General Next Design Contest Ideas

[psly4mne]

I've run a complex card like this before which was really high on elegance in terms of how the mechanics worked, had correct Magic-ese in terms of templating, but was a grokkability nightmare and never saw play

I'm curious, what was the problem with that? You can't get back the creature you sacrificed, but I feel like most people get that intuitively. I probably wouldn't play the card just because it's hard to get a card's worth of value out of the effect, but it seems simple enough.
The most common confusion with Switftwing Scout is that it triggers at the beginning of the declare blockers step, but you don't put the trigger on the stack (and choose a target) until after blockers are declared.

 

[Tzenmoroth]

Wow that card was hard to read. I guess you could say that card was a grave mistake...

 

[Aoret]

@psly
Ah, but you can. The sacrifice is an additional cost, and this is an important part of my original vision for the design. I wanted an effect that was sort of the black version of blinking a creature, but didn't feel quite as flat as "kill this dude and then bring him back".

The other problem is that new players choke on "with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the sacrificed creature," but writing it in a more grokkable way wouldn't be uh... magically binding?

So basically if I were willing to change my vision for this design on either or both of these axes, I'd have a perfectly grokkable card, but to me it sullies the vision to the point where I'm no longer even interested, so I'm stuck with a really gorgeous proxy of an elegant idea that nobody will ever play :/

EDIT: @Tzen... grave AF!!! lol

 

[Tzenmoroth]

I'm curious, what was the problem with that? You can't get back the creature you sacrificed, but I feel like most people get that intuitively. I probably wouldn't play the card just because it's hard to get a card's worth of value out of the effect, but it seems simple enough.
The most common confusion with Switftwing Scout is that it triggers at the beginning of the declare blockers step, but you don't put the trigger on the stack (and choose a target) until after blockers are declared.

It has Dead Ringers syndrome. Seemingly innocuous text that turns out to be a little whirlwind of wait what?

 

[Tzenmoroth]

@psly
Ah, but you can. The sacrifice is an additional cost, and this is an important part of my original vision for the design. I wanted an effect that was sort of the black version of blinking a creature, but didn't feel quite as flat as "kill this dude and then bring him back".

You choose targets before costs are paid. Which is why flashback dread return can't return a creature sacrificed to itself.

 

[psly4mne]

Other than that slight wrinkle that was apparently less intuitive that I thought, the card seems really simple. You sacrifice a creature, you get back a creature with lesser or equal CMC.

 

[Aoret]

You choose targets before costs are paid. Which is why flashback dread return can't return a creature sacrificed to itself.

See, even I can't get it right! There probably just isn't a way to template this to do the thing I want then, yeah?

Other than that slight wrinkle that was apparently less intuitive that I thought, the card seems really simple. You sacrifice a creature, you get back a creature with lesser or equal CMC.

This says what I was trying to get across way better than I ever could. Card is mechanically very straightforward once you've written your mental shorthand for it, but getting there is way, way too painful.

 

[Tzenmoroth]

The trick is to remove the word target and just use wording like "creature of your choice", which gives the card even more Dead Ringers syndrome. @_@

 

[Aoret]

Bad design is bad

 

[Chris Taylor]

Man, maybe I just custom too much, but I shorthanded that basically instantly.

 

[vennythekid]

Here's an idea for a contest:
GRBS ("game-ruining bullshit, for the uninitiated) cards are extremely powerful but can also be very interesting, and have a lot of interaction and play to them. Choose a card that has been deemed GRBS by the Riptide community and submit a redesign of the card that preserves the level of play that the original card had but at a power level where it doesn't completely ruin an otherwise competitive game of Magic.

Possible list (obviously might be revised):
Recurring Nightmare
Skullclamp
Batterskull
Umezawa's Jitte
Wurmcoil Engine
Balance
Grave Titan
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Gideon Jura

 

[Jason Waddell]

Cutting room floor is a solid idea. I'd be down for either that or the top-down. Some spitballing on some rule stuff, based on categories I heard discussed in the video, you could score cards on:

1. Fits the theme of the challenge
2. Balance (necessitates a common point of reference e.g. Penny Pincher or Jason's cube or something)
3. Riptideness (is good but is better in synergistic decks)
4. Elegance (X2 scores high)
5. Grokkability (X2 scores low)
6. Art choice
7. Templating (the text itself)
8. Render (aesthetic elements including layout of the text, how close to a real card does this look)

I feel like 2-5 fall under the umbrella of "design" and 6-8 fall under the umbrella of "aesthetics".

If I'm fully honest, I really liked the chat Chris and I had over the cards, and I'd be wary of making it more "formal" than that. I'm still going to weigh in on which cards I like and which I don't (my personal breakdown is probably 90% design based, 10% aesthetics based), and throw it up to the community vote, as before.

 

[Aoret]

I'd be wary of making it more "formal" than that.

Oh God, yeah, please don't make us sit through scoring eight categories on a 1 through 5. If y'all didn't kill yourselves the audience would certainly mass suicide.

I probably shouldn't have used the term "scored". What I was getting at was really just two things:
1. Aforementioned points about the competitors needing to know what to spend their time on
2. You guys eventually hit a rhythm, but early on in your cast, you and CT talked over and talked past one another quite a bit when discussing cards, and it was pretty clear (to me at least) that you guys weren't talking about the same kinds of things.

Simplest fix IMO is to just make it explicit that it is a design contest and not an aesthetics/templating/proxy/custom/render/etc contest, that and address any ambiguity about what power level is called for (the suggestions others have made are all totally viable AFAIC)

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh God, yeah, please don't make us sit through scoring eight categories on a 1 through 5. If y'all didn't kill yourselves the audience would certainly mass suicide.

I probably shouldn't have used the term "scored". What I was getting at was really just two things:
1. Aforementioned points about the competitors needing to know what to spend their time on
2. You guys eventually hit a rhythm, but early on in your cast, you and CT talked over and talked past one another quite a bit when discussing cards, and it was pretty clear (to me at least) that you guys weren't talking about the same kinds of things.

Simplest fix IMO is to just make it explicit that it is a design contest and not an aesthetics/templating/proxy/custom/render/etc contest, that and address any ambiguity about what power level is called for (the suggestions others have made are all totally viable AFAIC)

Call it what you like I'm still going to mention the art if it sticks out

 

[Aoret]

Call it what you like I'm still going to mention the art if it sticks out

Y'all can do whatever you want I'm most likely not going to enter as design, for me, is something that has to happen rather than something I can consciously force out. If I have a shower thought or whatever in time, then cool, but most likely I'm on the sidelines here.

I guess my point is that as an outsider, this difference in viewpoint between the two of you dudes seems reconciled and like I would have no idea where to spend my time. I think the community would be well served if you guys could agree on what stuff matters specifically for the scope of the contest. But then again, I'm not the one putting up $20 in CFB money

 

[Kuldahar]

TL;DR - if you are still deciding on a contest, I think top down design is awesome. My suggestion would be to pick 3-6 pieces of awesome art and the contestants need to design a card that would use that art.