Good job then
Sets (LTR) The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth
- Thread starter Velrun
- Start date
Good job then
Sovereigns of Lost Alara x Polymorph for Equips. Could be fun.
Might become my Bant card thanks to the Add GGG.
Pretty interesting blue sweeper plus Demonic Pact enabler.
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I know a lot of people have been saying how they find "The ring tempts you" unfortunate text to find on a lot of good cards. And the mechanic that was designed for it is boring and not worth the added complexity. And also not thematically cool (or that cool from a game-play standpoint).
I saw some other people suggest inventing your own mechanic in place of the one wotc made to use for your cube. Curious if anyone has come up with any good ideas for that or tried them out?
The one I was thinking is essentially borrowed from the actually artifact wizards made in this set.
"When the ring tempts you, draw a card and gain a burden counter. At the beginning of your upkeep lose life equal to the number of burden counters you have."
Thoughts?
I saw some other people suggest inventing your own mechanic in place of the one wotc made to use for your cube. Curious if anyone has come up with any good ideas for that or tried them out?
The one I was thinking is essentially borrowed from the actually artifact wizards made in this set.
"When the ring tempts you, draw a card and gain a burden counter. At the beginning of your upkeep lose life equal to the number of burden counters you have."
Thoughts?
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It is actually kind of interesting because someone early in the thread pointed out how its weird that the "ring" card is not equipment. And someone else said "well the idea is that WE (the summoner) are wearing the ring". Which makes sense. Fine. And the text even says "the ring tempts YOU" (not the ring tempts one of your creatures). But the mechanic then makes it like one of your creatures is wearing the ring and gets benefits from it. But we are the one who is supposed to be wearing the ring and the ring is tempting us--feels like it should be benefits and drawbacks the player experiences, not a creature the player controls.
To add more decision complexity I am wondering if you could make give a list of a few bonuses that you get from the ring tempting you and the player gets to choose. So it would be something like this:
"When the ring tempts you, gain a burden counter a choose one of the following:
1) draw a card
2) put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to two target creatures you control
3) return target non-land permanent to its owners hand
4) add mana to your mana pool equal to the number of burden counters you have. This mana does not drain from your mana pool at the end of any phases this turn.
5) create a 1/1 colorless spirit creature token with flying
At the beginning of your upkeep lose life equal to the number of burden counters you have."
Something like that. You could also make it 5 benefits that are thematic to each color. And the benefit you get is dictated by the color of the card that caused the tempting. Lore-wise, the one ring was supposed to amplify the things you already were good at or desired. It didn't just make you generically "more powerful". This is why hobbits were such ideal ring bearers. They had little to know ambition so the ring was not really able to tempt them the way it could lots of other people. Samwise was tempted by being the worlds best gardener. So it would make sense that when a blue card tempts you, it would tempt you in a way that blue is good at--card draw, for instance.
So maybe something more like this:
"When the ring tempts you, gain a burden counter and...
...if a white card tempted you, create two 1/1 white soldier creature tokens
...if it was a blue card, draw card
...if it was a black card, return target creature from your graveyard to your hand
...if it was a red card, deal 2 damage divided how you choose to any number of targets
...if it was a green card, put a +1/+1 counter on up to two target creatures
If the card has multiple colors, pick one from among those colors. At the beginning of your upkeep lose life equal to the number of burden counters you have."
I was about to suggest that, but it sounded extremely broken.
I would make you draw a card for each counter if it costs you a life each turn though. I also think such a mechanic might overshadow the gameplay experience a bit too much. In limited I also think it could be cool to have you mill cards instead, which feels more appropriate to the subtlety of the ring's influence.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Having played a bit with the ring tempts you, I am actually a fan of the mechanic as is. If you want to make a personal version, I definitely wouldn’t make it more (or even as) complex as WotC’s implementation. The “when the ring tempts you, draw a card and lose life equal to the number of burden counters you have. Then gains burden counter.” solution or something like it is the cleanest.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Honestly if you have a bunch of ring tempts you, it's apparently a pretty fun mechanic, if talks about this limited format are to be believed.
It's annoying to have on one random card in your cube though, that's a lot of outside stuff for one card
It's annoying to have on one random card in your cube though, that's a lot of outside stuff for one card
I’m imagining a cube where you have it on like 5-10 cards out of 540
It plays out well online. Jammed a ton of Arena during that set.
It's a bit clunky in person, more memory issues. You do get used to it, but as much as it did work gameplay-wise, I'd be happier to never Cube with it, even in a LotR-centric environment.
There are like 4-5 cards I would be really happy Cubing with the tempt mechanic that I keep out for this reason, including but not limited to to:
I acknowledge that One Ring to Rule Them All is pretty reliant on the tempt mechanic, but I really liked Phyrexian Scriptures back in the day and felt this was so close to a version of it that would still make sense for my environment.
Looking through the set, yeah, this was a fun time, but I don't miss the mechanic. I still have 28 cards from the expansion/commander set in my Cube, which is pretty good for 2 years on, but I guess that's really only 20 when you take out some of the lovely LotR-skinned cards I picked up (how could anyone pick anything other than the Saruman Consider?)
It's a bit clunky in person, more memory issues. You do get used to it, but as much as it did work gameplay-wise, I'd be happier to never Cube with it, even in a LotR-centric environment.
There are like 4-5 cards I would be really happy Cubing with the tempt mechanic that I keep out for this reason, including but not limited to to:
I acknowledge that One Ring to Rule Them All is pretty reliant on the tempt mechanic, but I really liked Phyrexian Scriptures back in the day and felt this was so close to a version of it that would still make sense for my environment.
Looking through the set, yeah, this was a fun time, but I don't miss the mechanic. I still have 28 cards from the expansion/commander set in my Cube, which is pretty good for 2 years on, but I guess that's really only 20 when you take out some of the lovely LotR-skinned cards I picked up (how could anyone pick anything other than the Saruman Consider?)
Yeah, broadly speaking it's fine as a mechanic, but the memory issues push it towards being something that you need to make space for.
I feel like we need a term for that kind of thing - stuff like Daybound/Nightbound or Speed aren't exactly parasitic (you can run a single card with the mechanic on it in a deck and be fine), but they still have memory and complexity issues that make them annoying unless they're a major feature of the environment they're in. Because it looks like WotC really likes printing new ones...
I feel like we need a term for that kind of thing - stuff like Daybound/Nightbound or Speed aren't exactly parasitic (you can run a single card with the mechanic on it in a deck and be fine), but they still have memory and complexity issues that make them annoying unless they're a major feature of the environment they're in. Because it looks like WotC really likes printing new ones...
I think the term for that is stuff in the "bank" which includes stuff like experience counters, suspended cards, poison counters, energy counters, etc.
So there is definitely some overlap between parasitic mechanics and cards that generate value for the bank.
I definitely see Meren of Clan Nel Toth as basically speed with a different condition.
Meren has a self-contained bank though, while Frodo, Sauron's bane and white plume adventurer have to go rob a bank in order to show their value.
So there is definitely some overlap between parasitic mechanics and cards that generate value for the bank.
I definitely see Meren of Clan Nel Toth as basically speed with a different condition.
Meren has a self-contained bank though, while Frodo, Sauron's bane and white plume adventurer have to go rob a bank in order to show their value.
“In the bank” makes me think of something secure and of value, whereas mechanics of this sort mean a card is less secure in my cube and has to add a lot of value in gameplay to compensate for the additional bookkeeping.
I tend to think of these mechanics as adding “clutter” in terms of extra game pieces. I think most of us tolerate a certain amount of clutter in terms of +1/+1 counters and tokens (though grumble when another unique token type is added). Bar cubes seem to be increasingly popular, which are designed to have minimal clutter.
I tend to think of these mechanics as adding “clutter” in terms of extra game pieces. I think most of us tolerate a certain amount of clutter in terms of +1/+1 counters and tokens (though grumble when another unique token type is added). Bar cubes seem to be increasingly popular, which are designed to have minimal clutter.
I remember writing a few years ago on this site that Equipments are tools creatures can use and artifacts are tools we players can use.
It was a fine mechanic in the set, had a lot of fun at prerelease and the one draft I did (where I lucksacked into opening a foil The One Ring and then retired from that Limited format), but it's so annoying to track in any other format. I played against a friend in an EDH pod where he was running Sauron, the Dark Lord and a bunch of Nazgul and the tediousness of tracking that mechanic, +1/+1 counters, and everything else swore me off ever considering this mechanic for gameplay.
It's so tedious; introducing new game objects that aren't evergreen across multiple sets is just extra upkeep and information overload after a certain point. If it's going to be a featured them for an environment then it has to go real deep for it to be worth inclusion. Like I'd have no problem playing a set cube of LoTR where things are more pared down, but much like Initiative it's a hard pass for me in a traditional cube environment. The gameplay isn't worth that massive jump in complexity and tracking in paper.
It's so tedious; introducing new game objects that aren't evergreen across multiple sets is just extra upkeep and information overload after a certain point. If it's going to be a featured them for an environment then it has to go real deep for it to be worth inclusion. Like I'd have no problem playing a set cube of LoTR where things are more pared down, but much like Initiative it's a hard pass for me in a traditional cube environment. The gameplay isn't worth that massive jump in complexity and tracking in paper.
I seriously think it's at the detriment of the whole game. I'm honestly kind of amazed at reading cards from older formats in how they just present as fun lego pieces you can try to make a deck with. Now everything is just "gimmick-tribal". You play a bunch of "this cards does X if you control a Set Gimmick" and then those cards are just completely isolated from any other set. It's a real shame.
I honestly blame this kind of thing on the transition from the block structure to the current seven-completely-distinct-sets-a-year structure, combined with WotC's general reluctance to reuse mechanics. That attitude makes sense when you're designing three sets a year that have to share some mechanical throughline (since you're drafting them together), but seems positively maladaptive when you apply it to the modern design schedule.
If you look at just this year and include Spider Man, they've added 18-ish new mechanics to the game, and we still have a set to go after the spooder one - no wonder a lot of the designs end up feeling like gimmick tribal!
The funny part is that there are still clean lego piece cards - they just get swamped by the generally high power level of current Magic design. We need more Under the Skins and fewer Paranormal Analysts.
If you look at just this year and include Spider Man, they've added 18-ish new mechanics to the game, and we still have a set to go after the spooder one - no wonder a lot of the designs end up feeling like gimmick tribal!
The funny part is that there are still clean lego piece cards - they just get swamped by the generally high power level of current Magic design. We need more Under the Skins and fewer Paranormal Analysts.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
These are two very clean designs that both have a place in Magic, I feel. The problem isn't that we need less PA's, the problem is dread shouldn't be a one set mechanic. I would love for them to connect different sets through a shared mechanic.
Oh yeah, they both have a place - my point is that one type of design stands better by itself, and as a result offers more of the "rules lego" feel that Rasmus is talking about.
Even if WotC had decided to include Manifest Dread in every set in 2024, Paranormal Analyst would still be a card that only wants to be in Manifest Dread.dec and that would feel kinda bad if you tried to play with it outside of the Dreadfully Manifested Format, while Under the Skin's softer scaling and less explicit synergy means that it's playable in decks with even a fairly minimal amount of graveyard-stocking. If card designs for a particular mechanic lean more towards superficially clean but parasitic payoffs like Paranormal Analyst over more subtle synergy pieces like Under the Skin, fewer sets are going to be able to make use of that mechanic because it's going to gobble up more set design space.
(Granted, I'm also someone who really likes Sunder the Gateway, so maybe I just have a Gravedig bias.
)
Even if WotC had decided to include Manifest Dread in every set in 2024, Paranormal Analyst would still be a card that only wants to be in Manifest Dread.dec and that would feel kinda bad if you tried to play with it outside of the Dreadfully Manifested Format, while Under the Skin's softer scaling and less explicit synergy means that it's playable in decks with even a fairly minimal amount of graveyard-stocking. If card designs for a particular mechanic lean more towards superficially clean but parasitic payoffs like Paranormal Analyst over more subtle synergy pieces like Under the Skin, fewer sets are going to be able to make use of that mechanic because it's going to gobble up more set design space.
(Granted, I'm also someone who really likes Sunder the Gateway, so maybe I just have a Gravedig bias.
)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think these parasitic payoffs give a mechanic texture though. If all we got were generic LEGO pieces, the soul of the mechanic would be lacking. They’re also a minority of the designs, I feel. Like, Paranormal Analyst is literally the only card with the line “Whenever you manifest dread”. There’s other cards like They Came from the Pipes that interact with face-down creatures, or cards like Curator Beastie that work with colorless creatures, but those designs are often self-contained (in the sense that you don’t need other manifest dread cards for them to do something, strictly speaking, though obviously you get more mileage out of your build around card if you actually build around it) plus more broadly applicable than just manifest dread. Also, we did get face-down creatures in Ravnica: Everybody’s a Detective Now, so there actually was cross-pollination between two standard sets there. This means Paranormal Analyst truly is the single specific parasitic payoff for manifest dread. And it wears its identity on the tin, there’s no mistaking what this card wants you to do!
All in all, I don’t think these parasitic payoffs claim a large portion of the set, and they give a lot of texture that would otherwise be missing. It’s fun to build around a mechanic (at least for some people, like me), and parasitic payoffs provide a very natural way to get lured into that rabbit hole. In short, they serve a purpose, and I think Magic would be less for it if WotC stopped doing them.
All in all, I don’t think these parasitic payoffs claim a large portion of the set, and they give a lot of texture that would otherwise be missing. It’s fun to build around a mechanic (at least for some people, like me), and parasitic payoffs provide a very natural way to get lured into that rabbit hole. In short, they serve a purpose, and I think Magic would be less for it if WotC stopped doing them.
Just so we're clear, Onder, I'm not saying that designs like Paranormal Analyst shouldn't exist - I was making a comment agreeing with Rasmus' feeling that sets have become more gimmick-tribal-y, and I was taking an off-hand stab at a distinction between cards that feel gimmick-tribal-y vs. cards that don't feel gimmick-tribal-y, and expressing a vague thought that a high level of gimmick-tribal-y cards for a mechanic is really what limits its portability.
I mostly picked Manifest Dread cards because they were printed relatively recently and because there were clear examples of both kinds of design. An alternate way to express what I'm thinking about would be to say that mechanics like Ninjutsu or Suspend are Under the Skin-y and Energy or Gates are more Paranormal Analyst-y.
I mostly picked Manifest Dread cards because they were printed relatively recently and because there were clear examples of both kinds of design. An alternate way to express what I'm thinking about would be to say that mechanics like Ninjutsu or Suspend are Under the Skin-y and Energy or Gates are more Paranormal Analyst-y.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
But I think that’s mainly nostalgia speaking. Like, old sets had these cards as well. Gimmick-y Tribal, if that’s what you want to call it, is not a new thing, it’s a proven design technique. Case in point:
I think what Rasmus was talking about is not the Paranormal Analyst type of designs, but rather the glut of complex set mechanics like taking the initiative, exploring dungeons, and getting tempted by the ring. All of these require tokens that are so complex, that you can’t understand what a card with this mechanic does just by reading the card. What does taking the initiative mean? Please refer to this double-faced token that explains the rules on one side, and has a multi-room dungeon with a variety of potential paths through on the other side.
I think what Rasmus was talking about is not the Paranormal Analyst type of designs, but rather the glut of complex set mechanics like taking the initiative, exploring dungeons, and getting tempted by the ring. All of these require tokens that are so complex, that you can’t understand what a card with this mechanic does just by reading the card. What does taking the initiative mean? Please refer to this double-faced token that explains the rules on one side, and has a multi-room dungeon with a variety of potential paths through on the other side.
I would also like to comment that while there are "cycling matters" cards, and those are """parisitic""" in the sense of only caring explicitly about cycling, the cycling mechanic itself can show up in whatever set. It pains me when we see a bunch of cool cards but they say something "if a card Voided this turn" because that just translates to "if a card Did The Set Gimmick" and it just isolates that card.
Astral Slide gets new relevance when we get new cycling cards. Of course it might just be a matter of time before a Set Gimmick gets put in a new set, but I don't feel like that's really anything WotC is looking to do.
Astral Slide gets new relevance when we get new cycling cards. Of course it might just be a matter of time before a Set Gimmick gets put in a new set, but I don't feel like that's really anything WotC is looking to do.