General Print this Wizards! (So I can put it in my cube)

CML

CML

Contributor
I agree with the whole "contextually stronger" metaphor and (off the top of my head) you'd often pick Gravecrawler over JTMS in Jason's Cube and it'd be OK but doing the same in the Modo Cube would be demented -- but the example is pretty far-fetched! Another idea that comes to mind, viz. Devour Flesh is a better design than Diabolic Edict, is also far from unique -- after all, which card is in Gatecrash?

Finally, I enjoyed your implicit slur on the Cube world at large as Usman et al. obviously worship the modern Magic designers, who deeply understand these elementary if interesting ideas, but, for some reason, they don't much care for the ideas themselves. I think they'd follow Max M. off a bridge if he promised them five "strict upgrades" to their Cubes in the next set. "Restrictions breed creativity," said Stalin as he chucked Shostakovich in the gulag
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Jason Waddell said:
Yeah, I mean, Wizards pushes different effects a bit haphazardly. But it's still a fun exercise to try and triangulate what they're willing to print in the modern Standard environments.
Click to expand...


There was an interesting Drive to Work (I think) episode where Rosewater talked about modern magic design as this kind of pendulum:
Foucault_pendulum_animated.gif


Essentially, in the center is the "base level" of a lot of different kinds of themes, and in any given set, one aspect (enchantments, multicolor, graveyard, artifacts, lands) gets pushed, though it comes back to the mean.

the happens writ small with effects, we've gone from shock to lightning bolt to incinerate to searing spear to shock again, and in the set article for lightning strike they certainly talked about lightning bolt as if it's printable given the right circumstances.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Yup :) that's a great way of putting it.
I think what most designers are worried about is when they're trying to increase the momentum of the pendulum. Basically only wotc does that comfortably, if at all.
people flipped thir shit when savannah lions became uncommon in elite vanguard, let alone dryad militant.
While it's hard to know if your card is balanced, its WAAAAY harder to know it's balanced in a hypothetical world where pyroclaysm costs one mana. Or where it costs 3 for that manner.

that's one card, one mana in either direction. Trying to comprehend what could be reasonable requires a level on abstract thinking we can't do all the time. Rather than not talk at all, we look to presedent because it's still fun to be along for the ride in a great game, rather than guide its course
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
More in the vein of flexible shatters:

Banish {2}{W}
Sorcery
Put target artifact or creature on the bottom of it's owners library

Sparkseal {1}{R}
Enchantment
When Sparkseal enters the battlefield, put a 3/1 red elemental creature token with haste and trample onto the battlefield. Exile it at the beginning of next end step.
Sacrifice Sparkseal: Destroy target artifact.

Primitive Instincts {1}{G}
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top 3 cards of your library, and put them back in any order.
G, Sacrifice Primitive Instincts: Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I like Sparkseal but kind of wish there were a design that had some more subtlety or finesse or choice to it. Great idea behind it but I wonder if there's not a way to tie the two parts of the card together more.

What if you had to choose. When the creature dies, you lose the enchantment. When the enchantment is destroyed, you lose the creature. I dunno.

I love the choice in Primitive Instincts. Do I keep it or trade it in for value?
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Although if you did change that you might have to make the creature more powerful? I don't know if that design necessitates changing the stats. But if you didn't, the power would strictly decrease.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Maybe. At that point it's a little less smash to smithereens and a little more torch fiend. Say for example the token was a 2/2 which died when the enchantment left play? Real familiar.

I think I might be barking up the wrong tree with that card specifically since I'm actually quite happy with red's incedental artifact answers, and as far as I can tell they're not allowed to have answers to enchantments outside of crippling hate cards specifically designed to counter other crippling hate cards.

Green and white pose far more of a problem, since most things which say "destroy target enchantment or X" are less playable than a comparable card which says "destroy target artifact or X", and since we can't have "destroy target artifact, enchantment, or X" unless it's vindicate I'm left with some really odd cards.

I tried overloading on vindicates, but it sure makes the draft/play experience a lot less special :p
The games are a lot less interactive when the play sequences are "Oh a <Generic Threat> I'll cast a <Generic Answer>."

This is part of why I don't like legacy. Cards like deathrite shaman, abrupt decay, force of will just do too much, meaning you have to find really out of the box things they don't interact with, like weird combos.
And having combo decks as half the format effectively neuters 3/5 of the colors (because seriously, in what universe does zoo beat belcher? a million Ethersworn Cannonists?)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Unexpectedly Absent is just totally wonderful. I love utility removal and will never cut Putrefy or Mortify as long as I live.

I apologize if I've brought this up before but the lack of a creature of power level Qasali Pridemage or Wickerbough Elder really pisses me off in an "enchantment" block. I will try my hand at one

Manic Pixie Dream Girl
{G/W}{G/W}
MPDG is unblockable.
When MPDG leaves play, destroy target artifact or enchantment.
2/2
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Chris, the difference is that the creature would still die EOT. So I don't know if the Torch Fiend parallel really holds. Like, if I play it I get a 4/1 sac EOT. Maybe that's terrible. You could still 2 for 1 if you got an attack in unblocked, but it seems to offer some interesting timing choices (for you) and blocking options for the opponent.
 
Lucre

Lucre

What about that trope that the Internet has been recently catching up with screams disenchant to you? She shatters your assumptions?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
When she leaves you get disillusioned? :p

Ah, okay. I see what you mean jason. If the token still dies at end of turn and the enchantment leaves with it (and vice versa), you basically have an overly complicated shatter/lava spike split card :(

You get this token which can swing, but when it dies you lose the enchantment, which can be cashed in to kill an artifact, but that ALSO kills the token... I dunno.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, but if you sac the enchantment post combat pre-end you get a twofer. 4/1 Token for 1R? Test it? i would play that card. Maybe.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Shudder 3RR
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices 2 lands
"I may have wasted my turn 5 but you'll never have one."

Love at First Sight 3WU
Creature - Angel
Flying
When love at first sight enters the battlefield draw a card and gain 1 life.
3/4
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Yeah, but if you sac the enchantment post combat pre-end you get a twofer. 4/1 Token for 1R? Test it? i would play that card. Maybe.
Click to expand...
Except if they block the token, they lose either the creature they blocked with (you don't sac) or they lose the important artifact (you do sac, token dies when you do)

Shudder sounds better than geddon, but that aint sayin much
 
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