victory. With Quests, those victories are smaller, but they feel very much like a tinier version of what the set itself was focused on.
In terms of numbers, they certainly shrank. There's now only three per color and no funky Quests-matters cards. But they'll be explored deeper in Set 2 for sure.
It's interesting, they both fill very similar flavor roles (representing dangerous adventures in search of fortune and glory) but are rather dissimilar in mechanical execution.
Ironically, both mechanics were replaced by nothing. A lot of their numbers were cut for space.
Eventually, the OP will contain the set as a whole. I didn't figure a two-page thread was that complex to follow.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
I understand the rules, I just don't like them. It feels very much like a gimmick, and it raises the same problems the original facedown traps had during zendikar design. For one thing, you must telegraph the attack, making it incredibly easy to tell when "traps" are set, lessening the excitement of springing one and the tension of wondering what your opponent is up to. (In general.) Also, the power level and "spring" on all the traps have to be the same, which is incredibly limiting in design. If anything, WotC themselves tried and failed with this, so i don't have much faith in it.
I disagree wholeheartedly. traps were, although not key to the set, a welcome addition that added new dynamics and pretty much fit the flavor without bending over backwards. Traps are fun to play with and against with little confusion or rule mending, truly elegant design. IMO, "peril" seems rather awkward and clunky in comparison.
2 of the 3 main alt. wins you're considering are permanent based, and the third will probably strike an even match. I'm not really sure how the spells fit into this. All in all that's not a bad thing (lorwyn and RoE both consolidate into permanents, and they still work wonderfully) but it is something to be aware of.
The fact cards give you poison counters, even your own, is a reason to include lots of poison hate. To put it in perspective, there are only 10 cards in existence that care about poison, and the most that have been in a single set is 3. That's one of the main reasons why poison flies under the radar. But if you bring poison out into the fore front, people need ways to combat it. (Also note that giving yourself poison counters isn't that dangerous if your opponent isn't playing poison.)
extraneous but necessary.
The problem with mill is that it either needs to be full on or not at all. For instance, m10 features a "few" mill cards, and because of that, very few people would play mill in m10 constructed. But if we look at something like Ravnica, which has a whole guild dedicated to mill, then milling becomes a viable strategy. Mill is one of those things you can't just "splash". You have to commit to mill for it to work, which means you should have lots of mill cards or none at all.
I'm not really sure what's going on with Innervate. It's got a strange untap thing paired with a strange "needs others" thing and strange flavor. All in all, i don't think the mechanic works. The only defining thing about a creature with this ability is the fact that it can win the game if you have others with the same ability, and even then you have to switch it on. The innervation doesn't do anything for me, and the time it takes to set up is a gigantic window of opportunity for my opponents
While I agree it's narrow, I don't really understand how its more narrow than Innervate. Plus, it would create a scenario where the alt. win is just that, an alternative win. Where as decks based on treasure or poison are probably tunnel visioned towards that goal, an Alliance deck can simply be an ally deck with the added bonus of alliance sometimes going off. The difference here is that allies already synergize off of each other, allowing for alliance deck building to feel like a natural extension of allies, where innervative decks feel like they need to jump through hoops to get their wincon out.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
My traps are the ultimate 'rattlesnake' cards. Their presence isn't a surprise (and, really, is it much of a surprise for an adventurer that there's traps in an infamous ancient ruin?), but what exactly they'll do usually is. They create skill-testing game states. Do I attack now and risk it? What exactly is that trap? Okay, he has X mana open, is it a bluff? If not, what are the possible traps that can get turned up with what he's got open? Etc. There's a certain level of mindgamery that just isn't there with the Zendikar Traps. Which, IMO, raises the tension and excitement.
I don't understand.
Well, I certainly hope you change your mind, but I don't personally believe that one man's failure is another man's forbidden fruit. They may have failed, they may have chosen to go in a different direction for whatever reason, that doesn't necessarily mean it's dead design space.
Personally, I hated them when I first saw them. My opinion softened over time, but I still don't overly like them. I liked the "Gotcha!" aspect to a degree, but the fact that the opponent never knew a trap was sprung for them, though interesting in some ways, cut off much of the mechanic's interactivity. They were elegant in their way, I agree, but I felt that they were a missed opportunity for some serious mindgames and skill-testing.
Any suggestions on how to streamline it further?
As they typically do for most win conditions: vital support and utility.
You'll see sorceries and instants that play into the main themes in one way or another, but the main role of spells here are to support those themes, particularly those that want to rely on few or no creatures. The ideal here was to facilitate an environment where combo and control can thrive, and spells play a very important role in that.
It was certainly something I was conscious of as I designed.
As I mentioned before, white is the center of poison hate and as such gets the most explicit anti-poison cards. Blue has a wacky rare that swaps the counters two players have (thus playing well with the anti-poison of white and the pro-poison of black). The other three colors have no apparent poison defense cards, mostly because black and green are too pro-poison to hate on it much (though green has a single helpful enchantment at uncommon) and red is just too damn reckless to care (though red does have its version of cauterizing the wound, so to speak).
Artifacts, however, supply a bit of help. The inefficient common equipment I posted earlier, an uncommon that heals you and punishes the guy who was taking poison counters to fuel spells, and a rare that slows poison decks down by a considerable amount (and also helps self-poisoners not die so fast).
I feel that's plenty, bordering on overly cautious.
The retrace triggers are a bit extraneous, I agree, but it gives players not into the alt win cons something to do. Which is important in its own way.
Yes and no. Mill was a very, very successful draft option in Champions of Kamigawa Limited based off of a single card. Old UW control decks with mill as the win con used just Millstone, if I'm not mistaken. The key is efficiency and repeatability. If mill is costed right and pushed with cards that can be used multiple times, a block doesn't need a flood of milling cards. I have Traumatize, a Millstone-Treasure and a mill spell with retrace. I could've stopped there and mill probably still could have been viable with Jace around and with counter support.
What about those things is strange? //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?type=+[choose">+[not]+[to]+[untap]+[Creature]%7C%7Csubtype=+[choose]+[not]+[to]+[untap]%7C%7Ctext=+[choose]+[not]+[to]+[untap]"]Untapping (or lack thereof) to generate an effect? //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[champion">&type=+[Creature]"]Needing others //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[convoke">"]to have the mechanic really work? //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[threshold">+[mystic]"]The flavor of enlightenment being a catalyst to beneficial change?
I really didn't reinvent the wheel here, I just combined smaller aspects of the game in a new way.
Okay. And?
If you're talking about innervate counters mattering beyond the win condition, I used to have several cards that cared. But they were moved off since the introductory set really should be just that. Expansion of the mechanic can come later.
As far as the window of disruption goes, yes, that was intentional. Winning like this should take work, not be incredibly easy.
It only works with a few dozen cards in all the game, for a start.
And yes, I realize Innervate itself exists on half that, but the number of cards with effects/mechanics that have great synergy with it are in the hundreds. While Innervate may not appear on a wide variety of cards, the scope of cards you can play well with it is very wide.
The set really wants the alt win cons to be the focus, not an afterthought.
And I don't think the hoop you have to jump through with Alliance is interesting at all. If I have to gather up five different creatures, including at least one creature with this ability and then play them all and keep them out, why am I not just attacking with them (considering that's what Allies thus far are great for)?
There's no sense of work or achievement with Alliance. And no real incentive to use creatures for anything other than attacking.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
It's nothing we haven't seen before with morph. But even if this is "morph 2", it doesn't really feel as exciting.
IMO, placing the traps facedown takes away a large portion of the tension. From a limited standpoint, "traps" are much better than "peril," because the same decisions you would make with these traps must be made more often and about a wider variety of things. For instance, many "traps" feature attack triggers. When these are in play, players must make the same decisions. (Do I attack now and risk it? What exactly is that trap? Okay, he has X mana open, is it a bluff? If not, what are the possible traps that can can he play with what he's got open?) The only difference is that there's another level, does he even have the trap. With "peril", you know your opponent has something up his sleeve. Things are much more clear; your opponent has a trap on the field and if you attack, it might trigger. "Traps" not only have this decision, but also wether or not the trap actually exists, which adds even more tension.
But that's not all, in addition to all the "attack" triggers, other traps trigger off of anything from land drops to counters. All of those decisions are multiplied for each instance a trap exists, which pushes the mindgamery much past the point of "peril" traps which must be revealed and can only activate on attacks.
Sorry, misread the cost thing, but what i meant with the trigger is that "peril" traps only trigger when a creature attacks, which limits what they can do. This really seems limiting in an environment where there won't be a lot of attacking.
I only have doubts because WotC are professionals, they have a large team of people dedicated to this kind of stuff, and they probably know much more than both of us combined. While it doesn't really condemn any idea they couldn't make work, it does send an important message: Some things just don't work.
Well the main flaw with the design is that they have to turn into some kind of permanent with an etb effect, which doesn't seem like a trap at all. I would suggest making them "instants with morph" but this forum seems to think poorly of that idea
One idea is to make instants that cast from facedown instead of flip. For instance:
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may cast it for its peril cost.)
Not sure if that works though. Another idea: switch up the flavor a bit.
Ambush [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you may pay [COST] and turn ~ face up.)
By changing all of the "peril traps" to creatures, the mechanic makes a bit more sense. While you loose the "trap" flavor, the idea of a band of goblins or a sneaky assassin or some ancient elemental striking when they least expect it isn't hard to grasp both flavorfully and mechanically. (Of course, turning into an artifact is a bit weird, and it might be too much like morph).
One last thing would be to make all "peril" cards auras.
Peril [COST] (You may play this face down as an artifact for 1. Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, you pay [COST], turn ~ face up, and attach it to an attacking creature.)
Flavorfully, its a magical trap that curses those who are caught in it. Mechanically, it's a little less awkward.
If I understand the mechanic correctly, you must pay a cost that replaces an untap and gives a creature a state. That's pretty strange. As far as I know, there are no abilities that "replace" an untap with a cost, and there are very few abilities that give creatures states without representation. (If you're using counters, then that's a little better.)
The point is that abilities need other cards, not other mechanics. One of the things WotC talked about when designing the Ally mechanic was wether or not to make it a creature type. In the end, they decided to because an ability that looked for cards with that ability was awkward. Cards can look for other cards (Slivers), Cards can look for other abilities (Defenders in RoE), Abilities can look for other cards (Kinship), but very rarely does a ability itself look for others with the same ability. (By ability, I mean keyword ability)
The difference is that jumping through hoops to get innervate up isn't nearly as "fun" as treasure or poison. Take a look at treasure. Treasure represent alternate wins, but they're also okay cards on their own. If you kill my last treasure, that's ok, because the cost for it was relatively low, and most of my treasures still have effects and abilities that can help me out. Plus artifact removal isn't that mainstream, so the chances my treasures could be destroyed are pretty small.
But now look at innervate. Not only do I have to play the creature, but I have to waste a turn and mana with it paying an untap cost, and then keep it alive while I get the rest out. Creature removal is so prominent that its easy to keep innervate cards off the battlefield, and in the end you've sunk time and mana into something that wasn't really worth it.
I would play treasure, I would play poison, but Innervate seems like too much work with too many weaknesses.
My suggestion would be to make innervate mean something. Make them flip cards that flip into something else, or make them turn into indestructible enchantments, or do something to make me want to put effort into these guys and know that all the time and effort put into something other than killing my enemy won't be wiped away Day of Judgement.
I don't really get this. I'm not sure if you can count a card that untaps something as having synergy with Innervate. Bottom line; both mechanics need others to work. I don't care if you have 50 cards that can untap your innervate dude, if you only have one there's no point.
Remember that sets should be designed for everyone. Some people don't wanna play a deck that alt wins, some of them want to just beat down. Alliance gives an alt win (the point of the set) to an already established strategy, and can be used to bring alt wins closer to those who don't want to play a deck made specifically for them.
Well the point is to give an alt. win to an already viable tactic. Think of Coalition Victory. There's a very small chance you'll go through all that work and not actually attack in the mean time, but that's the beauty of it. Alt. wins don't always have to be the meaning of the deck. Often some of the best alt. wins are the ones who don't rely on it and have a plan B as well.
Work =/= wastes time. Just because something doesn't take forever to pull off doesn't mean it doesn't require work. When's the last time you've seen more than 5 or 6 unique creatures on the battlefield, especially ones that are a threat. Most games never get up to 5 creatures on the battlefield total (slightly more in limited), so amassing a bunch of allies would probably just as if not harder than innervate to pull off. The difference would be that allies give boosts and bonuses, making them good cards to have even when you're not "winning the game" with them, and they don't require extra resources to "turn on."
Also, how many cards did the set start with? You say you've narrowed it down to 270 or so, but sets normally don't have more than around 240. Cutting cards and mechanics is almost harder than creating them, but "less is more," as they say.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
You haven't given up on this thing, have you {MikeyG}? I'm still looking forward to flipping through that set file.
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Given up? No.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains