faerross

[faerross]

Un-rules theme day:

Has there ever been an un-mechanic that was removed/changed because it was too close to something in an upcoming premier mechanic?

No. As Head Designer, I’m very up on what all the upcoming sets are up to.

[faerross]

Artifact Creature vs. Construct Redux

The comments in my previous ask about the relevance of "Construct" tell me I could have been more clear. Cards on the table, obvious as they are, I believe the creature type was a mistake. I'm well aware that I'm in the minority, and that even if it were possible to reverse course my opinion wouldn't hold any weight.

"Beast" is often mentioned as a 'catchall' type similar to Construct. However it isn't just a catchall -- it adds its own flavor. When I say it refers to a subset of "wild animal" that isn't a negative -- that tells the player something.

Now, what does "Construct" tell us? It would tell us that the creature was artificial -- except we already know that due to the Artifact type. This makes "Construct" redundant unless it servers another purpose. To paraphrase a favorite saying of yours, anything not serving the set should be cut.

The heavy overlap between Artifact Creature and Construct results in a not-quite-parasitic environment where caring about Constructs means you inherently want to care about Artifacts; and caring about Artifact Creatures is going to push you into trying to make Construct work. This limits players' creative agency.

So does it serve the set? The other explanation I see given is that it serves as a catchall because every creature needs a creature type. The implication being that there's no possible way Design could create the same number of Artifact Creatures without having that stopgap... I call bull; even if the bar wasn't as low as Akroan Horse being a Horse, I have more faith in Magic Design than that. More Artifact Creatures that are Soldiers, Fish, or any other type wouldn't hurt their presentation as Artifacts -- but it would allow them to see play in non-Construct focused decks. And if it does provide a relevant Design challenge? Well, to quote a designer a greatly respect:

Restrictions breed creativity.

Let me explain the creation of the Construct creature type. When Magic first came out, artifact creatures didn’t have creature types. I felt that was wrong, so I campaigned to get them added. I was successful and we added the “every creature needs to have at least one creature type” rule to artifact creatures.

Some artifact creatures had simple solutions. They could have clear artifact unique creature types. Golems could be Golems and Gnomes could be Gnomes. Other creatures felt close enough to existing creature types that we could use those. Yotian Soldier could be a Soldier and Clockwork Avian could be a Bird.

There was a group of artifact creatures that didn’t have a clear creature type. For example, what exactly is a Su-Chi? We chose to pick a general creature type as a catch-all. It had to be pretty vague though because it has to work for any artifact creature that we couldn’t otherwise identify.

What you see as a bug is actually a feature of Construct. It needs to be vague, so that it can be flexible. If an artifact creature can have a better option, it won’t be a Construct.

[faerross]

"Is Yoda green?"

Very green he is.

: )

[faerross]

"Construct is like Beast"

Beast is useful because it provides a subset of creatures -- namely, wild animals. Creatively speaking, Construct is nigh synonymous with "Artifact Creature".

Do you or Design have any regrets about using such a broad term that has so much overlap with Artifact Creatures as whole?

We need some catch-all creatures types, so no I have no regrets.

[faerross]

"Universes Within" and "Universes Beyond" abbreviate to UW and UB respectively.

Has WotC ever considered naming conventions to avoid or limit names whose abbreviations are guilds/color pairs?

There is less confusion with contextually understanding what UB means that Universes Beyond not being shortened to UB.

[faerross]

Has Design ever considered a batch in lieu of an individual iconic creature? I.e., what if blue's iconic was "sea monsters" (kraken/leviathan/serpent/octopus)?

It kinda of fights the goal of an iconic creature.

[faerross]

"Players don't understand the stack?"

I've seen plenty of players only know the basics of the stack. Hell, even pros can make mistakes or have areas of the rules they're weak in -- many don't bother learning the detailed mechanics of certain rules if there's no value in doing so...

I'd offer "players can play Magic with only cursory knowledge of the stack" as evidence that WotC has done well to avoid putting mechanical relevance on these lesser known intricacies.

Aka, they don't know what they don't know, but it matters not.

Correct.

[faerross]

If or when, one-sided partner with a very broad restriction. (E.g., 'partner with mono-color commander.')

That said, the above example makes me think it wouldn't be done partner --- one-sided partner feels much closer to companion.

If. Open-ended partner is prone to breaking things.

[faerross]

Clash is just a complicated coin flip and getting players interested in coin flips is challenging enough. I'd be surprised if we saw a mechanic remotely close to Clash in the future let alone a straight up reprint.

Bonus thought: Clash is a push your luck mechanic; you want to cut as many low drops as possible to increase your odds of winning the Clash. And to keep aggro decks from running over Clash decks, warping your own deck as such needs to be a viable strategy. (In other words: Clash takes building a deck's mana curve, a challenge for new players to understand, and rewards them for making bad decisions.)

I was really up on Clash when we created it. I was sad at its reception. It was very educational though.

[faerross]

"Could Food have been its own type?"

Something I feel most players overlook is treating complexity as a cost. The best solution in a vacuum isn't enough to justify a solution, it needs to justify the the collateral complexity from its addition. Similar to ensuring you don't 'waste' design space, part of dealing with that complexity is avoiding too many seemingly insignificant complexities that compound when combined.

I'm sure there's value in Food getting its own type, but it would need to be more valuable than future possibilities that would be set aside due to an increase in the environment's complexity.

In addition, the game has answers for the existing card types. Creating a new one causes significant structural issues that would impact the game at large.

[faerross]

"Source material is a matter of taste."

I fully agree with this; the issue may be conflicting design goals competing for space.

"Each of the 10 archetypes is centered around a specific fairy tale."

"Build your own fairy tale from a set of modular components."

It's not impossible to do both, but goals perpendicular to each other puts a higher burden on all aspects of design.

How marketing framed the set is relevant; marketing and Magic story are both nonlinear, you can't control which elements a player sees. When describing archetypes, there's a lot of room between "led by Legendary creature depicting a fairy tale" and "has a fairy tale woven into the faction's very essence."

Magic players like finding patterns, as evidenced by two cards making a cycle. The flip side is being unable to find a pattern you're told exists. Anyone following your blog had at least some expectations going into the weekend -- was the experience different for those who didn't know to look for all 10 archetypal tales?

Kamigawa taught us that a theme not at common isn't your theme. Wilds may have its own lesson about factions designed as mosaics.

I don't think these two goals conflict at all. We limited our references for certain stories to certain colors. In constructed, you can choose to put the cards from the same story together or you can choose to mix and match. Both are possible. In limited, you're a little more at the mercy of what you open/draft, but us congregating stories in colors increases your ability to do that if you desire.

[faerross]

"Printing process shenanigans"

I know anything extra you ask a printer to do costs more money to design/contract/test -- and efforts to optimize printer technology aren't always worth it.

The discussion on mixing black/silver border cards has my mind down a rabbit hole. If you were able to include a row of cards rotated 180 degrees, you would have cards with silver 'bottoms' and black 'tops.' Theoretically, this could allow different 'splits'. Which obstacle would be more challenging to overcome:

Printing blanks with rows rows of 'upside down' card backs. (And then ensuring those were kept separate from regular blanks.)

Righting any inverted rows prior to placement in boosters.

Something else entirely.

Unless we were okay with cards being upside down in booster packs, we couldn't do this. There's no way to rotate cards from the printing sheet (that I'm aware of).

[faerross]

Panglacial Wurm

I've seen sufficient debate from rules experts about whether or not Panglacial Wurm actually functions within the rules - or if it's merely accepted as an oddity and any possible rules issues brushed off. Regardless, it's odd such a nebulous rules space is permitted for a the benefit of a single card.

Has WotC ever considered an erratum to tweak the rules slightly? What were the strongest arguments and obstacles that came up?

Example erratum: "While you're searching your library, you may exile P.W. from your library. When you do, you may cast it from exile."

This could alternatively be a rules update that formally defines how 'casting while searching' works. This particular version would have mechanical distinctions of possible relevance, but I believe it would preserve the vast majority of the card's function while making the rules surrounding it more straight-forward.

Sometimes we do something that we retroactively realize we shouldn’t have done. Our general strategy is to avoid doing it again rather than double down on figuring out how to make it work a little better.

[faerross]

While not quite the same as Ante, another oddity from Magic's past is Graveyard-Order-Matters.

Has WotC ever seriously considered a ban or errata affecting this entire set of cards? What are the arguments made for doing so, and the largest obstacles?

(Any errata that might work would be a minor change to Magic, but a major change to those cards - e.g., changing 'top [type] card of your graveyard' to 'random [type] card in your graveyard.' Any functional change to a card as-written isn't ideal at best... Though I can't help but wonder if requiring policy and rules to account for very narrow/outdated designs won't cause more issues in the long run.)

We have talked about issuing errata on all “graveyard order matters” cards, but it majorly changes how those cards work. Our general strategy, as the list of cards doesn’t get played a lot, is to let players assume the default is it doesn’t matter unless someone speaks up at the beginning of the game that it does.

[faerross]

How was the switch from 'silver-border' to 'Acorn' received? I fully support the motivation behind moving away from silver-border, but I wonder if the Acorn holofoil wasn't a bit too subtle for its own good.

(As you're fond of saying, your greatest weakness is your greatest strength pushed too far.)

The acorn didn’t go over great. Players would have been happier with a silver border (which wasn’t possible based on when the decision was made to make the viable cards eternal-legal).

[faerross]

"We have no plans to keyword [ask of the day]"

What about a keyword for those who want everything to be keyworded? ;)

Hopefully one day, someone will make Keyword, the game. : )

[faerross]

"How did people know to name their planes before Omenpaths?"

It's almost like there was an entire concept devoted to those who walked between planes...

Beyond that, we used telescopes to look at other planets; Magic has access to, well, to magic. I'd be *shocked* of there wasn't some way to identify the existence of other planes, even if it wasn't clear exactly what was on them.

There were people aware of the multiverse. It was just a small number.