The Pikachu Problem

Typhoid Rats by Kev Walker

I didn’t expect this to be my “first post in a long while” written piece because, after all, this is regarding card game design that isn’t “serious.” By that I mean fan game design. While certain fan art can be a serious work of art, most are simply …just fanism. And this, I believe,  is the case for a Magic: The Gathering set that I veered off of my “serious” path of doing a “four colors matter” set to work on: A Pokemon Magic set. 

I Choose You

Doing a Pokemon Magic: The Gathering set has been attempted before by other enthusiasts, for sure, but just as with many others who do fan art or fan fiction of, say, Pokemon; this doesn’t stop those artists from doing yet another awesome illustration of a Gyarados or a slash romance between trainers Red and Blue. This set is just something I need to get out of my system. It’s an expression of my love for the franchise (Well, the first generation of Pokemon mostly) through the medium that I love to work with: game design.

Originally, I was messing around with working on a Pokemon Magic: The Gathering set back in college. I knew less of what I was doing in Magic set design then than I do now (not that I am as competent and polished as an actual Magic R&D card designer at the moment), so I thought I’d take another crack at it. It also helps that I just got a shiny new laptop bringing in all sorts of increased productivity and possibilities.

Now, before working on the skeleton of the Pokemon set’s design, I have to find my themes in both flavor and mechanics. Since I’m using an IP that is already fully-fleshed out, I need to leverage that into whatever mechanical themes I’d be focusing on. So what is the flavor of Pokemon?

What? It's Evolving!

Obviously, the most important part of Pokemon is the monsters themselves. So this means this Magic: The Gathering set would be heavily creature-focused. How focused on creatures? Math time: the average Magic set usually has about 50% of its cards as creature cards. The normal number of cards in a set that isn’t basic land is 229. How many Pokemon are there? Over 600. Holy crap. …The good thing is that the number of Pocket Monsters initially capped at 151 in the Pokemon Red & Blue games (Generation I). Also, the first generation is the only generation I truly love, so I’m partial to this decision on a personal level. Anyway, since 50% of 229 cards is 115, and that 151 Pokemon (let alone any non-Pokemon creatuers like Gym Leaders) is well over 115, that means this set will definitely be creature-oriented.

Now, there’s a lot more to Pokemon than just that fact that there’s a bunch of monsters. There are the 15 different types of monsters (17 in the second generation of Pokemon onwards) and the strength & weaknesses among them, Pokemon battling, catching Pokemon, and evolving Pokemon. This last trait is something that is inherent to the very nature of Pokemon and is something that most Pokemon do. When Pokemon gain enough experience and level up, they evolve into a different Pokemon, usually into a larger, more-developed version of their previous self.

Thus, I believe evolving – an important aspect of Pokemon – needs to be represented mechanically. Now, I haven’t figured out what the evolution mechanic would be, yet, but I did think about something important related to evolving: Not all Pokemon evolve the same way. Usually, a Pokemon evolves by leveling up enough to a certain level. However, in other cases, some Pokemon evolve through exposure to some kind of elemental Stone or by being traded.

Evolution Charm by John Avon

The various methods of evolving a monster is a great design in the Pokemon games. Your first experiences of evolution might have been with your starter Pokemon or with the evolves-very-early-in-levels Caterpie or Weedle. Then, as the game goes on, you find out that there is more than one way to evolve a Pokemon, which keeps the evolution mechanic exciting. The pinnacle of the evolution of evolution (hehe) was that Eevee not only evolves through an elemental Stone, but evolves into one of three (now, like, seven or something as more Pokemon games are released) different Pokemon depending on which one of three elemental Stones you chose to use on it. Exciting!

When designing a Magic: The Gathering set, when you introduce a new game mechanic (evolving a Pokemon creature card), you start with the simplest form of that mechanic, so players can learn the new mechanic in its least complex form. Then you further develop that mechanic with new twists when the mechanic appears again in a subsequently-released Magic set that continues the same theme as the first set (the Pokemon theme).

I can’t just throw in all 151 Pokemon into the first set of what would be a Pokemon block (sets in the same world that are released within a few months of each other are called a “block”) because some of those monsters have the more-complex version of the evolution mechanic. Well, I could always just ignore any twists in the evolution mechanic found in the games and settle for one set with all Pokemon creature cards evolving the same way. However, I believe that doing this would be a disservice to the flavor of Pokemon.

O.K., better plan: Use the second generation of Pokemon (a hundred more of them exists in Generation II to bring the total to 251 Pokemon) and include only Pokemon that have the basic evolution in the first set. The more-complex evolutions would only be in the second set. Ignoring for now the reworking of the number of monsters for figuring out how creature-saturated these two sets would turn out to be, there’s a wrench thrown into the design: Pikachu.

I Choose You, Too: Electric Boogaloo

Pikachu is a Pokemon that has become the mascot of the whole franchise. In the anime, the main character persisting throughout the series is Ash, a Pokemon trainer who owns a Pikachu that has been with him since episode one. Since there’s a limit of six Pokemon that a Pokemon trainer can carry at one time, all other captured Pokemon exceeding six must be put into a special storage (Don’t worry – Professor Oak cares for them. Somehow). So, whenever a new season starts where Ash would catch new Pokemon, Ash makes sure to empty his roster of six Pokemon. …except for Pikachu – because Pikachu is SO important. Pikachu even has its own Game Boy game version – Pokemon Yellow. And even various incarnations of Pikachu that are not Pikachu are released in later generations!

But why is Pikachu a problem for the Pokemon Magic: The Gathering set design? It’s Pikachu’s evolution. Pikachu evolves not through the basic form of evolution but by Thunder Stone, one of the elemental Stones. O.K., so I can just have the Pikachu card in the second set, right? No way. What kind of Pokemon set would be without a Pikachu card in it? The first set would be without Pikachu. Pikachu represents Pokemon. I believe that the theoretical players that would open up the theoretical booster packs of the first Pokemon set should be able to find a Pikachu card among the first few opened quite easily. So, Pikachu will need to be in the first set, but the evolution mechanic execution needs to accommodate for this problem.

Isamaru, Hound of Konda by Christopher Moeller

On an aside, while I can include a legendary creature named Red’s Pikachu (Red is the name of the trainer in the Pokemon games Ash is based on), and this particular Pokemon would never evolve just like in the games and anime series: 1) I believe that Red’s Pikachu needs to be at least be a rare card, if it existed, which means it’s going to, well, rarely show up in booster packs; and 2) Red’s Pikachu at the common rarity is too weird with that name (most, if not all, other Pokemon creature cards would have just the name of themselves with no possessive noun affixed to it) and would mean putting the “legendary” supertype at common, which has never been the convention for legendary creatures (and for good reason). If the “legendary” supertype is ever put on common cards, this set is not the set to explore such an avenue in Magic: The Gathering design.

So, Pikachu will be a common card (the most prevalent card rarity) named simply Pikachu. I’m not getting into what to do about the color or colors Pikachu would be or whether its Lightning Pokemon type will be represented – What’s most important, currently, is how the execution of the evolution mechanic will impact this special corner case.

What I could do is have the evolve mechanic appear on the evolved forms of Pokemon only and then put it on a Raichu (the evolution of Pikachu) card which would appear in the second set. However, would this work with whatever the evolution mechanic would eventually end up actually doing?

Additionally, I need to look out for the “baby Pokemon” that was introduced in Generation II, which introduced a pre-evolution of Pikachu named Pichu. A baby wrench in the design, too. So, using the convention of putting evolution on evolved Pokemon, Pikachu would need “Evolves from Pichu (Reminder text.)” (Or however the mechanic would be templated). Though, these baby Pokemon evolved through Happiness Level in the games (Oh, boy. How complex).

Gotta Catch 'Em All

Here are the next steps in the set: Find out what other themes in Pokemon can be represented mechanically and figure out how the evolution mechanic will work exactly. From there, I can then make sure to figure out an execution of evolution that would still accommodate Pikachu’s problem.

This is the current stage in this fan-tastic Pokemon Magic: The Gathering set design – and I'm totally halting development of that more serious “four colors matters” set because of this (No worries, I'll get back on it). This peculiar issue with Pikachu prompted me write about it in this blog post, thus kick-starting my return to writing about Magic design. Thanks, Pikachu. It also helps that I was amused at the opportunity for a cute and whimsical title for a game design blog post: The Pikachu Problem.

Vs. the Vs. System

One day, Ethan Fleischer, a Great Designer Search 2 finalist, tweets a tweet regarding Vs. System, the superhero (mostly) Marvel and DC Comics collectible card game released in 2004 by Upper Deck Entertainment. Vs. System is no longer supported by Upper Deck, but, for a while, it was reasonably popular and even had its own Pro Circuit with $1 million given out in cash prizes every year (the equivalent of Magic: The Gathering's Pro Tour). But, today, I'm going to talk about the Vs. System's game design itself, or, rather, what was wrong with it.

I was trying to tweet Ethan the myriad of reasons why Vs. System was flawed, but then I realized I was going to need more than a few 140-character tweets to do so. That's when I went on this tangent of a blog post, but it's a good tangent. So you'll know what not to do when you design a card game. Or, perhaps, we'll be able to spot these same mistakes in some other card games out there.

A quick aside: I love Vs. System, and I played it for years (I even quit Magic for a period of time just to devote myself completely to the game. Gasp! The blasphemy!), but that doesn't mean that Vs. System didn't have its faults. I love the comic book "mythologies," and I love card games, so putting those two together was just heaven. The game system to support it, sadly, wasn't perfect (However, I believe it's a lot better than a lot of card games out there, but that's almost a baseless statement since I haven't played most other card games out there. I know, I know, as a game designer, it's important, so... "I'll get to it.").

Oh, and I'm not bashing Upper Deck Entertainment. It's cool, guys. Don't come after me. I don't have very many nice things, anyway.

So, let's see where it fell short. When I talk about various parts of Vs. System, I'm going to compare it with Magic: The Gathering, so I'm assuming you're already familiar with Magic (If not, then... go learn and play it. And then become addicted to it. And then come back and finish this. Well, actually, if you get that far, I don't really care if you finish this post or not. We'd have another #mtg player in our midsts! ...Where was I? Oh, right.) I'm not going to fully explain how Vs. System works, though, since that'd be too many extra words mucking up the point I'm trying to get across. There are five main problems I can see with the Vs. System, and they are as follows:

Problem #1: Lack of "Colored Mana"

In Magic: The Gathering, cards have a converted mana cost. A card with a converted mana cost of two could cost you in a variety of different ways, such as 1R, RR, RG, and 2. The important part is that in addition to have the correct amount of mana, you also need the correct type of mana. And there's five basic types: white, blue, black, red, and green.

In Vs. System, though, the resources you have (lands) always produce "colorless" resource points (mana). This was O.K., since every character and equipment card you play (creatures and equipment in Magic) only require you to pay a "converted mana cost." Pay 3 or 5 instead of 2G or 3UU. Imagine if this existed in Magic:

Notice the mana cost. That's crazy! With this, all non-green decks (especially blue) now have something a lot more inappropriately powerful to include in their decks at turn four. Well, besides counting planeswalkers.

So, that's what the cost in the left-right hand corner of this Vs. System card is supposed to be; a generic cost:

So, for every single deck you include Hal Jordan in, once you got to five resources, you can play this card with no restrictions, even if the rest of your deck wasn't Green Lantern-aligned (The teams in Vs. System are like the colors in Magic). Mind you, those numbers (ATK and DEF) in the lower left and right-hand corners (like the power and toughness on Magic cards) are average for a character that costs 5, but Hal Jordan also has, like, four extra abilities on top of that (Not that this was a powerful card. There were other, more powerful, cards during the days I played Vs. System, and I'm sure there's even more powerful cards released during the time I didn't play).

This isn't a good part of Vs. System as the generic costs shrink the card pool of "good cards" down. There's less variety to choose from. So, taking that into consideration, why wouldn't you just play every card that was ahead of the curve in the game? Well, when there were more-powerful characters, there were unorthodox drawbacks used to limit who can play the card. Here's three examples of such measures:

(Oh, yeah, Vs. System went through a facelift in its card template like Magic did in Eighth Edition. This one's the old one version.)

Sabretooth, Feral Rage is a card that's better than average in terms of stats. At 4-cost, you'd normally get a 7 ATK and 7 DEF in terms of stats. He's an 11 ATK / 7 DEF, so he could even take out 5-drops (That's huge in a game based practically all around combat.) So, apparently, the solution was to force you to discard a Brotherhood card (He's a Brotherhood-affiliated card). That's like adding a line to a good red Magic card: instead of putting, for instance, an extra red mana symbol in its mana cost, and it says: "As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME, discard a red card." Putting these sort of restrictions is fine on a card-by-card basis, but not as one of multiple "hacks" used to get around the fundamental flaw of the costing system for cards.

Here's another technique: forcing you to reveal another X-Men card from your hand. Each kind of drawback limits the player in a different way, but a lot of it, I suspect, is trying to get around the cost in the upper-left hand corner. It'd be pretty tragic if you had a dedicated X-Men deck and you had no other X-Men cards in your hand at the time you want to recruit Wolverine. Here's one more:

That little bold-faced word at the beginning of the text in the text-box says "Loyalty". And that's a keyworded drawback for: You can't recruit The Joker (cast it, play it) unless you control another character sharing a team affiliation with The Joker (in this, Arkham Inmates). So, once again, a dedicated Arkham Inmates deck would be out of luck to play this guy if you controlled no other Arkham Inmates.

You get the point. By the way, here's a couple of the benefits of using characters from the same team besides getting around these text-box limitations: Preventing breakthrough (trample) and team attacks (like "gang blocking" in Magic, except, in this game, you "gang attack"). It's not very impressive. It would be better if there were some streamlined kind of restriction, like "Fantastic Four mana" as in the colors of Magic. Oh, yeah, that's another problem:

Problem #2: Too Many "Colors"

This problem wouldn't have been visible right from when Marvel Origins and DC Origins were first released (Set 1 and 2, respectively). There are different team affiliations in Vs. System, which function like Magic's colors of mana. However, the problem was, there are too many team affiliations! You might have speculated what teams were coming up, but I don't think anybody anticipated just how many were going to be released with the future sets. Here's how the teams expanded (I'm only counting major teams. There were some cards in a set, like the first set, that were affiliated to a special team, like Negative Zone, that only had a couple characters of that team.):

Marvel Origins: X-Men, Brotherhood, Fantastic Four, Doom, Sentinels
Teams-to-Date: 5

DC Origins: Gotham Knights, Arkham Inmates, League of Assassins, Teen Titans
Teams-to-Date: 9

Web of Spider-Man: Spider-Friends, Sinister Syndicate
Teams-to-Date: 11


Superman, Man of Steel: Team Superman, Revenge Squad, New Gods, Darkseid's Elite
Teams-to-Date: 15


Marvel Knights: Marvel Knights, Crime Lords, Underworld, X-Statix
Teams-to-Date: 19


Green Lantern Corps.: Green Lantern, Emerald Enemies, Anti-Matter, Manhunters
Teams-to-Date: 23


And then the number just goes up from there. You can read a list of all the teams and the sets they were released in here. Green Lantern Corps. is where I stopped playing the game. It may or may not have correlated with the fact that there were too many teams, but I remember thinking, at the time, "This is getting ridiculous. Not only are there too many teams, but some of these teams are just silly." Some characters weren't created as a part of a team, so sometimes, Upper Deck would take liberties or find some kind of common factor among a bunch of characters then group them all in a team. Ugh. Vorthos would be very sad.

And a problem with having this many teams is supporting those teams as more sets are released. If someone had an Arkham Inmates deck and looked forward to new sets that would give cards specifically to their Arkham Inmates deck, they'd be disappointed if there weren't actually any cards in a new set. So, Upper Deck sprinkled in cards from old teams in sets where there's a bunch of cards for the new teams introduced. But, as more teams are made, more chunks of cards need to be devoted to old teams to keep those players happy. Otherwise, you could just ignore it... Or find some other solution. But, it's a problem that forces an answer. It helps, though, that Vs. System is divided into Marvel and DC, cutting the teams needing new cards in half.

A couple of solutions I saw happen were making dual-affiliated characters and re-using teams from the past. I like that latter solution, but there's only so many combinations you can do before you run out. It's like you're doomed, and you're scrambling to extend your lifespan by doing this, but you'll eventually die, anyway. ...Man. Here's an example of the former solution:

This guy is part of the Injustice Gang and The Rogues. ... Vorthos hates the teams but loves the nod toward Magic's Boomerang.

Problem #3: Threshold Costs


This is for the other two card types in the game. Characters and Equipment are recruited (cast, played) using resource points (mana) from your resources (land). Plot Twists (instants) and Locations (...pseudo-lands), however, use threshold costs. This means that they are free as long as you have a certain number of resources. If you have three cards in your hand that have a threshold cost of 3, then you hit three resources or more (turn three or later, in most cases), then you're going to be able to play all three of them at-will for free. This means that these cards, like Characters and Equipment, don't require a devotion to a particular affiliation. Except, it's even worse since they don't cost anything. Then things like the card below happen:

This was the marquee attack pump card in the first set. Yeah, that's right. Every single team in the game has access to giving an attacker +5 ATK (+5/+0). This is very weird. Isn't there at least a single team that is controlling, more defensive that wouldn't have access to something like this? Is there no Team Color Pie (Oh, wait a minute. On an almost unrelated note, yeah, there is)?! I remember Doom being more about control. But, not only is the Dr. Doom team like that, it also has access to the savage beats. Grawrar, now the separation between "good" cards and "bad" cards shrinks ever more.

Problem #4: Rising Increase in Stats Vs. Cost


This is a big one. Creatures and the combat phase are a big part of Magic. Vs. System is no different with its characters, except it's even more important for this game. As such, characters are a big part of the game. There's different stats at each "cost-level." You pay 3 for a character, the average stats are 4 ATK and 4 DEF. In Magic, there's also the expected average stats for a creature at a given cost. For a white creature, you pay 3 mana, you can expect probably a 2/2 with an ability or an effect, and it varies little from there. And when you pay four mana, its stats might not even increase by +1/+1. Here's a good example from Magic 2011:

You can see that there's even only +1/+0 in difference between Wild Griffin and Assault Griffin. Granted, getting only +0/+1 wouldn't have been much of a bonus. There's Makindi Griffin to show proof of that (Go, go, griffin examples). And then Cloud Crusader shows what happens when you put more white in the cost: you get a bit more of a bonus. In general, there's a linear correlation between cost and power (For 1 more than Cloud Crusader, you get Baneslayer Angel, and that's just ridiculous, but I digress).

In Vs. System, though, the characters show a non-linear correlation between cost and power. I'm going to count distributions in stats between ATK and DEF together. For example, a 1/1 (1 ATK and 1 DEF) is 2 points, and a 1/2 or a 2/1 is 3 points. Here's how it goes:

Cost 1: 2-3 points
Cost 2: 4-5 points (Average Increase in Power: 2-3 points)
Cost 3: 8 points    (Average Increase in Power: 3-4 points)
Cost 4: 14 points  (Average Increase in Power: 6 points)
Cost 5: 18 points  (Average Increase in Power: 4 points)
Cost 6: 24 points  (Average Increase in Power: 6 points)
Cost 7: 30 points  (Average Increase in Power: 6 points)
Cost 8: 38 points  (Average Increase in Power: 8 points)

Vs. System ames are usually decided by around turn 7, at least, when I was playing. Perhaps sooner with more powerful cards out now (Similar to how Vintage is in Magic. Actually, "Vs. System's Vintage" is called Golden Age). Now, let's say you missed your 7-drop character. What can you do? Well, if you're lucky, you'll still maximize the 7 resource points you'll get in the turn by playing two characters. Let's say you get a 6-drop and a 1-drop character. You add them up, and you're only getting 27 points worth. And that's the best you can do. A 5-drop and a 2-drop or a 3-drop and a 4-drop will yield 22 points. Now, that's a huge difference, especially in a combat-oriented game.

You might be wondering, though, about how it's not like people are hitting their drops every turn because... wouldn't they run out of cards? Well, no, because Vs. System had you draw two cards every turn. And because you can play any card as a resource (you play resources by putting a card from your hand face down), and because Plot Twists and Locations can still be useful in the resource row by being flipped face up from that row (in locations' case, it only works while as a resource), unless you have a specialized strategy (like the New Brotherhood deck focusing around a card called The New Brotherhood, incidentally, that specifically said it only worked while you had four or less resources out), you'd be crazy NOT to play a resource card face down every turn, assuming you're playing a reasonable deck.

So, what we have so far is the pressure to always hit your curve every turn. Turn 2, play a 2-drop. Turn 3, a 3-drop, and so on. If you draw a 4-drop on turn 6, you're going to hope that you DON'T have to play that card and instead be able to play your 7-drop. So, what do you do with such cards? Well, you could play it face down as a resource, but that wouldn't be optimal, since you'd want a plot twist or resource down there. Maybe you have some kind of effect that calls for a discard from your hand or a reveal, like the Sabretooth and Wolverine cards I showed earlier. Yeah, that's it. Whew, not a COMPLETE waste if you draw a character with less cost than the turn it is.

Vs. System had printings of tutors to smooth out this huge swinginess nature of games, games being decided by whether or not you drew an appropriate-costed card by a certain turn. Some teams didn't even have a tutor, so they had more variance. On top of that, some teams even had a cheap character that could tutor for a plot twist (a character tutor, if needed). This must have contributed to why the deck, dubbed "Common Enemy" (named after the team-up card, which crossed affiliations of all cards in your deck of Fantastic Four and Doom, and even cantripped), which had two character tutors, and a 1-drop plot-twist tutor, did so well.

So, to balance out all the difference in smoothing betweens teams that had tutors and teams that didn't, Vs. System started seeing all sorts of character tutors, a popular one being 1-drop character tutors. Here's a few of those:

In summary, make power versus cost linear, so strategies such as white weenie and goblins can be supported. Or, at least, not be punished in a game where you recruited a 4-drop and a 2-drop on turn 6 against your opponent's 6-drop.

Problem #5: Initiative


One of the major differences between Magic and Vs. System is that players share the same turns in this game rather than take their own turns as in Magic. However, what players took turns being in control of was something called "initiative." This just means that, in each phase/step of a turn, the player with initiative did their stuff first. So, in the "main phase," the player with initiative gets their resource points and spends them recruiting characters and equipment, then once that player was done, the other player gets to do the same. This is the same with combat, where the initiative-controlling player attacks the other first, then (if that player wasn't already pulverized) the second player does their combat. At the end of each turn, the iniative is passed.

The part that matters is due to how Vs. System's combat system works. As opposed to Magic, where creatures attack players and the opponent chooses how to block, if at all; you attack the opponent's characters with your characters. The result is that the player with the first initiatiave in combat will most likely incapacitate the opponent's characters to where, when it's the opponent's turn to attack, they wouldn't make much of a difference, in any. It's disabling your opponent's ability to respond. Now, this is fine and dandy since you each take turns having initiative. The problem is when you're building your deck.

When you win the die roll before a match, you choose whether to go on odd or even initiatives (first or second, respectivey). You're going to want to choose the initiative that most benefits your deck. But, when you don't get the initiative you want, your character choices at those certain turns (since it's important to curve out) might not have been optimal. Granted, some characters are good both on offense and defense, such as the Sabretooth card mentioned earlier, but there are characters that are better or worse when you're on defense.

So, now, not only do you have to deal with trying to reduce the variance in your draws in hitting your curve, you have to worry about what you're going to do when you don't get the initiative you want. That's a lot of swing.

A Now For Something Not-So-Completely Different: IP

There's one last problem that isn't related to the game's design: using existing intellectual property. Part of why Magic is so successful is that it doesn't have to rely on other IP. Magic's creative team can come up with whatever they need to fit the needs of the game. And it works the other way around, too. Wizards of the Coast can use both the creative and the design to work together and build off each other to make for the best that Magic can be. With Magic, like other games that come up with their own flavor, you can start a new set by designing to a cool world, like those card games that do use existing IP, or you can shape the world to a cool design.

With Vs. System, by relying upon superhero comics, they were doomed from the beginning. Well, different design choices could have extended the game's lifespan more, but eventually, the game will and is supposed to die.

However, I'm an optimistic guy. I think that, perhaps, if there's some kind of "using existing IP engineering," you can ensure that the content you're relying upon is stable enough and growing at a rate that isn't slower than the rate that you're consuming content for your designed sets. What you don't gotta do is just take an IP and use it until you just run out of steam. Kinda like how (I suspect) some card games are made solely to take advantage of the popularity of the IP and rake in the money only to be abandoned later on. This is similar to how many video games of movies are created: It's just extra merchandise (Ugh. Evil.). ...Well, that's just a guess.

Post-Mortem

Sooo, this might be the time where I go turn my criticism into constructive criticism. Well, if Vs. System wasn't already "dead," it'd be useful. But, still. I should be suggesting different ways of addressing the problems I mentioned as well as talking about what Vs. System did right, for goodness' sake. In addition to talking about what went wrong, you talk about what went right, then you learn from that stuff and improve and do better the next time (In this case, being better at TCG/CCG design). Like how many developers in the game industry, after each game is finished -- called a post-mortem.

So, here we go -- Oh, look at my word count. Is it that much already? I... should go see what's up with the #GDS2 Twitter feed. ...Bye.

Cheers,

Brad

P.S. All images used either as-is or for alteration in this blog post are copyright either Wizards of the Coast, Upper Deck Entertainment, Marvel Comics, and/or DC Comics.

Super Mario Bros.' Perfect Pack

You know how when you’ve been working on a complex or difficult problem, and you’re engaged in some “mindless activity,” allowing your brain to ferment some solutions and ideas related to that problem? Usually, it’s taking a walk, taking a shower, or baking your favorite brownies for the hundredth time. And the problem doesn’t even have to be game design related, it could be trying to figure out how to make a meal out of the scraps you have left on the night before you get your next paycheck. Anyway, today, I chose an unusual mindless activity: playing the original Super Mario Bros. video game.

Well, I was being stubbornly optimistic that playing Super Mario Bros. can be an effective mindless activity. I was trying to figure out what to do next as a Magic designer on the public side of The Great Designer Search 2. The fourth challenge (creating the perfect booster pack) had just been judged, the fifth challenge was announced, and I was thinking, “O.K. …There’s lots of stuff going on now. People are talking about the judge’s comments and how to go about the fifth challenge. Should I dive right into those conversations? Should I do a blog post about how I would go about this challenge like I did for how to create a perfect booster pack for the fourth challenge? I’m not even familiar with intro packs myself, so it’d take some research to even get started on this monster of a challenge!” So, what I did was end up writing this post, which doesn’t even have anything to do with challenge five. It has to do with challenge four, actually.

A quick aside: It’s not all that crazy to consider that I’d be using little brainpower when playing Super Mario Bros. Some stats: I’ve beaten the game multiple times, my best speed run is less than seven minutes, and I’ve beaten the first level while blindfolded. So, it’s safe to say that, unlike the average person, when I play Super Mario Bros., more of my brainpower will be spent, consciously or subconsciously, on difficult problems that are on my mind. The question is whether or it’s enough to consider “playing Super Mario Bros.” in the same ballpark as effective mindless activities such as “showering” and “toilet-ing.”

Nonetheless, I was playing Super Mario Bros. and got a game over. I returned to the title screen. Some seconds later, the “attract mode” started playing (Well, it’s in the style of arcade games’ attract modes, even though, in console games’ case, the game has already been bought and doesn’t need to attract attention to itself). That’s when some example gameplay is shown for some amount of seconds. And I discovered that there are two different types of gameplay examples for Super Mario Bros., both switching off to the other after each return to the title screen and subsequent wait of a few seconds.  And one of them is a horrible example. So, let’s pretend that one doesn’t exist.

However, the other gameplay example was perfect in that it showed all of what the player needs to know about the basic gameplay of Super Mario Bros. That’s when I realized that creating the perfect booster pack of your set is just like creating the perfect gameplay example shown during the “attract mode” of arcade games. One wants you to buy more cards of the set while the other wants you to insert your quarters. They both demonstrate the gameplay mechanics and try to get you excited about the game/set. So, then, I paid close attention to the “good” gameplay example and this is what it showed me:

·         I can walk forward and backward.

·         I can jump.

·         I can jump into a block with a question mark and a coin can come out of it.

·         I can jump onto a walking brown mushroom dude with an angry face and squish him.

·         I can walk on top of the floating brick and question mark blocks, which may help me reach even higher-up coin blocks.

·         A sliding mushroom can come out of a coin block. If I touch it, it will make me double in size.

·         Letting an angry-faced mushroom dude touch me while big makes me smaller.

·         Letting an angry-faced mushroom dude touch me while I’m small is a Bad Thing™. It looks like it ends my game.

·         I can’t walk left and make the screen scroll left. Once I scroll forward, there’s no scrolling back.

As “cards”, they’d look like (in order of appearance): Walk Forward, Jump, Hit Block for Coin, Walk Backward, Jump Onto Angry Mushroom Dude, Hit Block for Sliding Mushroom,  Walk on Blocks, Mushroom Makes You Bigger, Reach Higher Block to Hit By Standing on Other Blocks, Can’t Walk Backward, Touching Angry Mushroom Dude While Big Makes You Small, Touching Angry Mushroom Dude While Small Ends The Game

And that’s pretty much what Super Mario Bros. is all about. All that in about twenty seconds. Sure, there’s more to it, but that’s part of the discovery part of the game, like in Magic. There’s some stuff not explained like whether you can break brick blocks or go down a pipe, though. If I was a new player and played more into Mario, I would discover bottomless pits, other enemies besides goombas, other types of levels, other power-ups, secrets (like the especially awesome warp pipes), bowser battles, the fact that there’s a princess to save but is in another castle, …and another, …and yet another. And whatever else I didn’t mention.

So, what can we conclude now? For you video game developers, make sure your “attract mode” gameplay accurately represents each element of the game’s gameplay, if you’re ever going to include one (Well, you’d be silly to not make one of these if you’re making an arcade game!) For you Magic designers, umm… well, now you can feel that feeling of reading something differently related to Magic design? It’s more like an “I’ve made an interesting observation that correlates two different game mediums, by jove!” And I’d be twiddling my mustache. If I had one respectable enough. Yeah.

Cheers,

Brad

The Perfect Booster Pack

The fourth challenge of The Great Designer Search 2 is currently underway, and I have some thoughts to share regarding how to go about completing this challenge. The rules, in summary, are as such: Present your set in the best possible light by building the perfect Magic: The Gathering booster pack, the contents of which must contain: 9 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare/mythic rare, 1 premium card (any rarity), 1 basic land, 1 token card. For each slot, in addition to the card design listing, there is to be a fifteen-words-or-less description of what’s pictured in the card’s art.

I'm going to call the different parts that need to be found in the booster pack as elements. The different elements include:

• Mechanic 1, 2, 3, ...N
• Non-Mechanical Theme 1 ...N (Eg. Scars of Mirrodin's "familiar-feeling"/nostalgia theme like with the Spellbomb cycle. Another theme is Mirrodin's identity associated with equipment and indestructible.)
• White
• Blue
• Black
• Red
• Green
• Other color theme 1 ...N
• Creature
• Land
• Sorcery
• Instant
• Enchantment
• Artifact
• Planeswalker And/Or Legendary
• Tribes 1, 2, 3 ...N (if applicable) NOTE: Use the art descriptions and/or token card to portray tribes on non-creature cards
• Other supertype/subtypes
•  Represent ratios in set in the pack (Eg. Scars of Mirrodin having a large amount of artifacts)
• Marks (Eg. Phyrexian, Mirran) and their respective ratios (20% of cards being Phyrexian mark = 2 to 3 cards in the pack marked as Phyrexian)
• Timmy
• Johnny
• Spike
• Melvin
• Vorthos
• Other unique factors.

All these elements need to be present on the cards in your pack. You'll most likely have cards that need to pull double or triple-duty on fulfilling required elements.

I realize that some of these elements may be argued for whether they need to be included. For example, the nonbasic land can be argued, or the fact that there doesn't need to be a legendary/planeswalker or Melvin or Vorthos card. You can say that the point isn't to cater to each of the individual psychographics or to make sure that all of the different kinds of card colors or card types need to be present in the card. 

However, it is my belief that, if you're going to get as close to perfect as you can in a booster pack, not only will your pack represent your set in the best way possible, but it will also include something for everyone or something for anything that anybody would want to seek in a pack. It's not only fulfilling the challenge, it's also going the extra mile to get that much closer to perfect. And that's what I think these perfect packs will need.

So, finalists, similar to how Mark Rosewater goes over how he fills out the design skeleton for the commons of a fictional small set in the Nuts & Bolts article "Design Skeletons in the Closet", you may want to be assigning each of these elements to the different slots to see how your pack will come together before too much designing is done, otherwise, you may find that your last few slots might not match up perfectly in fulfilling every element you're looked to include in the pack.

I hope this helps! I'll revisit this post in the future after the finalists send in their submissions, so I can apply the feedback I receive from readers of this post as well as tackle this challenge for my own set.

Cheers,

Brad

Mock Submission - Challenge #1 and Reviews

On November 10th, The Great Designer Search 2 had its first episode's challenge presented for each of the then-eight finalists. I decided to play along at home and put up my own mock design submission for the first challenge on this wiki page. For those not in the know, the challenge, in summary, was to have eighteen designs for the commons of one color of a Magic set. By the way, like I said on the Wiki, my rules were a little different, as in, all eighteen cards were designed by me whereas the finalists needed at least six not designed by them.

I know it's a bit late, but I'm posting what I posted there on the Wiki along with the adjustments I've made after viewing the reviews I've received. I'll post the original card slot, the comments, and then the new design for that slot, if applicable. Also, there's the flavor and mechanical information to aid those not knowing what my world/block is about. I've also added the non-card specific comments, too. So, here we go:

The people who reviewed me and their colors throughout this post are as follows:

Dan Emmons (Demons)

Daniel

Kultcher

metaghost

Nicholas Grayson (Nich)

I also had a bonus reviewer. He called himself Lucky on the wiki page he reviewed my mechanics, and his twitter account is right here. My world's wiki isn't up to date, so he was actually reviewing an old version of trauma and a now-defunct mechanic called "focus." But, after reading it, it did make me want to change how trauma worked.

Instead of replacing the damage, which is how I had it when my reviewers read my mock submission, he suggested replacing the loss of life from the damage dealt by the trauma creature with the milling. That way, things like lifelink could still happen. But, I took it a step further and changed trauma to be like wither, where it is still damage, but it is a different form of damage when dealt to the player.

Interestingly, it's now back to being similar to Evan Erwin's mechanic erode, which inspired  the mechanic in the first place.

The World

Plane: Immovale
Set Name: Immovale

Old Logline: A corrupting world within the mind of a planeswalker, where dreams and nightmares are reality.

metaghost: Functional. But considering that it takes place "within the mind of a planeswalker", the second clause is a relative no-brainer that feels like wasted space. Also, what is this world "corrupting"?

Logline: A world within the distressed mind of a planeswalker

Old Flavor Description
The world of Immovale was once a dream-like paradise until a spreading blackness in the neverending sea sprang forth the antithesis of pleasant dreams: traumatic nightmares. The gnomes are a trickster spellcasting race, specializing in illusion and manipulation. They are aligned with red and blue magic. The wibblies are a humanoid frog race invested in seeking knowledge about and understanding the unpredictable world they live in. The frogs are aligned with green and blue magic. The blue gnomes and wibblies are explored in this set of blue commons.

Flavor Description
The world of Immovale is rich in species diversity, a home for spells to flourish, and was once a peaceful paradise. A spreading blackness in the neverending sea sprang forth the antithesis of pleasant dreams: traumatic nightmares. The gnomes are a trickster spellcasting race, specializing in illusion and manipulation. They are aligned with red and blue magic. The wibblies are a humanoid frog race invested in seeking knowledge about and understanding the unpredictable world they live in. The frogs are aligned with green and blue magic. Nightmares attack the world's host's mind and subsequently affect the plane. They are blue-and-black aligned. The white-and-blue aligned merfolk inhabit the neverending sea, always exploring new territory under the waters.

Old Mechanics Description
A "spells matter" theme is shown in the mechanic spellcast, which rewards casting spells. Flashback is the returning mechanic that pulls triple duty: it supports spellcast cards, provides mana curve options in Limited, and supports this next mechanic. The final mechanic these blue commons feature is trauma, which appears mostly in blue and black. Trauma is a part of the library theme. Another mechanic, mostly in green and branching out to white and red, is also a library-themed mechanic that combats the milling from trauma. As such, it is not featured here.

On a final note, the phrase "Target player puts the top NUMBER cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard." has now been shortened with my proposed keyword action "mill." It looks like this: "Target player mills NUMBER cards." Trauma mentions mill like this: "Whenever this creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills twice that many cards instead." So, a creature that would deal 2 damage would instead 'cause the player to mill twice that many cards, which is four cards. Enjoy!

Mechanics Description
A "spells matter" theme is shown in the mechanic spellcast, which rewards casting spells. Flashback is the returning mechanic that pulls triple duty: it supports spellcast cards, provides mana curve options in Limited, and supports another new mechanic: trauma. Trauma is a part of the library theme. Another mechanic, mostly in green and branching out to white and red, is also a library-themed mechanic that combats the milling from trauma. As such, it is not featured here.

The Cards (Cards in Italics are old versions.)

CU01

Gnome Illusionist
U
Creature - Gnome Wizard
1/1
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Gnome Illusionist becomes unblockable until end of turn.

Demons: This feels common. I like this one. Super simple way to show spellcast. I love it.

Kultcher: Spellcast is very landfall-esque. That's probably a good thing, although I think it puts the impetus on you to make it distinct. For a basic implementation, however, this is spot on.

metaghost: Solid. Straight U, 1/1, Unblockable probably isn't unprintable at common, and this does a good job of sitting in that space of late limited pick.

Nich: This is a good way to demonstrate the return of Gnomes and the expected power level on Spellcast. You and I both played around with casting spells in our submissions, but your approach was much more reactive key ability. The thing that worries me most about this approach is the way it incentivizes you to play spells you might not care about to trigger Spellcast, and it trains your opponent to wait until you’ve committed a spell to trigger the ability before they use their removal. This mechanic rewards players for playing spells before combat, which isn’t often a good strategy.

This references Dungeons & Dragons and how, at least in D&D 3.5, a gnome's favored class is a wizard specializing in illusions: The illusionist. I love this card for that. And, hey, resonance! Well, besides World of Warcraft also popularizing gnomes.

Gnome Illusionist
U
Creature - Gnome Wizard
1/1
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Gnome Illusionist becomes unblockable until end of turn.

CU02
Wibblie Infantry
1U
Creature - Frog Soldier
2/1


Demons: I feel like this card is not Blue. A two mana 2/1 is not blue, its red or black. I'm not sure it makes sense given your themes.

Kultcher: Okay. Gotta have your vanilla dorks.

metaghost: The only problem with focusing on uncommon creature types is that putting them into your vanilla slots makes them seem so much less special.

Nich: Fine guy. Do the Gnomes and Frogs share classes, or will most of the wizards/mages be Gnomes and Fighters/defenders be Frogs? I think you should make this sort of decision when committing to two sentient tribes in a color.

I feel this card is blue according to this list of cards. The original Wibblie Thought-Fader is out in favor of a low-cost blue trauma creature, but the name remains.

"Mill" has been unkeyworded. I practically finished this whole post having used "grind" instead of "mill" for my revision, but it just didn't feel right. It's either "mill" or not at all, and it feels like "mill" isn't quite cutting it. However, the way trauma works has changed thanks to Lucky.

Wibblie Thought-Fader
1U
Creature - Frog Rogue
2/1
Trauma (This deals damage to players in the form of them putting twice that many cards from the top of their library into their graveyard.)

CU03
Gnome Aeronaut
UU
Creature - Gnome Wizard
1/1
Flying
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Gnome Aeronaut gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

Demons: In GDS1, it was said multiple times that they don't like to do CC at common because it puts pressure on limited. That said, i like the simple implementation.

Kultcher: This is more interesting. Thumbs up.

metaghost: One thing that the top 8 struggled with is the fact that outside of Green, the various colors tend to have a single CC creature at common. You have three. If we consider Plague Stinger as setting a bar of sorts, I see no reason this can't just be 1U to emphasize a set quality.

Nich: I agree that this would be better costing 1U rather than UU. I think it’s powerful, but not degenerate. Besides, your Blue creatures are pretty anemic and could use a power representation. You need to really let your set theme excite the player. A 2/2 for 1U with a drawback that’s all upside is a smart way to do that. If you’re concerned that Blue shouldn’t have creatures at this power level, than I would ask, if not in the “Casting matters” set, than when?

Because common is not a good place for repeatable effects (put them at uncommon, like an effect putting a token onto the battlefield every time you cast a spell), I decided that all the spellcast cards at common should use a bonus that doesn't stack EXCEPT for a cycle of "+1/+1"-ers. Actually, black might get a "-1/-1" spellcast card at common since that, too, is equally hard to abuse into degeneracy. So, what I'm trying to say is that this is part of a cycle. I'm sad this isn't a gnome anymore. That's O.K. Red will have another gnome. And, yes, a flying merfolk aeronaut. Only in my dreams, right? Oh, wait a minute... considering the type of plane... aha!

Merfolk Aeronaut
1U
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
1/1
Flying
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Derwon Aeronaut gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

CU04
Tome Rummager
2U
Creature - Frog Wizard
1/3
T: Draw a card, then discard a card.

Demons: Plays well with flashback, and I like the synergy with the P/T. It puts tension on whether or not you use him to block or use him to get the card on your turn. Thumbs up.

Kultcher: Feels like something a blue mage will enjoy playing, at least in limited. High toughness plus looter is a powerful combo, surprised it hasn't been done before.

metaghost: Oh those multi-faceted frogs.

Nich: Nice idea. I avoided a looter in Abissa because I feel like they’ve sent mixed signals as to whether they want the looter effect at common or uncommon.

Tome Rummager
2U
Creature - Human Wizard
1/3
T: Draw a card, then discard a card.

CU05
Wibblie Thought-Fader
2U
Creature - Frog Wizard
2/2
Trauma (Whenever this creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills twice that many cards instead.)

Demons: I don't feel like "mill" should be made into an action word, but even if it is, it shouldn't be called 'mill.' That isn't flavorful at all, its just nostalgic for Millstone that isn't even in print anymore. And Trauma isn't that exciting on a Grey Ogre. Its not bad, but limited probably needs a 1 mana 1/1 Trauma guy.

Kultcher: Perfectly reasonably common to display trauma. A random note, matter of taste: I don't like the word "mill" as an action word. Sure, Millstone is the iconic artifact but what the millstone is actually doing is grinding: More than one mage has been driven insane by the sound of the millstone relentlessly grinding away. I'd suggest renaming mill to "grind" or something similar. It just sounds more badass, like you're actually destroying someone's sanity rather than, I don't know, refining lumber.

Actually one more thing. Trauma is okay as it is, but it would be much cooler if borrowed from the infect playbook, where it played differently with both creatures and players. It's wordy but something like (If a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn would be destroyed, put it on top of it's owner's library instead.) Or shuffle it into it's owner's library, perhaps. But that would be badass.

metaghost: Did you know that only 3 wizards have ever had a combat damage ability?

Nich: Here comes trauma. Okay. I would hate to have this guy against a player at 2 life with 38 cards in their library. Milling for twice the power of the creature is a really smart idea. I like it more than a number and it makes it easier to scan on busy board. But the fact that creatures with trauma never deal damage to players is a big problem for me. I strongly recommend you make it a “may” clause.

The 1/1 C trauma creature? Good idea. That's going to be in black.

Cloudlurker Squid
2U
Creature - Squid
2/1
Flash
Flying

CU06
Twiddling Dream
1UU
Creature - Dream
2/2
Flying
When you cast Twiddling Dream, you may tap or untap target nonland permanent.
Flashback U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it. A creature spell cast this way does not enter the battlefield.)


Demons: This is way too confusing as to how it works. I can grok what you're trying to do, but I'm almost positive this will cause confusion to anyone who's played with flashback before.
Daniel: CU06 is a weird card. Why mess with flashback that way? Why not make it unearth? (Answer: because this is the flashback color/tribe; Unearth will go somewhere else?) It's un-good.

I think you could actually fix CU06 by making it weirder - make its card type Instant Creature. Keep Flashback the way it is, and add a reminder text: "You may play this card as an instant. If you do, put it on to the battlefield as it resolves." You might need to lose flying to make space on the card for it. And unless you plan on a cycle of Dream creatures, I'd stick with an established creature type, like Weird or Illusion.
Kultcher: Interesting choice. I suppose re-templating flashback wouldn't break it but it does feel a little funny. Regardless of that, the card is neat and the concept is solid. Good work.
metaghost: I'm not so sure you've got creature-flashback figured out, especially considering they designed Unearth for a reason. Evoke's template would assuredly work better, but I get not wanting to have to divide keyword concepts in the same set.

Nich: This an interesting take on Flashback, but it doesn’t make me glad Flashback has returned so much as show the limitation compared to Evoke or Unearth. Would Dream be a creature type reserved for creatures with Flashback? That’s a neat idea. This card deserves a bit more work since it’s a good idea, but not quite fully realized. Also, the nonland clause is probably unnecessary. Finally, I think the flashback cost is too cheap, but see comments on CU10 for more details on that.

Yeah, dreams are a cycle.

But, I do think that flashback could appear on card types other than sorceries and instants. And creatures are a big one. It's unexplored design space in the same vein that Dryad Arbor is a creature that's not a spell. It, too, has reminder text explaining what the ramifications of a creature land are.

Instants and sorceries are put into graveyards. Creatures enter battlefields. Flashback replaces where they go with the exile zone. A spell that has been flashbacked always hits the exile zone. It's working the same way that it always has, but it can make you scratch your head when it's on a creature. But, that's why the reminder text is there to remind you.

Suspenseful Dream
2U
Creature - Dream
2/2
When you cast Suspenseful Dream, you may tap or untap target permanent.
Flashback 1U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it. A creature spell cast this way does not enter the battlefield.)

CU07
Looming Nightmare
2UU
Creature - Nightmare
3/2
Flying
Trauma (Whenever this creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills twice that many cards instead.)

Demons: I like this Trauma guy much better. Flying works well with the ability.

Kultcher: Another guy for the trauma deck, sure.

metaghost: In limited, due to required card draw, this is closer to functioning like a 4/2. Probably shouldn't be common, as it's also definitely UU.

Nich: With a “may” clause on Trauma, this card is a great common, since we know how good Snapping Drake is. Again, the creature type is a nice choice.

This is the only common creature with UU in its cost. So, I listened.

Looming Nightmare
3UU
Creature - Nightmare
3/3
Flying
Trauma (This deals damage to players in the form of them putting twice that many cards from the top of their library into their graveyard.)

CU08
Gnome-Wibblie Evaders
4U
Creature - Frog Gnome Wizard
3/3
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Gnome-Wibblie Evaders gain flying and shroud until end of turn.

Demons: I like him, but is there going to be room for more spellcast cards in other colors? Zendikar had at most three landfall cards per color at common.

Kultcher: Why is he both a gnome and a frog? Anyway when it comes to cards like this what I would rather see is this:

Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, CHOOSE ONE -- Gnome-Wibblie Evaders gain flying until end of turn OR shroud until end of turn.

Sure it's weaker but I think it's a more interesting card.

metaghost: Crossbreeding Frogs and Gnomes? Seems a bit powerful for common.

Nich: I get it, a Gnome and a Frog-man are working together. Are they both Wizards too? I can see a 5 card cycle of these, assuming the other colors each feature two prominent races. This is just flavor unless you include some tribal elements at higher levels, which I hope you do. I think this card suffers from new tribal syndrome, because I don’t know which race is contributing which keyword when Spellcast triggers. Is flying the Gnome side, or is it shroud? Which more distinct keywords tying it all together this could be a home run. It’s a nice medium creature for limited too.

This card is a result of my design decisions being blinded by love. I love the Shadowmoor Duo cycle, and I wanted to copy it for my set, which was heavily tribal, except do races instead of classes. (Gnome Wizard and Frog Wizard teaming up) I was going to do a mechanic for each tribe, pairing two mechanics per dual-raced card. But then I gave up the tribe-specific mechanics. And then I gave up tribal period. And then I still kept the races of my world and tried to keep the dream alive of a new Duo cycle with this sorry excuse of a representation of that. But, by this point, I'm just doing a disservice to both the set and the cycle I wanted to do.

It just so happens this is the other creature I'm cutting from the current roster. Hooray. Next time I do a tribal set, I'm so pursuing this cycle again.

Since I have a bunch of different creature types in this world now, I won't be pursuing Nich's suggestion of making the types relevant at higher "levels."

The exile ability is part of a small set of cards that care about exiled cards. It interacts with flashback and the anti-trauma green-centric mechanic.

AEther Drake
3U
Creature - Drake
2/2
Flying
AEther Drake gets +1/+1 and has shroud as long as you own an exiled card.

CU09
Spellhunting Serpent
5U
Creature - Serpent
Defender
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, Spellhunting Serpent loses defender until end of turn. 

Demons: This guy needs a P/T. Other than that and the fact that its your fourth spellcast card, this is fine.

Kultcher: This guy has no P/T. I'll assume 5/5. In that case I think his Spellcast trigger might be a little too easy to hit. Just spitballing a different take using my idea above:

Spellhunting Amoeboid - 3U

Creature - Mutant Beast

Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, you may switch Spellhunting Amoeboid's power and toughness until end of turn.

1/5 

metaghost: P/T missing. Where's its evasion?
Nich: Too similar to the landfall Serpent in Zendikar for my tastes, right down to defender.

Reminiscent Serpent
5U
Creature - Serpent
4/4
Reminiscent Serpent is unblockable as long as there's an Island in defending player's graveyard.

CU10
Lethe Bolt
U
Sorcery
Target player mills three cards.
Flashback 1U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

Demons: I like this in this set.

Kultcher: No problems here.

metaghost: Solid.

Nich: As a flashback enabler, this is fantastic. The more spells with flashback you put in your yard, the more options you’re going to have to trigger your Spellcast effects. Once again, we both sought a way to incentivize players to want to play a lot of spells. My choice was Resurface (which puts a spell back on the bottom of your library once it’s played, or discarded,) and you chose Flashback. I would be really interested to see which method is more successful at getting players to risk casting spells. On its own, Lethe Bolt will make the flashback/spellcast deck work. This plus Gnome Aeronaut is pretty exciting for limited. Any low costing Flashback costs should be scrutinized.

Lethe Bolt
U
Sorcery
Target player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
Flashback 1U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

CU11
Sudden Nightmare
U
Instant
Target creature gains trauma until end of turn. (Whenever that creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills twice that many cards instead.)

Demons: This card sorta steps on the toes of number 10. I would probably cut one of them.

Kultcher: A little boring but what do you want from a common blue combat trick? Maybe it could also grant unblockable, as that would gel nicely with the flavor of a creature "turning into" a nightmare.

metaghost: Gimme a cantrip or something if I can't get a +X/+0.

Nich: Eh, it’s okay. It’s a possible Flashback enabler, or fog for a single creature. In limited, it might help you deck a player.

I agree with you guys. This card is moved to black since it "steps on the toes of number 10," and it'd be in the same vein as Tainted Strike. So, here's another card to take its place.

CU12
Think Twice (Reprint)
1U
Instant
Draw a card.
Flashback 2U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

Demons: A serviceable reprint, but kind of unexciting.

Kultcher: Good fit.

metaghost: Good reprint.
Nich: Think Twice is a really strong choice for this set.

Think Twice (Reprint)
1U
Instant
Draw a card.
Flashback 2U (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

CU13
Unconventional Rejection
1U
Instant
Counter target spell not cast from a player's hand.

Demons: I like this card, but it might be uncommon. See Laquatus's Disdain and Nix.

Kultcher: I love cards like this, with an obvious application in the block and the ability to be a role player in older formats. Thumbs up.

metaghost: Good design. Specialized counters are tougher to concoct than they can seem.

Nich: Unconventional Rejection will probably do a lot of heavy lifting for this set. You clearly made it clean enough that it could be reprinted many times. That might also explain its generic name (which I know were only supposed to be placeholders, but still.) But why not give it Flashback? It’s so narrow that it would only really be printed in sets that cast things from the graveyard and Flashback is the cleanest example of that sort of mechanic already.

I'm not 100% sure which rarity is correct. On one hand, Laquatus's Disdain might have been O.K. at common. Would Odyssey block drafts really be screwed by the presence of a common slot flashback counter? However, in this set, it appears in the large set and has a lot of flashback cards. (20% of the commons have flashback) BUT then I think about how Mana Leak is a "soft counter" that gets a lot of mileage for its "softness." Besides, with all the milling that blue will do, perhaps it will need a hand combating all the flashback options the opponent will have. Since I can see this being at common, I'm going to leave it. ...Until I draft this set and see what's really up.

Also, I'm taking a page from metaghost's comment on Momentary Banishment and using this simple name that hasn't been done before.

Reject
1U
Instant
Counter target spell not cast from a player's hand.

CU14
Feverish Study
2U
Sorcery
Each player draws three cards then discards two cards at random.
Flashback 2R (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

Demons: I like what you're trying to do, but the card doesn't seem mono-blue to me. I'd buy it if it was "Draw three, discard three"

Kultcher: Not sure where enemy color came from, but okay. It seems like it has enough room to fit so I won't knock it. Everyone's into giving red the looter ability these days. Personally, I feel like red is more likely to discard THEN draw than to do the standard looter thing. A card that did looter for blue and the "gambling looter" for red would be neat, but this card can't really be that. Another than that relatively minor niggle, this is fine.
metaghost: A one of multicolor shake-up? Just trying to test essay-theory?
Nich: I like these off color Flashback spells. And I like that you seem to be putting two in each color. Even as a cycle of ten it’s flexible enough to allow strong designs. I like this card specifically. Blue with random discard is a bit weird, but you had to choose to bleed blue into red or red into blue. And given how easy mill will make stocking Flashback into the ‘yard, I think bleeding blue into red was a better choice.

I was using Noggle Ransacker (Gosh, I love noggles.) as the source of what both blue and red can do. As for whether this should have been a red card with blue flashback, um... upon searching for blue cards besides that noggle card that causes players to discard cards at random... I didn't find any. Wizards either color-bled or just haven't gotten around to designing random discard (or haven't shifted around the color pie again, yet) So, it's better as a red card with blue flashback. Off it goes! Here's a replacement:

Flip-Flop
3U
Instant
Switch target creature's power and toughness until end of turn.
Draw a card.
Flashback 3R (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)


CU15
Momentary Banishment
2U
Instant
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Spells with the same name as that permanent can't be cast until end of turn.

Demons: I like this card. Nice one.

Kultcher: Cool, a great way to add a little extra spice to good old bounce. Very solid.

metaghost: Did you know "Banish" is still available as a card name? Even if bounce is temporary, it's a little longer than momentary here. And wordiness is a sin. (Good design.)
Nich: This is decent bounce variant. I’m not sure how often the second ability will matter though, since players mostly bounce at end of turn, or prior to combat to allow a creature to get through. As a Spellcast enabler, I can see this getting cast earlier in another player’s turn, but you’d have to show me some Spellcast effects that are good on defense.

I imagine the second ability would be useful when you let a creature attack, and you bounce it in combat, stalling the creature attacking you for two turns. Also, this prevents giving your opponent another spellcast activation, which, on spellcast cards of higher rarities, would be a good thing.

I agree, metaghost. Let's use Banish.

Banish
2U
Instant
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Spells with the same name as that permanent can't be cast until end of turn.

CU16
Deniability
2UU
Instant
Counter target spell. Then, you may counter target activated or triggered ability.

Demons: I'm not sure countering activated or triggered abilities is common. That said, its a nice "counter with upside"

Kultcher: I see what you're doing, but I'd still like both clauses to say, "You may" just so you have the flexibility to counter just an activated ability. Either way it feels a little bit clunky to me, but not awful.

metaghost: I'd prefer this with Grim Discovery's "Choose one or both" template.
Nich: I don’t agree with this as a common. It’s too complicated. Will players know that Flashback casts a spell and not an ability? In fact that whole interaction between Spellcast and Flashback will need to be very pronounced in the set. And I also see this as benefiting from the “Choose one or both” option from Branching Bolt.

I feel embarrassed for not having paid attention to the rarity of cards that counter abilities. Countering triggered abilities only appeared on three rare cards and countering an activated ability is clearly at least uncommon as seen in Squelch and Voidmage Husher. To fix this, I'm willing to drop the "activated" part and make this an uncommon card.

Fun fact: The name Deniability is supposed to sound like "Deny ability," which is what it does (countering spellcast triggers).

Here's the fixed card:

Deniability (Uncommon)
2UU
Instant
Choose one or both -- Counter target spell; or counter target triggered ability.

But the common card slot needs another "hard counter" card. So here's the replacement. Is having another counterspell that's good against flashback (and the yet-to-be-seen green-centric mechanci) too much:

Quarantine
2UU
Instant
Exile target spell.


CU17
Raninomancy
3U
Instant
Target creature loses all abilities and becomes a 1/1 green Frog until end of turn.
Flashback 5G (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)


Demons: I like this one. Just keep in mind that the more flashback cards you have, the more on-board complexity you create.

Daniel: Omnibian is one of my all-time favorite creatures. Raninomancy is awesome.

Kultcher: I've always felt that "loses all abilities" should be a green ability. In fact I wish I'd answered that in my #2 essay. Anyway, turning things into 1/1s doesn't feel super green but the fact that it's a Frog creature makes me happier about it. The fun-ness of the card overcomes any complaints I might have.

metaghost: Again with the multicolor! I get that this is a riff on Snakeform, but without the cantrip I think you've overcosted a bit, especially since the Flashback already requires an enemy color. 3U / 3G would be real clean.
Nich: Except for the fact that you have a sentient race of Frog-people in the set, this is a solid hit. It would be like putting Snakeform in Kamigawa Block. That’s just flavor though. Why not have the spell turn them into a harmless day Dream or Notion?

Hmm. Perhaps the frog people have no qualms with turning people into unevolved versions of themselves. Those eyes of theirs give a clue to just how freaky they are. They can even fade your thoughts! *shudders* Yeah, just flavor. So, I'm leaving it as is. 'cause I love that this is the magic of a raninomancer (someone specializing in frog magic).

I made the costs of the mana cost and flashback cost have a difference of two mana because I didn't like how you could cast it once to potentially kill of a guy, then have it ready the very next turn to fire again with flashback. With a difference of two mana between the costs, if this was cast on turn three, there's at least one turn for the opposing player to breathe. And attack without fear. Am I crazy? Oh, well. I did lower the cost.

Raninomancy
2U
Instant
Target creature loses all abilities and becomes a 1/1 green Frog until end of turn.
Flashback 4G (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

CU18
Dispatched Restraints
4U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step.
Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, you may return Dispatched Restraints to its owner's hand.

Demons: This is fine, except its another spell cast card.

Kultcher: Pretty okay limited spell. 5 spellcast cards may be too much for one rarity and I wouldn't be sorry to see this one get reworked a bit.

metaghost: Solid bad removal. Gotta have 'em.

Nich: For this cost, it should at least tap the creature when it enters the battlefield. It’s a good design.

I fixed the number of spellcast cards. This is number three. I really wanted a non-creature card at common with spellcast, and I believe the best place to represent that is in blue. Green, on the other hand, easily could have three creatures as its three spellcast cards.

I'll take up Nich's suggestion for making this not as bad. You do have to cast a spell then pay five mana again just to move it to another dude. Seems still fair.

Dispatched Restraints

4U

Enchantment - Aura

Enchant creature

When Dispatched Restraints enters the battlefield, tap enchanted creature.

Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step.

Spellcast -- Whenever you cast a spell, you may return Dispatched Restraints to its owner's hand.

Conclusion

Besides my reviewers' individual card comments, here are their concluding thoughts:

Dan Emmons (Demons)

Overall, I liked you're submission a ton. You set feels 'cerebral' and I'm interested to play limited with Trauma creatures. I feel like Wizards would not like to print milling as a large block component because a ton of players hate getting milled.

Hopefully, the gameplay will show that getting milled isn't so bad in this environment when there's other mechanics to combat how terrible it is in the form of flashback and that one green-centric mechanic I keep mentioning but haven't yet revealed.

Daniel 

I really, really like the Frog people.

I don't think your other elements are successful though.

At this point in Magic, Gnomes are a trope with an established identity. The same way Angels are flying females, and Demons have sacrifice abilities, Gnomes are small clockwork creatures. It's also a little confusing having two tribes in the same color, set, and rarity (Lorwyn/Shadowmoor had this same problem sometimes, with Merfolk constantly getting shunted around like unwanted homeless people.) Your frogs are cool! Stick with them!

I don't think you'd want mill as a keyword either. I'm pretty sure Mark Rosewater has written about how Design doesn't plan to keyword anymore evergreen abilities in the foreseeable future. (If I find the article, I'll link it here.)

I'm not sure how I feel about Spellcast. Maybe Spellcast would grow on me if I played the cards, but it seems like a cheap ability, since the game is about casting spells. If you do it pretty much every turn, it just feels like getting something for free. It might need a restriction, like Instantcast or Creaturecast or something.

One last thing you're wrong about - Wizards would have done fine to pick you as a finalist. You seem like you have good ideas, and these cards are as good as anything the actual finalists are submitting. I hope you keep working on them!


The frogs are still around, yet, my decision to include all sorts of races (like in Ravnica) because of the fact the world is tied to the planeswalker's memories means there's less frogs. As for gnomes, I believe that because of games like World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons, there's the resonance that my gnomes have got going for them. They may not be a trope, but perhaps they will be someday. Dwarves appear infrequently, and I'd like to think that gnomes could achieve the same status as those guys.

The article you're talking about where Mark Rosewater said they wouldn't keyword anymore evergreen abilities is "Keyword Play," I believe.

I have a shameful secret: I haven't played with my own cards, yet, either. As for specialized casting like "instantcast", I could see spellcast having, in one hypothetical card's example: "Whenever you cast a spell, Some Soldier gets +1/+1 until end of turn.. If it was a creature spell, Some Soldier gets first strike until end of turn." for Set 2 or 3. But, that might be too hard to keep track of, and I'm getting off track here, anyway

And, lastly, my rebuttal to it being fine if Wizards picked me is that I see where my weakness is, and it ties with them seeking someone with vision, and, right now, I have thick lenses. ...Besides that, my weakness is the vision for the set's flavor, and logline is not really strong. I was, like, "Yeah, a plane within a planeswalker's mind!" and the rest was supposed to me fleshing it out well. I believe concept-wise, mechanics-wise, and furniture-wise,  it's pretty good, though.

Kultcher

I have to commend you, Bradley. I've only looked at a couple of non-Top 8 Common Grounds but yours feels like far and away the best of the ones I've read. I like it better than some of the Top 8 submissions. I hope you keep playing along, I look forward to seeing more.

metaghost

You've done a good job of working with landfall-esque "reward people for what they want to do", and wanting to cast spells has an obvious relationship with the graveyard. I'm not completely sold on Trauma, as mill is historically a "griefer-zone" for purely psychological reasons. And other than the amusing Spike-centric relationships between Trauma and Flashback that Odyssey block explored, there isn't much new here that makes me excited to see how you'll manage to make milling palatable to new players/casuals.

I see your point. Spellcast is a riff on landfall, flashback is a returning mechanic, and milling is not new at all. Trauma's like wither/poison. Perhaps the combination of these mechanics make for a refreshing experience. I think playtesting is in order to see whether the gameplay is fun.

Also, griefers being pleased means some Timmys are pleased. I'm glad Spikes would be amused. And the Johnnies won't need much if I throw them a bone here and there.

Nicholas Grayson (Nich)

I like your commons as a snapshot of the set. They present a clear image of the kind of choices and matters players will need to be aware of. I think they would play well in a limited environment. There is a lot of focus on milling, and in theory, I like the marriage of milling and Flashback together again. I have a few issues with Trauma specifically. Also, Frog and Gnome tribal is an unexpected decision for blue.

Thanks, everyone, immensely for your input. For those I said I would get back to for reviewing of their own mock submissions, I'll get to those! Before I start the second challenge, for sure. And, also, you, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave further comments and such on this blog, on the Wiki, or by tweeting me (@bradleyrose)

Cheers,

Brad