Magic the Gathering Great Designer Search 2...DL collaboration?

[metroid composite]

http://community.wizards.com/magicthegathering/wiki/labs:Gds/gds2

So...four years ago WotC did GDS, with questions and exercises that looked very fun, but hey: I had a good job already, and I was pretty busy.  Flash forward and they're doing GDS2, in which they encourage internet collaboration.  Is there a group of people online I'd want to collaborate with when designing stuff?  *glances at the DL. Glances at LFT.*  Yes, yes there is.

I don't know if anyone here is actually interested in an internship making a children's card game, but I totally want to DL collaborate for the fun of it.  (Card games on motorcycles?) Anyone else interested?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Do I get to draw pretty pictures?

If so, I'm in.

[AndrewRogue]

Yeah, sure, I have some interst. I think. I should actually fully read the stuff, but it sounds like its worth a shot. Only problem is I am way out of Magic.

[Grefter]

I am interested in children's card games on motorcycles.

[metroid composite]

Do I get to draw pretty pictures?

If so, I'm in.

I'm not sure--they haven't given out most of the tasks yet.  The information I have found...


This Wednesday (Tuesday at midnight) they release an essay question.

Sometime in the future: you need to build a fantasy world of some kind.

Sometime after that: designing a complete set within the fantasy world.



All of these are tasks the DL is actually better at than I am.  (Writing an essay?  I'm not a terrible writer, but there are several English majors here.  Coming up with a fantasy world?   This I suck at).  Actually...on the subject of the fantasy world, I imagine pretty pictures could help there.

Yeah, sure, I have some interst. I think. I should actually fully read the stuff, but it sounds like its worth a shot. Only problem is I am way out of Magic.

You're into WoW TCG, which seems pretty similar, and probably gives you ideas for stuff that's not in MtG.  That seems pretty valuable.

[Bardiche]

A friend once gave me a complete set of Magic cards, and explained the game to me. I was always intrigued by the storyline behind them and fantasised how the game'd be as if simulating a fight or war. Roleplay and intricate storylines, etcetera.

If my schedule's forgiving, I'd love to throw a hand in here.

[Grefter]

Oooh essay writing.  It has been aaages since I have done that.  I might do that even if it doesn't get used.  The chance to have someone with actual writing skills clean up an essay would be actually pretty good with how my writing tends to drift off into tangents by accident (Never failed an essay at University!  Always lost bunches of marks for horrible writing style)

[Tide]

I am interested in children's card games on motorcycles.

Yes yes. And, oh yeah, I wouldn't mind taking part of this collaboration either

[DjinnAndTonic]

I would be interested in seeing Andy's fantasy world from the IAQ project get used in this if that's not too vain. He had a pretty interesting set of ideas for a magic system, in particular.

I'm not sure how well it would translate into MtG's gameplay, though.

The basic idea was that the magical energy of the world could be channeled into a 3-step process, but that the people of the world had forgotten how to combine the steps correctly, so each branch of magic worked in a kind of opposition to another.

The first step was called Dissonance, which produced large-scale powerful effects, but produced a poisonous backlash called Disquiet (essentially magical radiation).

The second step was called Quieting, which nulled all magical energy and was deadly if left unchecked. This step was used to calm the Disquiet effect produced by Dissonance. This is the main part of the magical system that people forgot, so Disquiet runs rampant in the world where there are a lot of Dissonance practicioners.

The third step was called Resonance, which produced low-level, long-term effects that essentially just enhanced/perfected natural processes. This step re-introduces magical energy calmly after the Quieting step nulled everything.

Taken together, you can get the powerful effects of Dissonance without the backlash.

Additionally, there was an imperfect version of the complete system that certain individuals became attuned to naturally, and can use it in a high-Disquiet setting without realizing that they are even using magic.


These ideas already seem like they have analogues in MtG (from what I remember). Dissonance would be standard instant effect cards with a backlash effect. Resonance would be akin to Enchantments. Quieting... probably has -something- in MtG. The more interesting part of this magic system as used in MtG would be the idea that cards would work best in sets of 3, one of each type to produce a powerful effect.

So... perhaps you have something ridiculous broken as an instant effect (Dissonance), but produces a really, REALLY terrible backlash effect (Disquiet)... like deal 75% mHP direct damage to a player, but the user must sacrifice every creature card in their -deck-. And then you have a corollary on the card that it can't be used if a Quieting card is in effect. Finally, create a Resonance card with its own effect and a corollary that allows the Dissonance card to be used without the penalty provided that a Quieting card -is- in effect.

Or something like that?

[metroid composite]

Resonance sounds like mana...at least the reintroduce energy part.  I'll have more thoughts later.

in the mean time...contest starts.  10 essay questions between 250-350 words revealed:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/111a
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/111b

Some of these I know I'd need to research.  The main pitfall to watch is "design" is not "development".  An overpowered card is not necessarily a badly designed card.  For instance, Necropotence has been called the best-designed card in Ice Age.

[Yoshiken]

Ooh, fun. Definitely interested, just a shame the entries are US only. Ah, well, can at least help out here.

Looking at the essay questions, I'm not too good on older Magic sets - I have no idea which abilities have been colour-shifted, for one thing (although Red Wrath would probably be a good idea, since Red's entirely destruction and damage, I guess, and I know that's not been colour-switched since the colour switch was Black Wrath... ;o)

For cards currently in standard, I'm thinking something like Hellwurm Coil is one that shouldn't exist - a 6/6 Artifact Creature for 6 mana that has Deathtouch and Lifelink and becomes two 3/3s, one with Deathtouch, one with Lifelink? Yeah, that should almost certainly cost more, at the very least. The average good colour creature has a mana cost equal to its power/toughness and one or two extra abilities, not 3 abilities and the ability to be used in any deck - any deck not running a Wurmcoil now isn't at its best.

For Djinn's comments on the IAQ: Dissonance is pretty much standard Black play - get good effects, but at a cost. (See: Sign in Blood or Abyssal Persecutor) Quieting works like Blue currently does in Magic, in that it's a lot of Cancel effects. Resonance is, as Djinn suggested, mostly Enchantments, which I always associate with White for some reason (even though I think there's a decent split between different colours, White seems to have the most positive ones.) (That said, rather than looking at Magic for that, it'd probably be best to create slightly different effects that create a counter-system - Dissonance would beat Resonance, which would beat Quieting, which would beat Dissonance. - I'm guessing that'd work like aggro/mid-range/long-range decks in Magic at the moment)

[Taishyr]

Uh, I could help contribute, I suppose? If we go with the IAQ concept I'd have to refresh myself on it first.

I'll look at the essay questions in a little bit.

[metroid composite]

For cards currently in standard, I'm thinking something like Hellwurm Coil is one that shouldn't exist - a 6/6 Artifact Creature for 6 mana that has Deathtouch and Lifelink and becomes two 3/3s, one with Deathtouch, one with Lifelink? Yeah, that should almost certainly cost more, at the very least. The average good colour creature has a mana cost equal to its power/toughness and one or two extra abilities, not 3 abilities and the ability to be used in any deck - any deck not running a Wurmcoil now isn't at its best.

DANGER: design is not development!  The question is NOT asking for "what's an overpowered card".  To reiterate my post:


The main pitfall to watch is "design" is not "development".  An overpowered card is not necessarily a badly designed card.  For instance, Necropotence has been called the best-designed card in Ice Age.


To use an FFT/LFT example, Lancers are badly designed--sure, in LFT we can tweak the numbers to make them powerful, but in spite of that tweaking people still find the class pretty dull.  By comparison, Mimes are an awesome design, but in FFT were ridiculously underpowered, and Calculators had neat design, but in FFT were ridiculously overpowered--adjust a few values, change a few static abilities, and suddenly Mimes and Calculators are a much-loved part of the LFT patch.

Here's an article on design failures, if you want an idea of what to look for:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr166

Notably, for MtG where everyone needs to understand how a card works, unnecessary complexity is a bad, bad thing (which is not necessarily the case for FFT/LFT designs, although Calculator is a serious offender for being too complex).

[Grefter]

Yeahhhh... needing to be a US resident bites hard, but meh might answer questions anyway.  Lots of research I am going to have to do though since I am not up to date on Magic.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The main pitfall to watch is "design" is not "development".  An overpowered card is not necessarily a badly designed card.  For instance, Necropotence has been called the best-designed card in Ice Age.

Couldn't disagree more. Necropotence is terrible, in that it is overcentralising; either your deck is built around it to at least some degree, or it borders on useless. It's worth remembering (since this is the brief era I actually played MtG, I actually can <.<) that the card was initially dismissed as crap in the competitive scene and then in the space of about a year rose until it had to be banned. gj on both. That strikes me as bad design.

Otherwise it's been over a decade since I've cared about Magic so I don't really have much to offer on this topic. I must ask, though: back when I played the setting of the games seemed to be borderline ignored. Has that changed? I can't say doing setting design for a situation like that would interest me at all.

[SnowFire]

The setting is some variant of hack fantasy, but they can do interesting excuses for mechanical themes.  The Mirrodin block, which is being reprised with the Scars of Mirrodin block out now, has a "lots of artifacts" mechanical theme, so theoretically your setting should kind of include that.  The actual novels were literary war crimes apparently (I actually read the first ~1/3 of the first book for fun at a bookstore once, and it was possibly the worst book I've ever read) but the setting IDEA was kind of cool.  Ravnica was themed around each of the 10 potential 2-color combinations.  The setting ran with this by saying that there were 10 guilds which basically ruled the huge sprawling city of Ravnica, flavored the guilds appropriately for the mechanics they got, and generally played with the city theme (red and green became more like "back alley brawlers" than "wild forests and mountains.")  I'd argue that for Magic flavor design, the mechanics in general should come first, and once you know the mechanics you want to use you come up with a cool flavor excuse for them.  Then you use your flavor excuse and back-create some things that would make sense only for flavor reasons so that the fact that mechanics came first isn't quite so obvious and to make the flavor matter a bit more.

As for Necropotence, I disagree.  It's a *fun* card for card-drawing, with the guessing game of "how much life can I afford to spend?"  You also don't need to design your deck around it.  In fact, that's a problem with Necro from a development perspective - you should toss it into almost every deck, because more cards are good.  Necro got used in aggressive decks to refuel and then later was used in combo decks to draw 10 cards and try and go for a kill the next turn.  Though Black Control didn't really exist at the time - and Necro's triple Black casting cost was both good flavor and a decent safety net - if Necro had been legal in a later age when Black Control was viable (Odyssey block with Torment?), they'd totally have cheerfully played Necro, then tossed Corrupts / Drain Lifes at the enemy's head to refuel their life while all the removal they drew got rid of enemy creatures.  So no, I don't think you really have to design your deck around Necro, not that this is necessarily a bad thing anyway.

I'm willing to chip in with what I know, for what it's worth.  I haven't been closely following Magic for 2-3 years, though, so my knowledge of recent events is loose.  Anyone else have a Magic Online account here, by the way?

[AndrewRogue]

The thing is that, while overpowered/overcentralizing cards are poorly designed to some extent, many of them do feature large tracts of good design in them. Its just that they have too much. I mean, there is a pretty decisive distinction between even, say, Time Walk and Necroportence. Both are amazing cards. Both are insanely powerful. One of them is certainly a fair bit better designed then the other one. So it is both well designed and poorly designed in various regards.

[Yoshiken]

For cards currently in standard, I'm thinking something like Hellwurm Coil is one that shouldn't exist - a 6/6 Artifact Creature for 6 mana that has Deathtouch and Lifelink and becomes two 3/3s, one with Deathtouch, one with Lifelink? Yeah, that should almost certainly cost more, at the very least. The average good colour creature has a mana cost equal to its power/toughness and one or two extra abilities, not 3 abilities and the ability to be used in any deck - any deck not running a Wurmcoil now isn't at its best.

DANGER: design is not development!  The question is NOT asking for "what's an overpowered card".  To reiterate my post:

The main pitfall to watch is "design" is not "development".  An overpowered card is not necessarily a badly designed card.  For instance, Necropotence has been called the best-designed card in Ice Age.

Design isn't development, sure. But, AFAIK, development is part of the design. The same works on the other end of the spectrum - Chandra Nalaar, for the most part, is ridiculously weak, useful in... long-range red? 'Cause that exists often, I'm sure.
Looking at this purely from a creative design aspect, as opposed to gameplay design, though... Elspeth Tirel in Scars of Mirrodin? Really? There are very few token creatures there and it doesn't fit in with the world aspects, as far as I can tell - even if they can make it fit from a storyline aspect, it would almost certainly fit better elsewhere. (The main point in Scars is that we have the artifacts, decaying creatures (Infect) and specific tribes - Auriok, Leonin, etc. Elspeth fits with none of the above.)

[Grefter]

So I didn't get started yet because we had a familly dinner, but had some ideas floating around for some specific questions (you know the interesting ones).

These are straight copies of notes from my phone (late, tired, lazy), but hey food for thought/discussion. [Used for extra thoughts outside of notes]

Magic concepts

Churning abilities to new colours
White sacrifice. [I need to research how much it has been used for White, I generally think of sac as a Black mechanic though]
Green Draw Card
Black counter (COST!)
Red colour change (Controlled?) [I don't really like this one, but the Lace line of spells are criminially underutilised components of red]
Blue First Strike/Flanking (Check existing?) Not great

[I know Blue has a hint of this back in 4th with First Strike, illusions generally being hard hitting first strikers that are weak was flirted with, but I think it generally has been dropped to the wayside with Red/White predominantly being First Strikers.  Might just be more of a revisit.  Flanking is a pet favourite mechanic that I tend to think is underutilised, to overly tuned it can be crippling to the enemy, but I like it because it restricts it entirely to creature control while retaining general weakness of the creature vs players and doesn't buff the card amazingly against burns]

[Rambling about why I think Ravnica is an awesome set]
Guilds are great, mix of colour encouraging themes (player type, Timmy?) needed more emphasis on focus, easy to ignore core mechanics, not enough guild cards (limitation of set mechanic [monetary requirement, cannot release one huge set to last for 6 months anymore].  Hard balance to maintain limits usability in extended/unlimited (No worse than Shadow).

That is all I had on the bus, but hey it is the start of a concept of an answer for the most interesting question and a pretty honest start to one of the other questions.

Other ideas my brothers threw out, elder brother said pingers for Black, touches a bit close to ground it already covers I think.  Little brother said anything that gets rid of Counter from Blue because he fucking hates blue.  Hater got to hate I guess.

Personal favourite of the ideas that spat out, is White Sacrifice, I would like to see it in a White is Not Nice set.  Even have a Rare concept I would like to float, just need to hammer down a cost.  Like I have noted though I need to really research how much White Sacrifice mechanics there already is (I know there is some basic ones for destroying enchantments and some that gain life/prevent damage), but I really would like to see it roll out as a more primary mechanic instead of just being a late game booster to pricey 2/2 summons.

One I would probably run though honestly is the Green draw card one.  Green hasn't done this before, green searches or mills itself to find what it is after.  I want this in the same set as White is Not Nice honestly, I would like to see a nurturing Green.  Green is always ferocious because it is you know, busy trying not to be elvish vagina monsters all the time or WARRIOR ELVES.  I would like to see green reworked once to be a more spell oriented druidic based concept for a set, growing and germinating new ideas instead of being Survival of the Fittest type stuff.  Dovetails really badly with existing sets sadly, but again, no worse than Shadow does. 

Fuck Shadow and it ever existing, fail twist on Flying.    I thought about trying to work out a way you could revive Shadow and work it, but short of devoting an entire set to it I honestly don't think it can happen (which is part of why Shadow sucks, the Rath Cycle had so many plates spinning that Shadow should have been taken out the back and shot as it had no room to flourish, other places it was brought back just make it worse), but again this new set would dovetail HORRIBLY with other sets in Extended or Unlimited.

But anyway I have babbled more than I meant to.

Necropotence is awesome design and horrible design.  It is a fun concept and it is hella powerful and has the cost to leverage it (BBB honestly is I think the power level I would balance my conceptual White Rare to WWW is expensive and perfect) Edit - Note I mean I like this as a flavourful cost much more than power level value.  What is wrong with it though met?


If the card has to use 8 (maybe 6/7?) point font on the card just to fit it then there is a good chance the card is over engineered.  It falls flat in one of the core things they say somewhere in the entry.  It is just to complex.  Some of it can be stripped back with more modern less rulesy effect writing, but still, it is a pretty nuts card.

[metroid composite]

I don't want to dwell too much on Necropotence; I agree it has good and bad aspects to it.  The quote on it being well designed I was referencing came from here, for the interested:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr135

Churning abilities to new colours
White sacrifice. [I need to research how much it has been used for White, I generally think of sac as a Black mechanic though]

I think White's had a couple "sacrifice this creature to give target creature protection from the colour of your choice" effects.  *checks*

Burrenton Forge-Tender
Children of Korlis
Knight-Captain of Eos
Mycologist (colourshifted, to be fairl)
Samite Cencer-Barer
World Queller

Yeah, I do like the way you're thinking, but certainly self-sacrifice seems to be getting semi-regular placement in white.

Now, white doesn't have stuff like "sacrifice a land", but I find that hard to justify.  White doesn't have "target player sacrifices a creature", but the problem is that these usually take out the small guy, and white is all communist and wants to take out the big dude.  Actually...maybe "target player sacrifices the creature he or she controls with the highest converted mana cost"?

Green Draw Card

Harmonize.  I agree, green should get card drawing, but it has been colour-shifted before.

Black counter (COST!)

This is relatively unexplored.  There's two I can think of...

Withering Boon
Dash Hopes
(and a few really old "counter target green spell" or "counter target white spell".)

Red colour change (Controlled?) [I don't really like this one, but the Lace line of spells are criminially underutilised components of red]

Colour change is so rarely used because it's such a minor effect that I'm not sure it counts as being in every set.

Blue First Strike/Flanking (Check existing?) Not great

[I know Blue has a hint of this back in 4th with First Strike, illusions generally being hard hitting first strikers that are weak was flirted with, but I think it generally has been dropped to the wayside with Red/White predominantly being First Strikers.  Might just be more of a revisit.  Flanking is a pet favourite mechanic that I tend to think is underutilised, to overly tuned it can be crippling to the enemy, but I like it because it restricts it entirely to creature control while retaining general weakness of the creature vs players and doesn't buff the card amazingly against burns]

Actually, I like Blue first-strike.  One of the things WotC is constantly bitching about is "there's no abilities to put on blue creatures.  When you do a five-colour cycle of creatures, you have to stick flying on Blue because there's nothing else in blue".  I mean yeah: they've tossed blue Vigilance (attacking does not cause this creature to tap) and Flash (cast anytime you could cast an instant).  I like Vigilance in blue, but not so much Flash (let's make it extra easy to keep counter mana open, and not force Blue to splash a colour for such an obviously synergistic effect).

Other ideas my brothers threw out, elder brother said pingers for Black, touches a bit close to ground it already covers I think.

Oh!  Those have happened, but it's been a long time.  Last one was Kiku, Night's Flower, and before that you're looking at like...stuff from Chronicles.

Although...hold on.  There's a decent amount of "target creature gets -1/-1" and especially "target creature gets a -1/-1 counter".  Although...strangely not from tapping.  Mostly stuff like Caustic Crawler.

Personal favourite of the ideas that spat out, is White Sacrifice, I would like to see it in a White is Not Nice set.  Even have a Rare concept I would like to float, just need to hammer down a cost.  Like I have noted though I need to really research how much White Sacrifice mechanics there already is (I know there is some basic ones for destroying enchantments and some that gain life/prevent damage), but I really would like to see it roll out as a more primary mechanic instead of just being a late game booster to pricey 2/2 summons.

Hm, this sounds somewhat interesting.  I think one set of "white is not nice" is not necessarily the scope of the question, however.

[metroid composite]

Looking at this purely from a creative design aspect, as opposed to gameplay design, though... Elspeth Tirel in Scars of Mirrodin? Really? There are very few token creatures there and it doesn't fit in with the world aspects, as far as I can tell - even if they can make it fit from a storyline aspect, it would almost certainly fit better elsewhere. (The main point in Scars is that we have the artifacts, decaying creatures (Infect) and specific tribes - Auriok, Leonin, etc. Elspeth fits with none of the above.)

Planeswalkers often don't fit with the surrounding set.  Ajani was a leonin introduced in a tribal set that...didn't have leonin.  There's at least a flavour justification--planeswalkers...don't come from the plane of the set in question, so they should seem a little out-of-place.  But that's a flavour argument, not a design argument so...let me approach this from a design perspective.

Design wise, whether it's a good idea or a bad idea to include cards counter to your theme...I believe the "for" argument was that every set needed to appeal to multiple players.  The argument goes "What about the part of your audience that doesn't like poison, or artifacts, or building cat decks?"  (Now, just because WotC has made that argument doesn't mean it's right--they also argued for ultra-bad rares...and then changed their mind.  Appealing to multiple audiences is kinda core to MtG design, however, so it probably is a sound argument).

[Grefter]

Yeah where I start babbling about larger set stuff isn't in scope of the question and just rambling.  Edit - Have rambled here as well for holy shit way longer than I meant to.  Glad I woke up stupidly early now.

I dunno though is like a single card really counting as colour shifted?  I read it as more making it a focus of the colour (Like disenchant got shifted from White to Green) rather than a one off card.  Searching though, yeah there is already pretty much stuff I am talking about already in there as secondary effects.

Searching for Green Draw Card pops up 7 pages worth of gatherer, dropping Cycling it displays 6.  Some of these are triggered effects upon you drawing a card, but there is plenty of Druids and Enchantress.  Plenty of times it is a freebie disenchant + draw card or play a land + draw card or even just 2/2 with an effect type cards.  So yeah that one is probably out.

White Sacrifice there is also plenty of but it is all so frustratingly weak.  So many of my things are likely spawning from where I am seeing things started in the game and not followed through on or capitalised.  

Just to get the card out there I was thinking WWW for Enchantment, Sacrifice a creature: You cannot lose the game this turn.  (If you die to damage you are still going to lose at the beginning of the next person's turn most likely, you have to see the death coming to delay it due to other factors, longest I think it could be drawn out is to prevent decking and even then it is a delaying tactic).  The idea is to have a white stalling card that gives you a pyrrhic victory.  Edit - For the record, no fucking way I would run this card.

Blue First Strikers only spits up a page, not even full (Has the card I think exemplifies blue illusion/first strike template though;Illusionary Wall), one UnSet card.  Like half that shit is white multicolour ones.  Stripping out the White and you have 16 cards that even have First Strike one them. Of those 3 are straight Blue creatures with First Strike explicitly.  So yeah, generally speak Blue doesn't seem to be getting First Strike without splashing other colours.  Oddly there is a couple of instances where it is splashing Black that get First Strike(!?!??), it is like there was this idea that Blue gives you First strike and then like no Blue cards themselves with First Strike.  

Two instances of Blue granting First Strike defensively which is kind of a cool idea, but these date back to Fallen Empires and Ice Age and frankly as much as I like that mechanic I think these two covered it best, otherwise I like this better in White.

Flanking now, well there is a whopping one blue card with Flanking and it is a token throw away "Everyone should have a 2/2 Flanking common!" from Visions, a set after Flanking was even introduced Knights of Mist with bonus points for it sucking because it is effectively UU2 for a 2/2 Flanking where other colours are paying 3 for it and it might have a special ability.  So if a single card with a mechanic writes the whole thing off then we are up shit creek.  But on the other hand, Flanking is hardly something that is in every set either, it was pretty much dropped until Time Spiral stuff after Weatherlight (where it had a token representation).  I could have sworn there was some in Kamigawa, but I am probably thinking of Bushido.  Ideally though it is something I would like to see split out from White and Red and ideally remove it from being Knight centric.  Almost everything with it is creature type Knight, which is frustrating, I can see where they are coming from flavour wise with it being all about Cavalry, but blech way more potential than that.

Ideally I would love to see Flanking stay as a White mechanic, but I would like to see it rolled into another old favourite under utilised kind of bad mechanic.  I would love to see something functioning along the lines of turning Flanking into something more like Bushido (so you can have Flanking 2 and so on, easy enough) and make a couple of cards gain Flanking when banding with other creatures.  Emphasize the team work components of the creatures and if you are running multiple in the deck  and if you build your deck around it makes them aggravatingly versatile while on the offensive (Since Banding trends towards just making a giant pile of weenies into a heavy and then having it chump blocked while slowly whittling down the heavy which is majour lose).  Would like to see it stay White since all that flows nicely into White thematically, you have two already prominently White mechanics there and it lets White play more aggressively than it currently does.

[metroid composite]

Hmm...so...mechanics currently in Extended...

Imprint: Always feels cool, but also somewhat limited--hard to make an imprint card without it being card disadvantage.  You'll notice the card linked is an uncommon with 7 lines of text.

Infect: Very insular mechanic.  They've made some arguments that you might mix infect and non-infect decks in Limited, due to situations like "I have lots of equipment, I guess I'll take the flying infect creature in case of a ground stall".  Can't see that happening in Constructed, though.  Additionally, infect games are swingier--turn 2 Plague Stinger, next turn triple Giant Growth is a turn 3 win, with flying, without a turn 1 play.

Metalcraft: Basic threshold mechanic, and all the resulting interactions.  Notably it can turn Shatter into a combat trick, which is neat.

Proliferate: Combos with like...everything.  Obviously infect, but also planeswalkers, quest counters from the last block, charge counters on artifacts, +1/+1 counters....  Possible contention for best?  (But I like combos, so...).

Eldrazi Spawn Tokens: Members of the cult of Cthulu, awww yeahhh!  Extremely versatile--chump blockers, fast mana, you can get lots of them and use pump effects.  Also: they're members of the cult of Cthulu.

Colourless Spells: These were done more for flavour reasons I feel (Cthulu is too ancient to have coloured mana).  In practice, they're all pretty much green cards in constructed, because green's the only colour that can reach 7-15 mana consistently.

Annihilator: So...world-destroying elder gods.  Fits flavourfully, it's just a mechanic that could never be on, say, a 3 mana spell...which fortunately was not the intent.  Works at what it does.

Level Up: So...gods intent on destroying the world awaken, and so naturally some peasant kids start grinding until they are uber powerful.  Hits a lot of positive chords with people.

Walls matter!: Makes sense for the set (they want things to last until the lategame when the elder gods are unleashed).  Probably not a good contender for best or worst.

Totem Armour: An attempt to make people use enchant creatures by taking away card disadvantage.  These never really work perfectly due to the stack--bolt in response to the aura, and you still 2-for-1.

[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193565]Rebound[/url]: Pretty neat mechanic, as you can prepare for the second one.  I could maybe see arguments for it being near the top, but I dunno: it just doesn't stand out much in my mind.


Hmm...okay, need to get to work; may look over more later.

[Grefter]

Name a card currently in Standard that, from a design standpoint, should not have been printed. What is the card and why shouldn't we have printed it?

This is the question that is getting me thinking the most.  And as I look through the Standard roster (oh my gods I am only up to C) I ran into this one which brought up an interesting question for myself.  Canyon Minotaur is a card I immediately went urgh blech to, I really really hate 4 for a 3/3 does nothing, even more than I hate 3 for a 2/2 that does nothing in this day and age of 3 for a 2/2 Swampwalk isn't cost efficient; but spot on for value for money.  Where on the other hand GG1 for a 3/3, I like those, they are still difficult to run, but I don't consider them a waste of space.  Considering generally Colour ~= 2 Colourless roughly speaking.  Especially when I consider GG1 being fair because that is what green DOES is get that 8 to cast for 7, that is the special ability green brings.

So I guess that kind of answers my question of, what makes me consider 4 to cast 3/3 nothings bad (Like I considered them bad in 4th, nowadays they are a horrible horrible waste of time), it isn't bringing anything to the table, green is getting 4 for a 3/3 that does something, that something is just be cheaper.  So why are other colours not getting 4 for a 3/3 token weak colour ability?  I know the answer to that, because colour abilities tend to cost more than a colourless.  Also 4 for a 3/3 nothing only comes up in new addition roll outs really, they are there as commons to make the game easy for people jumping in as they have always been seen as a jumping on point for people.  My question is, why aren't these 4 for a 4/3 or a 3/4 or even a 2/5?  You are getting something minor for your mana (+1/+0 or +0+1 is worth roughly 1 colourless) and it lets you present the basic colour mentality.  No one is still going to be likely to use the cards in anything outside of Seal Deck tournies, but you don't have your new player going wooooo 3/3 boring snooze time oh what did my opponent cast?  Infect?  What does that do oh my god my spleen.

So the oldest card in the book might be my answer to a card in standard that shouldn't have been printed.

[metroid composite]

Lots of cards, especially commons, are designed for limited (where cards like this do get drafted).

So...between Johnny, Timmy, and Spike, the card is designed for spike, and does its job fine.  I'd say look for a card that misses its target audience.  I focused on Rares in my search, as I'm no expert on Limited, and rares generally aren't designed for limited.  Eyeing Quest for the Nihil Stone, because wow it has a lot of ways it can do nothing, with 8 lines of text.  For point of reference, they reprinted The Rack recently.  QFtNS also just seems like the kind of card where if you do win it'll be unsatisfying...like you know those games where your opponent gets mana screwed and you just attack four times and win, in a deck that wasn't supposed to just attack and win?  Like that.

Back on the subject of the 3/3, there's also the idea of overall set complexity.  If you open a new set, you shouldn't take forever trying to figure out every card, hence "vanilla" creatures.  Or this is the argument they give, anyhow.