General Card design theory

[spicewitch]

Let's talk some card design stuff outside of the "print this" or "my cube needs a card that does X" from the other thread. A little more general. I'm interested in folks' questions and perspectives both as relates to cube design and as relates to card design.

1. At least in Modern, wotc seems to be wary about printing cards that allow one player to cheat. (Such as how in Go Fish, you can lie and say you don't have any 2s, and claim you drew them later.) Having met some of the tykes who play FNM, I can understand their apprehension. What kind of mechanics would you expect to see in Magic if both players were allowed to trust each other?

F'rinstance: I feel like black discard is sometimes held back by only having two options: A, target player discards one or more cards. A can be pretty meaningless if their hand has jank in it that they weren't planning to play anyway, or crippling if their hand is great or they're down to few cards. B, target player reveals their hand to you and you pick from it. This has to be costed higher because you get to see their entire hand and take the best possible card - within the targeting restrictions of your spell, at least. If cards assumed non-asshole players, you could have things like "Target player discards the most expensive card in their hand" or "target player discards a Sorcery or Instant card, but if they can't you get to draw 2 cards", etc.

2. What's the deal with creature types? They seem to be constantly changing their mind on how many creature types there should be, simplifying it in some sets only to open it back up wide again. A card like Baneslayer Angel hates demons and dragons, but what about the devils? It seems like she'd hate them too, and it'd only take up a word or two more to say so. It's not like they don't exist; there's 14 of them, 15 if you include Legacy!

For cube, do you ever make devils or other "also-ran" creature types count as Demons? If you were to make a custom set, would anything outside of the mainstays (demon, horror, zombie, goblin, elf, human, etc) make the cut or would you stick to creature types that have interactions with existing cards?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think it's fine to have creature types dictated by flavor. I can also understand why Baneslayer doesn't hate Devils. Compared to Demons and Dragons they're a pretty unassuming bunch. Annoying, sure, but not nearly as dangerous (and large) as Demons and Dragons. Baneslayer is about fighting the big evils of the world, not the small ones.

Usually I'm looking out for tribal synergies in my cube a bit, but not really creating cards for those tribes, with one exception. I made a custom, color-shifted Mogg War Marshal, now a white human that makes white human tokens. It's very fun to play actually, and fits very well into the white decks.

 

[Eric Chan]

When you wrote "cheat", "Modern", and "wary" all in the same sentence, at first I thought you meant Modern lacked cards like this:



For the discard scenario, it's similar to why conditional tutors always force the player to reveal the card they've searched for, whereas unconditional tutors typically don't. I don't think this has actually changed from how Magic worked early on. There's just too much potential for abuse through any other implementation, whether that abuse is intentional or not. Players can make honest mistakes, but at least forcing them to reveal means that mistake won't cascade forward and affect the rest of the game - hopefully, it's caught immediately.

Funny enough, this card does exist, and puts a conscious choice to the player discarding:

 

[Lucre]

I'm like pretty decent at designing cards. I haven't been in a contest or anything in a while and I don't really play competitive magic anymore but I like cube a lot.

Yeah honor system cards are something you see more in GMT and fantasy flight boardgames for players who want to sorta play the game and who know each other. There is usually also a discard pile that can be checked or an upkeep chance for oversight but it's often quite far from the cheatable interaction.

If you have any more specific questions I'd be happy to help. I think you are more interested in cube custom rules / errata though am I right?

 

[spicewitch]

If you have any more specific questions I'd be happy to help. I think you are more interested in cube custom rules / errata though am I right?

Nope! I like making custom cards, I've got a couple partially-completed custom sets, AND I like cubing-specific houserules.

As far as the houserules go... let's talk Incinerate.



"Can't be regenerated" is seen on a lot of red cards in Legacy. But in Modern it's mostly a black effect. Either way, it's kinda crap in the typical cube. Undying, persist, Reassembling Skeleton, Phyrexian Reclamation... there's no end to the number of things that work kinda like Regenerate but don't actually say Regenerate on the tin.

Now, probably in the sets where those cards appeared, there was enough Regen for that to make sense, but... there just aren't a lot of artifacts or lands that are going to be doing a lot of regenerating, y'know?

So let's say you have a bunch of those can't-regenerate cards lying around and you want to make them make more sense. What would you do? Replace anti-regen with the Searing Blood effect? Give them a clause along the lines of "creature cannot return to the battlefield this turn"? Other similar but better effects?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So let's say you have a bunch of those can't-regenerate cards lying around and you want to make them make more sense. What would you do? Replace anti-regen with the Searing Blood effect? Give them a clause along the lines of "creature cannot return to the battlefield this turn"? Other similar but better effects?

Edit: I actually like just using the exile clause. Regenerate comes up far less than graveyard recursion in a typical cube, and I like that it can be an answer to burn. One that, generally, requires you to hold up mana at that. I think if they ever "reprint" Yamabushi's Flame at it's replacing Incinerate in my cube.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think bootman is on to something here. Pillar of flame has been solid in my cube, and yamabushi's flame was a crowd favorite in my old old cube. (Carbonize is a little cute)

I think the reason for "can't be regenerated" dropping off is for whatever reason, new players just don't understand how regeneration works. (Instead of dying, Tap it, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat.) I still get questions about how it works to this day in my cube actually.

Also, I can think of very few reasons pillage says can't be regenerated:



WotC has also moved away from rules text that is mostly flavor text (Other than baneslayer above where it adds flavor)

 

[Lucre]

I like the idea of more incinerates and carbonizes but then it seems kinda dumb to play white and black removal lol.
Jesus think about stuff like flame slash. Hardly seems fair lol.

 

[Lucre]

Red: Cheap sweepers, cheap answers that remove small creatures but can also go to the face pretty well, often befuddled by tricks. Removal a pressure but not universally applicable. Usually tempo advantageous. Lets not forget burn spells are often very close to cheaper heroes downfall.

Black: Efficient answers to any size of creature, at higher costs can generate card advantage or can deal with an additional permanent type. Removal is often universally effective except in the most inexpensive of cases, or at least probably should be. Ought to be tempo advantageous except maybe against aggro decks.

White: Creature removal is extremely efficient and applicable, but comes with a severe downside. Very efficient sweepers that often do not play well with the other half of their cards, efficient attacking creatures. Expensive clunky multi-permanent type removal spells that are broader than black's versions but also more awkward.