General WotC are considering keywording ETB
- Thread starter Velrun
- Start date
Because once you play another card game you realize even short MTG cards have so many words.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Yeah a big part of Magic's current wordiness problem isn't just that the cards are more complicated or do more, it's that the simple and grokkable stuff still takes so long to express in Magic-ese. Shaving a few words off one of the most common rules phrases is a big and welcome development IMO
yeah i would love if they had done this back in the 90s
EDIT: im happy about it possibly happening now, just… yeah, could have been saving ink for all those years lol
EDIT: im happy about it possibly happening now, just… yeah, could have been saving ink for all those years lol
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Summon seems very reasonable, for creatures as least, both for text length and grokkability. Compare:
In cases like this it shaves off up to a full line, and I'ld argue anyone reading this is going to immediately get what is meant. The word 'summon' does look a bit weird on things like "Landfall — Whenever you summon a land, Akoum Hellhound gets +2/+2 until end of turn." I'll live with it though. Summon is short and succinct, and it's not like "enters the battlefield" is super flavorful anyway.
In cases like this it shaves off up to a full line, and I'ld argue anyone reading this is going to immediately get what is meant. The word 'summon' does look a bit weird on things like "Landfall — Whenever you summon a land, Akoum Hellhound gets +2/+2 until end of turn." I'll live with it though. Summon is short and succinct, and it's not like "enters the battlefield" is super flavorful anyway.
Seems like an alright idea*. Not sure I'd be sold on "summon"; as at least for me that's basically synonymous with "cast", which could lead to some headaches with new players.
"whenever a X enters the battlefield" -> "whenever a player summons a X"
"whenever a X enters the battlefield under your control" -> "whenever you summon a X"
"whenever a X enters the battlefield under your opponents control" -> "whenever your opponent summons a X"
Obviously a lot of savings on the opponents one.
*with my ongoing caveat that this would be a good move if it's with the goal and effect of reducing average wordiness. But have we really been seeing that in recent sets after their last couple waves of keywording/shortening stuff? Or is it just a way for them to cram more complex card mechanics into the desired line counts in one text box.
"whenever a X enters the battlefield" -> "whenever a player summons a X"
"whenever a X enters the battlefield under your control" -> "whenever you summon a X"
"whenever a X enters the battlefield under your opponents control" -> "whenever your opponent summons a X"
Obviously a lot of savings on the opponents one.
*with my ongoing caveat that this would be a good move if it's with the goal and effect of reducing average wordiness. But have we really been seeing that in recent sets after their last couple waves of keywording/shortening stuff? Or is it just a way for them to cram more complex card mechanics into the desired line counts in one text box.
Wall of Omens
Defender
Summon: draw a card.
Defender
Summon: draw a card.
I dunno about this. I find spelling out what the card does, in a proper format, makes it much easier for newer players to understand EXACTLY what should happen. As long as it is consistent, it creates a sense of familiarity and promotes pattern recognition for ease of access. The shorthand works for more experienced players, but new players just want to know what a card does explained in a clear and easy to understand format. I think they've mostly perfected it over the years to this point.
That's just a clean and it looks balanced on the card. It would just look very off and lowkey messy if it was Landfall, Investigate with a bunch of italicized text explaining what each word meant. Seems like you're not actually saving on work at that point. Magic cards can be wordy, but I think that's more due to a bunch of unwieldy mechanics they've been messing around with in recent years for not a whole lot of benefit (just look at this idiot).
And even then, my bar for unnecessarily wordy cards in a card game has been set high by this guy from middle school:
As someone who spends a lot of time coming up with workflows and documentations within the healthcare space having to condense complex new systems and processes for (mostly) tech unsavvy people, there is a definite sweet spot between over simplifying and being overly wordy in explanations. If you go too far in trying to shortcut and assume that people can grasp something that you take for granted, you risk leaving a lot of people in the dark if they're not able to easily navigate with your same degree of familiarity. And that just creates more headaches having to clarify misunderstandings and potential issues down the line. This is also why the Snipping Tool is my best friend; pictures and highlights help a LOT.
That's just a clean and it looks balanced on the card. It would just look very off and lowkey messy if it was Landfall, Investigate with a bunch of italicized text explaining what each word meant. Seems like you're not actually saving on work at that point. Magic cards can be wordy, but I think that's more due to a bunch of unwieldy mechanics they've been messing around with in recent years for not a whole lot of benefit (just look at this idiot).
And even then, my bar for unnecessarily wordy cards in a card game has been set high by this guy from middle school:
As someone who spends a lot of time coming up with workflows and documentations within the healthcare space having to condense complex new systems and processes for (mostly) tech unsavvy people, there is a definite sweet spot between over simplifying and being overly wordy in explanations. If you go too far in trying to shortcut and assume that people can grasp something that you take for granted, you risk leaving a lot of people in the dark if they're not able to easily navigate with your same degree of familiarity. And that just creates more headaches having to clarify misunderstandings and potential issues down the line. This is also why the Snipping Tool is my best friend; pictures and highlights help a LOT.
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I hate the term "battlefield" anyways so I'd be happy to see it less frequently. "Comes into play" is a much...cuter? way of saying it IMO
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Honestly, this doesn't look half bad. Pretty grokkable.I dunno about this. I find spelling out what the card does, in a proper format, makes it much easier for newer players to understand EXACTLY what should happen. As long as it is consistent, it creates a sense of familiarity and promotes pattern recognition for ease of access. The shorthand works for more experienced players, but new players just want to know what a card does explained in a clear and easy to understand format. I think they've mostly perfected it over the years to this point.
That's just a clean and it looks balanced on the card. It would just look very off and lowkey messy if it was Landfall, Investigate with a bunch of italicized text explaining what each word meant. Seems like you're not actually saving on work at that point. Magic cards can be wordy, but I think that's more due to a bunch of unwieldy mechanics they've been messing around with in recent years for not a whole lot of benefit (just look at this idiot).
They absolutely should. It's one of the mosts common texts in the game and it takes a line and a half just for itself.
Yes yes yes
This is exactly what I meant
For lands they could do another word
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control = Whenever you summon a creature.
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control = Whenever a land falls under your control. Or use landfall depending.
Or whatever the word is. My point is it could work with a different word for each card type. But they probably use arrive because it fits all permanent types.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I like summon because you can shorthand the more complicated cases so incredibly well, e.g. "whenever a creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control" vs. "whenever a creature arrives under an opponent's control" vs. "whenever an opponent summons a creature". The shorter the better, as long as the meaning is still clear of course.Yes yes yes
This is exactly what I meant
For lands they could do another word
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control = Whenever you summon a creature.
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control = Whenever a land falls under your control. Or use landfall depending.
Or whatever the word is. My point is it could work with a different word for each card type. But they probably use arrive because it fits all permanent types.
I think it's both. Simple designs, especially at common and uncommon, will become less texty on average with this change, but it absolutely opens up real estate to do more complex designs at higher rarities.
I do think it's kind of odd that almost all the discussion in this thread has centered around enchantment-style triggers, e.g. "whenever a creature...".
On the creature itself I like the Hearthstone style shortening.
"Whenever CARDNAME enters the battlefield..."
versus
"Summon - "
Especially when CARDNAME is long, that first phrase can be like 8 words or what is basically filler text.
I'm definitely of the opinion that MTG cards try to do too much on average. Here's a card.
Would you believe that this is the wordiest card in all of Hearthstone? Granted, there's the whole digital versus physical issue, but after spending some time with Slay the Spire and Hearthstone* (two games with no shortage of strategic depth), the textiness of Magic cards is pretty off-putting.
I think part of it comes down to the mana / card draw system. In MTG, because you're playing lands and spells (but only drawing one card a turn), your hand size shrinks quickly unless you are actively drawing additional cards. In Hearthstone you get card draw / generation / discovery stapled onto pretty much everything, so often your hand balloons up to 10 cards and then stays that way until your deck empties. In Spire you see 5 fresh cards every turn. The rate at which you see 30 cards is so much faster in Hearthstone / Spire than in MTG. So in a way I get the complexity differences (with fewer cards seen, you might want your cards to do more per card), but I do think MTG's design has historically been very undisciplined.
There's a lot of complexity that doesn't translate to depth.
I had a discussion / interview with a designer, and during it we tried designing some custom Hearthstone cards to fit a theme. I had some ideas, but when I tried to template them they were just so much wordier than I expected. They were MTG style designs, but they simply didn't fit on four short-lines of text real estate. Ultimately I realized that the card I was trying to make should just be three different, simpler cards (and leave it to the player to mix and match as they see fit).
* some Hearthstone cards you need a whole wiki to fully grok (looking at you Zephrys), so what's on the tin isn't really all there is, but on the whole I prefer the elegant card approach.
On the creature itself I like the Hearthstone style shortening.
"Whenever CARDNAME enters the battlefield..."
versus
"Summon - "
Especially when CARDNAME is long, that first phrase can be like 8 words or what is basically filler text.
I'm definitely of the opinion that MTG cards try to do too much on average. Here's a card.
Would you believe that this is the wordiest card in all of Hearthstone? Granted, there's the whole digital versus physical issue, but after spending some time with Slay the Spire and Hearthstone* (two games with no shortage of strategic depth), the textiness of Magic cards is pretty off-putting.
I think part of it comes down to the mana / card draw system. In MTG, because you're playing lands and spells (but only drawing one card a turn), your hand size shrinks quickly unless you are actively drawing additional cards. In Hearthstone you get card draw / generation / discovery stapled onto pretty much everything, so often your hand balloons up to 10 cards and then stays that way until your deck empties. In Spire you see 5 fresh cards every turn. The rate at which you see 30 cards is so much faster in Hearthstone / Spire than in MTG. So in a way I get the complexity differences (with fewer cards seen, you might want your cards to do more per card), but I do think MTG's design has historically been very undisciplined.
There's a lot of complexity that doesn't translate to depth.
I had a discussion / interview with a designer, and during it we tried designing some custom Hearthstone cards to fit a theme. I had some ideas, but when I tried to template them they were just so much wordier than I expected. They were MTG style designs, but they simply didn't fit on four short-lines of text real estate. Ultimately I realized that the card I was trying to make should just be three different, simpler cards (and leave it to the player to mix and match as they see fit).
* some Hearthstone cards you need a whole wiki to fully grok (looking at you Zephrys), so what's on the tin isn't really all there is, but on the whole I prefer the elegant card approach.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I was about to comment this, because Hearthstone often sacrifices grokkability to just push out a card that plays cool, but nobody could guess from the text what it does. That would never happen in Magic. Okay, almost never.
Keyword "whenever you sacrifice a clue".
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
We've arrived at Hearthstone complexity people!
Keyword Trading Post
, , Toss 1: Summon a Food.
, , Bleed 1: Summon a Blood.
, , Whack 1: Summon a Treasure.
, , Junk 1: Draw 1.
, , Toss 1: Summon a Food., , Bleed 1: Summon a Blood., , Whack 1: Summon a Treasure., , Junk 1: Draw 1.
I think Keyword Trading Post is a perfect example of why that style of wording doesn't work for Magic.
If that were a Hearthstone card, you could hover over the card and a nice pop-up would show up that would explain exactly what each of those words mean. For Magic... well, you're shit out of luck.
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Honestly, I'm not sure how much this kind of thing would actually help. Like, the fact that "enter the battlefield" is three words instead of one isn't the reason why this thing is wordy:
If that were a Hearthstone card, you could hover over the card and a nice pop-up would show up that would explain exactly what each of those words mean. For Magic... well, you're shit out of luck.
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Honestly, I'm not sure how much this kind of thing would actually help. Like, the fact that "enter the battlefield" is three words instead of one isn't the reason why this thing is wordy: