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In the beginning Counterspell was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Cavern of Souls is a very controversial card to say the least.

Originally created to combat the Mana Leak problem (mixed with Snapcaster Mage and Delver of Secrets), there are some who cry out and say that it is exactly those cards that keep the scarier cards in the format in check. Matt Sperling on Channel Fireball explains that the issue is not Mana Leak, but these large creatures that create quite extensive card advantage. It’s these cards that their caster gets such a huge benefit from getting these creatures on the battlefield that Blue has to have good counterspells to help with the metagame from becoming too much of a one deck hierarchy.

Which of course that it’s funny that Delver decks are everywhere, which WotC was trying to deal with in the first place. Now Cavern of Souls will go into those decks to make Snapcaster Mage and Delver of Secrets much more powerful because they can’t be countered.

This all begs the question: Why should we rely on Blue to help keep the metagame in check?

Throughout history Blue decks have been a staple in almost every format. Being able to out draw, counter spells, and deal with permanents at their own leisure has allowed one color to rise above the rest. However when we get a land that stops a portion of a card type, not the card type or all colors of the card type mind you, suddenly WotC is throwing the future metagame into a tizzy because the traditional “control” color can’t deal with threats.

Well, it can still bounce them.

And copy them.

And put them on top of their library.

And take control of them.

What can Black, Red, Green, or White do? Destory, deal damage, Fight, or temporary exile them. Almost one in each color. Yet Blue can do so much more combined. And it constantly gets these types of spells in each set.

At all rarities, at all card types.

This is the identity of Blue; out think, and outplay your opponent. The color is driven on card advantage. So when another color gets a hint of card advantage, everyone turns to Blue to “Fix” the metagame. If no one can, then clearly the format is broken.

Bloodbraid Elf.

Tempered Steel.

Kessig Wolf Run.

Only Blue keeps getting counterspells to “keep” the format in check. And I feel this should change. How?

Give every color counterspells.

I know that some of you are going to question about Hexpoof creatures. If suddenly they are uncounterable and now untargetable by opponents, doesn’t that prove that Blue should get those counterspells anyway since no color can target those creatures anyway. Currently the most popular Hexproof creatures in Standard are Drogskol Captain; Dungrove Elder; Geist of Saint Traft; and Thrun, the Last Troll (Drogskol not itself Hexproof, but you get the point). That’s two Blue/White and Two Green creatures, with Invisible Stalker and Lord of the Unreal also seeing playing time behind the top four. Blue has another advantage over the other colors.

I’ve already gone over about how spells (especially counterspells) have decreased in power from the beginning of the game while creatures have increased, but here are the talking points for those who haven’t read it or don’t feel like clicking a link. Spells used to be really powerful, so powerful in fact that competitive decks could play with very few creatures and rely on spells to win the game. When Serra Angel was your control finisher and was considered too powerful to see print, you knew creatures were bad. So WotC started to slowly increase the impact that creatures had on the game and slowly power down spells, including counterspells. Of course the game has shifted that creatures are more powerful than spells in the newer formats.

One of the main ways that WotC accomploished this was to introduce “187″ creatures. Three creatures from Visions, Man-O’-War, Nekrataal and Uktabi Orangutan, introduced the concept that creatures could have spell like abilities. From bouncing a creature, killing one, to destroying an artifact, you got the benefit of a spell by paying a little more and a creature you could beat or block with. It was that “You’ve got peanut butter in my chocolate” moment that Magic has embraced ever since.

For those of you who don’t get why this was an important paradigm shift, it’s like this. If I have a Doom Blade and a 2/1 first striking creature, it’s two cards. To get the same effect as a Nekrataal, you have to hope that you get both of them in your hand. By having them on the same creature, you’ve opened up four possible spots in your deck that you can devote somewhere else. Even before this moment designing a creature was to make it be a creature flavorfully; there was almost no thought into making it spell-like. This also means that you get value for your creature if it gets destroyed. If someone Doom Blades your Borderland Ranger you were still able to tutor up a basic land. By having the creatures mimic spells by not only entering the battlefield, but by their activated and triggered effects, this opened up making creatures much more powerful later on. All the colors have a way with dealing with creatures after they were on the battlefield.

Only very rarely does a non-Blue color get that chance before they become a threat (Mostly Black in discarding). Blue even has milling, if you want to go there.

Which is how we eventually ended up with the Titans (Frost, Grave, Inferno, Primeval, and Sun). WotC pushed to see how far an enters the battlefield ability could go. While it’s great to see the attack trigger (from a design perspective), the caster could potentially be way up by the time of their next turn if an opponent doesn’t get rid of the Titan right away. That means several things: destroying it, exiling it, bouncing it, or countering it. Guess which one is more effective to prevent the triggers in the first place?

By looking at counterspells, you have to look at why they’re so good. Assume we both had three lands in play and a hand full of cards. It’s your turn and you cast a Mirrian Crusader. I decide to counter it with Cancel. Now it’s my turn, and I’m in a better position. Why? You just spent your turn trying to cast a spell, and I spent your turn preventing that spell which leaves me open on my turn to do something. Now, if we both had four lands in play and you cast a Black Cat. I counter it using Mana Leak (since you can’t pay the extra 3). Then at the end of your turn, I cast Think Twice.

Answers are always more powerful than threats.

This is the nature of Blue and counterspells.

There have been 14 non-Blue counterspells printed, and of those 14, four of them have been against Blue spells. Current in Standard Blue has 17 counterspells with three more coming in Avacyn Restored. If Blue is getting the only opportunity to get counterspells then of course players have come to rely on the color to help keep the format balanced (in a non-Blue way). If you’re looking at the other non-Blue way to deal with cards before they’re on the battlefield then Black has eight discard spells, and two more with Avacyn Restored.

Clearly countering spells is Blue’s thing. It’s always Blue’s thing, and it will always generate card (and mana) advantage.

What about my crazy suggestion of giving each color counterspells? Surely I can’t be serious. Oh I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that each color should have Counterspell. Each color should have a variation on a counterspell type effect that makes sense with the color. Some possible examples:

White Taxing – 1WW
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays an additional 2.

Black Counter – 1BB
Instant
Counter target spell. You lose life equal to the converted mana cost of the countered spell.

Red Remand – 1RR
Instant
Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it into its owner’s hand instead of into that player’s graveyard.

Green Creature Protection – 1G
Creature – Elf Shaman
Flash
When this enters the battlefield, counter target spell that targets a creature or creature spell you control.
1/1

Obviously they are all a little bit different, but can fit within the restrictions Color Pie (which is important). White loves taxing, Black will do anything to make the game go its way, Red only cares about the short game, and Green wants to keep nature natural and is using creatures to protect itself.

No, these are not the ultimate answers and clearly they need to be thoroughly playested before they are published. Plus, spells like these shouldn’t be in every set, but maybe once a block or two. I do not want to change Magic to a counter war as I would absolutely hate to see that. But if problems of creatures and their enters the battlefield triggers are so big that we constantly have to look to Blue for answers, then something else must be done. Blue can and should still be the top color for counterspells (as each of these have a drawback).

I doubt we’re going to see less 187 creatures because they’re efficient and they keep the game interactive (a spell that can attack). But by people complaining that the game is becoming more broken because we’re removing the ability for one color to deal with one card type (and even then only of a chosen creature type) then something is broken, and it’s not the rest of the game.

You can’t give one color all the leverage in this situation. The threat of counterspells doesn’t mean that everything is fixed with the metagame. There’s a certain power with counterspells, and they’re an important part of what makes Magic special and fun. Blue’s history will always make the color good, we just have to find a way to help the other colors catch up.

And this is a starting point.

The full set hasn’t been spoiled yet (for up to date info, here’s the official WotC Card Image Gallery), but now that we know what the new keywords are we can take a look at them. Here’s the mechanics page that WotC has usually thrown up for the past few sets (and I like them, they’re very helpful) so that we’re all on the same level here. We’re not going to talk about the “Loners” or “Flickering” mechanics because those require the whole set to be examined and we don’t have that yet. Undying is returning, and unless we’re talking about adding new enters the battlefield abilities, I think we can let that go.

It’s ok, we’ve got two new keyword mechanics that we can turn our attention towards.

Miracle

Miracle [Cost] (You may cast this card for its miracle cost when you draw it if it’s the first card you drew this turn.)

Obviously headlined by the above card, this the new mechanic everyone is talking about. Ok, more like everyone is fearing that this card is going to take over every format ever since there’s numerous ways to manipulate the top card of your library.

And Temporal Mastery’s Blue. That automatically makes it good.

However, let’s take a look at the mechanic as a whole. This is supposed to represent that top deck that you need for that very moment to save you. Currently all of the Miracles are reactionary (again, this is only from what I can gleam (taking the extra turn is to help you catch up or win when it’s a close game, not just “win more”)):

• Banishing Stroke – Puts an artifact, creature or land on the bottom of the library.
• Temporal Mastery – Takes an extra turn.
• Thunderous Wrath – Deals 5 to a single target.

Ok, this is a small sample size with 3 cards, but it makes sense. It’s to help the other colors fight the evil that is Black (Black is the evil color this block and is the only color not receiving Miracles). At this point I don’t know if we’ll get a card like this:

Killing a creature or a player, or taking another turn I can see as a miracle-type event. Getting land? Who knows, it’s certainly a staple when it comes to keyworded mechanics. There are some effects that I doubt we’ll see:

What we get with Miracle is the chance to play something cheaper, if we’re willing to spend mana on it right away and it’s the first card you draw a turn. This leads to some hijinxs with drawing on an opponent’s turn (which is why players are afraid of Temporal Mastery since you can cast Miracles anytime it’s the first card you drew in a turn). With Miracle you can get a huge effect for a much cheaper cost because you’re getting the reward of topdecking it. It must play awesomely because I know that feeling of getting what you need when you need it and that’s what this mechanic is all about.

Are you willing to put these cards in your deck if you aren’t able to cast them for their Miracle cost?

This brings to mind Evoke creatures from Lorwyn. The way all the Evoke creatures worked was they had either a enters the battlefield or leaves the battlefield trigger than made them more than just a creature. However, for a spell cost, you got to get a spell-like effect if you didn’t want to or couldn’t cast the creature at the moment. How many people do you know play Divination when they could be playing Mulldrifter? The Evoke cost costs the same as Divination, but with the added bonus of being cast later in the game with a 2/2 flying body attached to it. Yes, there are some added benefits of flickering or bouncing Mulldrifter, but the fact remains that it can be cast either way.

Thunderous Wrath is a Lava Axe that can also hit creatures and is an instant. And costs one more (that’s important too). Sure, the feeling of cracking it off the top of your library and casting it for a single Red is pretty amazing, but I don’t know too many people lining up to throw Lava Axes into their decks, especially if it costs more. It’s completely conditional if you have other ways to draw cards.

These Miracle cards, for them to be liked, have to have an ability that people will want to sleeve them in their decks. Now, every card can’t be better than the last, but will players want to put these in their decks if they aren’t going to cast them regularly for their Miracle cost? I’m not saying this is a bad mechanic, but the payoff has to be more than sitting around looking at the card in your hand waiting to cast them because you missed the trigger.

Certain decks/players will love these cards more (a dedicated damage deck will love Thuderous Wrath because you’re always drawing just one card a turn and will have a better chance of triggering). These are not meant to replace cards, but supplement them. If all of the Miracle cards are reactionary then you might have a hard time seeing this mechanic embraced. Zendikar’s Traps were pretty much the same thing (lower cost and triggered when an opponent did something), but now instead of waiting for an opponent to do something really rare, you get an automatic trigger at the beginning of each of your turns.

Will this push this mechanic into “likable” territory? I don’t know. If the moments of topdecking the card you need outweigh the frustrations of having it sit in your hand, then I say yes. Again, we’ve only seen three Miracles, so it’s hard to completely tell where this is going. Could we see a Basking Rootwalla variant (A creature with a “Free” Miracle cost)? Depends on if all Miracles are reactionary or not, or if we’re going to see non-instant/sorcery spells. The set should have Miracle enablers (putting things on the top of your library, putting cards from your hand onto the top of your library, etc). How much of it is unknown.

And it’s always dangerous when you create a mechanic that allows you to bypass the full mana cost of the card. Recent mechanics include Phyrexian mana and Cascade, while Affinity and the “free spells” from Urza’s Block still hang in the background. But powerful cost cutting mechanics haven’t always been the case, like with the previously mentioned Traps and Morningtide’s Prowl. Both of those had something in common: they could only be cast at certain times if you wanted the cheaper cost. Miracle has similar restrictions and if this doesn’t become too powerful, I would expect this line of design (cheaper with restrictions on when you can cast) might become the better way to create those style of cards.

Let me say this though, I do like the frames. I’m glad that WotC is taking a look a doing cool frames for mechanics like that. Not every mechanic needs a new frames. Could Miracle have done without one? Yeah, but they wanted a simple visual signal that you need to make your choice now when you draw it, so it’s a good choice.

Predicted enjoyment of mechanic:

• Spike – Abusing cards like Temporal Mastery will be key, but will hate “randomness” of losing to a topdecked card by an opponent.
• Johnny – Will love to manipulate the top of their library to abuse the lower costs, finding ways to make the draw trigger during oppnent’s turns.
• Timmy – It’s that Fiero moment that will keep them playing this card, though they’ll be frustrated each time they draw these cards when it’s not the right time, if only that they missed the experience.

Soulbond

Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remained paired for as long as you control both of them.)

When I first read this mechanic I rolled my eyes. Great, here’s a rehash (and fixed version) of Banding and trying to make Slivers happen again. Now, I hate Slivers and felt that while Banding concept was good, the execution wasn’t well. Then I stopped and not let a snap judgement decide if I like this mechanic or not. You know what I figured out what this mechanic does?

It allows you to play God.

Alright, not really. I mean there’s only so much that you can do. There’s a bunch of interchangeable parts, something that Johnnies love very much. But there’s only so many combinations, and they all will eventually end up looking the same. They it hit me again.

It lets you create your own Mr. Potato Heads.

The drawback of only pairing two unpaired creatures instead of all of the Soulbonded creatures pairing with one super one makes sense, for exactly that reason. Yes, it’d be funny to make a 1/1 Spirit token suddenly an Akroma with 10 different Soulbond creatures in the battlefield, but it takes away from the flavor of the mechanic.

These are supposed to be two creatures fighting together, not supporting one giant creature. That’s the difference between Soulbond and Exalted where you wanted everyone on your side to have Exalted and Soulbond can live by itself as long as there another creature in play. Soulbond makes two creatures more powerful than one, instead of the insistence of  Banding and the Spice Girls of two becoming one.

What Soulbond does is allow you to create whatever kind of creature you want to, as long as you have two of them. While it’s not really a Frankenstein’s Monster aspect, it’s more of the Mr. Potato Head example I posted above. Silverblade Paladin gives itself and another creature you control double strike. There’s also a creature that pairs with it a Ophidian ability (drawing when it does combat damage). Now you’ve got 2 creatures with double striking card drawing abilities.

The abilities that we’re going to see are most likely combat related ones. Double Strike, flying, deathtouch, drawing when doing damage have all been spoiled. Wouldn’t be surprised to see haste, first strike, regeneration, intimidate, islandwalk, hexproof, trample, and P/T boosters. Much like our vegetable friend, there’s only so many different variants of more combat related mechanics that you can give to two creatures. They have to be scale-able and work well with two creatures, so “T: Draw a card” most likely won’t be seen. Remember, the whole goal of the mechanic is make creatures team up and fight against the bad guys; they really don’t care about you drawing cards.

The really awesome concept of this mechanic: if your non-Soulbond paired creature dies, but your Soulbond creature lives, the next creature you cast can be paired with the original one. That’s where you get your card advantage, and a smart way to design these cards. You can play the Soulbond creature first, and if the creature you want to pair it with is in your hand, you don’t have to waste on creature on the battlefield. I think it’s small things like this that will make this mechanic little loved at first, but then grown to appreciate it.

Much like how I felt when I first saw Soulbond.

Predicted enjoyment of this mechanic:

• Spike – Depending on how aggressive the creatures are/what abilities they create depends on excitement. Will be sought after in limited.
• Johnny – The whole mechanic is an open puzzle. This is right in their wheelhouse.
• Timmy – The fact that you can give any dragon double strike and then when that dies you can give your newly casted one the same, means they’ll grow warmly with it.

Like typical modern set design style, neither of the mechanics have too much to do with each other, but help describe and create the world that we’re now experiencing. Avacyn Restored is a nice change of pace for third sets and the apocalypse that rains down on those planes (Rise of the Eldrazi released the Eldrazi and New Phyrexia turned Mirrodin into, um, New Phyrexia). To make any of these mechanics work you have to have an environment that supports it. With Miracle I’m sure that there will be some cards that manipulate the top card of your library some how, but nothing too powerful. Soulshift already has the ebb and flow of the game to help with pairing, but the small theme of Flickering fits this mechanic into this set.

I’m excited to see what other secrets the set holds. There’s potential of greatness for both, but as long as Miracle doesn’t end up too broken it should be one that will create great memories. Only time will tell if it’s powered just right.

Some awesome MTGCP related news here. I’ve been invited to joined the Decked Builder RSS fed. If you have an iPhone or iPad, head over to the website and check it out. You can build decks and link it to your Dropbox on the go, and check out prices. It’s got a better interface than the official WotC Magic app which is a nice bonus. What I’m doing with Decked Builder is that you can read my posts on the RSS feed. You can read my work on there along with the big sites, which is pretty cool.

And no, I’m not getting paid, as far as I know. So when I write on here you’ll always hear my voice, no one else’s.

I love movies. The action, the adventure, the larger than life characters. I try to sneak movie references into whatever I do. In fact, most of you know that considering my last post was about the failed movie trailer I was going to shoot at GP SeaTac. Honestly I hate the new trend of making previews for trailers, so this is only going to be a one time thing.

Finally having a little free time, I’ve been able to get the footage together and start to piece it together on how I want to tell that story. The brilliant idea that my filming assistant for the day, Adam Morrison (@morrisonad), stumbled across was to make it like a nature documentary after seeing players flock back and fourth between their seat assignment and their seats like a bunch of birds; it’s actually pretty funny.

The video is going to be a parody of nature documentaries at a GP. The goal is to have fun at being a spectator at one of these events like you were Jane Goodall; like the central joke of the teaser is to point out that if you don’t know what’s going on, Magic is a really slow activity to watch (and to film/edit). I’m aiming to have fun with the game and the venue, not at the players.

So here’s the “commercial-like” teaser trailer for the video as if it were a TV show documentary. A little bit of a stretch between TV and movies, but if Martin Scorsese can do it, anyone can. The real video will be out sometime in April, but no date as of yet.

Today, Sixten looks at What Sorin has done on Innistrad and what it really means for Sorin.

If you follow me on Twitter (and you should (@MTGColorPie)), you knew that I was down at Grand Prix: Seattle Tacoma this past Saturday. Being more of a casual guy, I don’t hang around at this places all that often. It was my second time at a Grand Prix; the first one was last time a Grand Prix was at Seattle with Old Extended (2005).

Seven years ago, wow.

Anyway, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to attend Day Two of the Grand Prix even though I theoretically had a chance (the format was Sealed). I still wanted to go down and hang out, but I thought about I putting together another video. It seems like I do one every year or so (My Card Kingdom Interview at NPH Release using my iPad2, My Duel Deck: Phyrexian vs the Coalition with the old Gathering Magic’s Reinhart (I miss ya buddy)) and this would be a great time to do another one before the baby comes.

But what was I going to film about? I didn’t want to do another coverage video, so I started brainstorming some ideas. After Kornman and Holt’s fantastic video at Worlds in San Francisco with MaRo, I knew that it was more acceptable to do more sketch comedy at large events. I first came across to make “Sportscenter” type ads where they are a little off center and show a little “slice of life” of Magic. Such ideas included Trick Jarrett telling Mark Rosewater that the feedback from the internet is that they was more cat cards, Rules Manager Matt Tabak playing a game where he changes all of the card texts to help him win the game. The issue with them is that you have to be knowledgeable about the topic (how many of you how don’t follow sports don’t get many of those references in the Sportscenter ads?).

Eventually when I was brainstorming I had the following image in my head: “Coming this summer, the most action packed movie you’ve ever seen” and it cuts to people playing cards quietly. From there I went to write up a fake parody trailer about the GP. It pokes fun at trying to shoot non-visually interesting Magic competitions (believe me, there’s not that much great action unless you force it), while concurrently parodying Hasbro’s love of making everyone of their properties into an action movie.

If you’re looking to film at a large event, here are some things I learned:

• You need to contact Wizards. I threw a blanket statement out on Twitter if I needed to and it was more “Ask for forgiveness.” Yeah, that doesn’t fly. Luckily, I was given a Press Pass after some talking to the Tournament Organizer and Wizards contact, but the clear lesson is to talk beforehand to make sure everything goes smoothly.
• If you want to interview (or anything else) with a WotC employee, you should get permission first. Yep. I was thinking there might be enough down time I would be able to do it, but it’s generally polite to do schedule something first.
• Judges are extremely busy. I knew they were, but I didn’t realize that busy. I don’t think I ever saw them sit down. Taking a few of them to film for 30 minutes would be a no go.
• Should most likely contact the Pros I want to show up as well. But considering that I only wanted them to say a line or two, I figured I could get shot between rounds.

Some of these seem like “duh” moments, but I underestimated some things here. It’s easy to forget that even though WotC is pretty open as a company, they’re still a money making company and they have to do things legally. So, consider these points when you want to film something at a huge event (Future self, please review these bullet points before Pro Tour: Seattle).

So, this is the shooting script I was going to use on Saturday. With the script scrapped due to can’t shoot with WotC and can’t shoot with the Judges, it was my assistant for the day Adam Morrison (@morrisonad) that came up with the idea of what the footage will now become (but I want to keep that a surprise). Because I was shooting this, not someone else, it’s not regulation script because I could “see” it in my mind (I just wanted to explain this since it’s not always clear).

I don’t know if this is funny to everyone, or if it even comes across funny on the computer screen.

MUSIC – CARMINA BURANA – O FORTUNA (USUAL ACTION TRAILER MUSIC)

ESTABLISHING SHOT – TACOMA, SHOT FROM FREEWAY.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

 FROM HASBRO – THE COMPANY THAT BROUGHT YOU

TRANSFORMERS

ESTABLISHING SHOT – OUTSIDE THE TACOMA CONVENTION CENTER

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

GI JOE

INT. PLAYER’S HALL

The judges are doing the welcoming speech.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

AND BATTLESHIP

INT. PLAYER’S HALL

Two close up shots of eyes, getting ready to square off in a match.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

GET READY FOR THE MOST ACTION PACKED MOVIE OF THE SUMMER.

INT. PLAYER’S HALL

The music stops after it has built up to this point. It’s a long shot of the hall where everyone is playing Magic, quietly.

CUT TO:

The music comes back up; it’s the intense driving quiet part. Close of up feet walking past the tables. A judge comes up to the other judges.

JUDGE #1
We’ve got a problem.

HEAD JUDGE
What is it?

JUDGE #1
I’ve just seen an illegal card being played at one of the matches.

CUT TO:

There’s a STORM CROW on the table. The opponent raises his hand.

PLAYER
JUDGE!

CUT BACK:

HEAD JUDGE
Why didn’t you give him a warning?

JUDGE #1
(Close up, he looks nervous)
His opponent was playing the same card.

CUT BACK:

The first game, we pan around the table to find that his opponent has a STORM CROW on the battlefield as well.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

IT STARTED OUT AS A NORMAL TOURNAMENT

CUT TO:

JUDGE #2
Sir, I’ve spotted several more.

HEAD JUDGE
It’s spreading. But how?

JUDGE #1
We have to call this into Wizards of the Coast.

The Head Judge pulls out his cell phone and makes a phone call.

CLOSE UP:

A hand picking up a ringing phone and puts it next to his ear.

HEAD JUDGE
(Voice Over)
Sir, we have a situation.

CUT TO:

MARK ROSEWATER pushes the doors open and walks into the Hall. He’s followed by other WotC employees.

HEAD JUDGE
Mr Rosewater, we’ve seen a growing number of people who have Storm Crows in their decks.

MARO
That’s impossible. This is a limited event. People build their decks with the random packs we give them. That card hasn’t been printed in years.

JUDGE #1
I know.

WOTC EMPLOYEE
But, that could only mean one thing.

Mark steps forward and takes off his glasses. It’s a zooming “Michael Bay” shot.

MARO
My God…

HEAD JUDGE
(Confused)
What?

WOTC EMPLOYEE
Someone tampered with our production line.

MARO
(Back shot, with him facing the gaming area)
Not someone. Something.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE SAFE

CUT TO:

WOTC EMPLOYEE #2
You don’t mean…

MARO
(He turns around and faces the judges)
Gleemax’s back.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

THEY WERE WRONG

CUT TO: MONTAGE

Players playing cards. Close ups. Dutch angels, moving shots. Looking intense.

(ANY) JUDGE (V.O.)
The cards are multiplying. People’s decks that didn’t have them before are getting them now.

(ANY) WOTC EMPLOYEE (V.O.)
Gleemax is turning every card into Storm Crows.

(ANY) JUDGE (V.O.)
How is he doing that?

(ANY) WOTC EMPLOYEE (V.O.)
We don’t know.

(ANY) JUDGE (V.O.)
Everyone who has a Storm Crow in their deck is turning into a mind controlled zombie.

CUT TO:

A WotC Employee, looking tense.

(ANY) WOTC EMPLOYEE
Gleemax is in control now. We’re all at his mercy.

HEAD JUDGE
We have to stop the tournament. It has to be contained.

MARO
Impossible. It will continue to spread. We need to stop it now.

He turns towards an employee.

MARO (Cont)
Call in ALPHA UNIT.

MONTAGE -

Pro Players, looking intense as they’re playing. Their “Nicknames”show up on screen as the usual freeze, zoom and tilt happens.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

THEY’RE THE MOST ELITE PLAYERS IN THE WORLD.

MARO
All you have to do…

FLASH CUTS TO EACH ONE OF THEIR FACES.

MARO
…is win.

MONTAGE –

People playing, trading, having conversations, being at a GP.

PRO PLAYER (V.O.)
There’s one more person that we need.

FLASH CUTS OF CHRIS PIKULA AND MEDDLING MAGE

PRO PLAYER #2 (V.O.)
But he’s been out of the game for years.

PRO PLAYER #3 (V.O.)
Chris is the only one that can truly stop this threat.

A LONG MOVING SHOT ENDING UP AT CHRIS’ FACE.

CHRIS PIKULA
I aim to misbehave

He slams down a copy of MEDDLING MAGE on the table.

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

THIS SUMMER, DON’T JUST DEFEND

MONTAGE OF CLICHÉ ACTION MOVIE SHOTS/QUIPS*

(Included here):

• Someone opens their hand of cards and sees it fills in Strom Crows.
  Someone falling on their knees screaming NOOOO!!!! With a high angled shot.
  Kibler shuffling cards in his hands.
  Intense close ups of people’s eyes.|
  Waiting in line to get cards signed. Someone hands an artist a stack of Storm Crows to sign.
  “This was his last tournament before retirement!”
• Your diplomatic immunity has just been revoked.
  Remember when I promised I’d kill you last? I lied.
  I’m sending you back to the Graveyard!
  We don’t have enough mana!
  (Quitting judging is the only way to beat Gleemax)

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

ATTACK

CUT TO:

One player sitting down while a friend is sitting nearby.

(ANY) PLAYER
You’re at three life!

Player #2 grabs the first player’s shirt and brings him close.

(ANY) PLAYER #2
Tell me something I don’t know!

TITLES – WITH VOICE OVER

THIS SUMMER, ACTION HAS A NEW NAME.

CUT TO:

Judges in a circle looks nervously at MARK ROSEWATER.

MARO
You have to give them more time.

The large timer clicks to zero.

HEAD JUDGE
Sorry, the round is over.

TITLES –

MAGIC: THE GATHERING:
Grand Prix: Seattle/Tacoma:
Gleemax’s Revenge

CUT TO:

Two guys playing cards. One of them casts a spell.

(ANY) PLAYER
I’ll mill you for two.

The second player looks in disgust.

(ANY) PLAYER #2
You son of a…

TITLES –

COMING THIS SUMMER

THE END

—–

I wanted the tagline to be “Untap, Upkeep, Death.”

One of the projects I’m working on (out of, like, five currently) is a pauper cube so my friends and I can draft it. Why a pauper cube? One, all my “cool” and “pimp” cards are in my Commander decks and two, I can update it pretty easily when a new set comes out. No foils either, so I don’t feel like I have to keep them in there because they’re cool; it’s a personal choice. Plus, I wanted the challenge.

I was inspired to finally do it after looking at Adam Styborski’s Pauper Cube blog and it would give me a chance to create my own draft environment. I didn’t think much of it, and just tried to throw in cards that fit a theme (each color at their own tribe to work with) and throw in cycles of cards. I knew, and still know, it’s a work in progress but it was going to be a vailent first attempt. The cube was tailored more towards sealed play since that the limited format we prefer. I put it together and some friends and I drafted it once.

Spoiler: it wasn’t perfect.

Rarely do you get anything right on the first attempt. So I went back to work. Because I was working on a spreadsheet like Adam, I wanted to gather as much information as possible and see how things worked out. Before I come across Zac Hill’s amazing limited piece (which you should read and caused me to rework my cube while I was in the middle of reworking it), I wanted to look out how common creatures fared against each other. I found some fascinating information.

So, here’s a PDF of the spreadsheet with raw data:

Common Creature Spreadsheet

Guide:

• The numbers at the top equal the total number of monocolored cards of that color. The last subset is colorless cards (mostly artifacts but I threw the Eldrazi in there as well.
• It’s separated into two pages. On the first page the first section is the power, the second is toughness, the third is the converted mana cost while the last is the full mana cost. Remember 1C = 1W in White, 1U in Blue, etc. The second page holds the percentages of the cards in the color that are at that number. For example, White has 24.37% of all commons with power equal to 0. Green comes next at 17.65%, and so on and so forth.
• What is listed are the printed numbers. No, it’s not the best system in the world, but I haven’t built my own database of every card so I can constantly run hypothetical numbers all day. Phyrexian Mana counts as a whole mana, not a “free” one. Creatures that came in with +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters on them didn’t in the power/toughness numbers. Creature’s with a * in their P/T box was marked as a 0. This also meant that the back side of Double Faced cards were ignored; it was a special condition that had to be met so I ignored it.
• Ignore the 0′s above the percentages, they’re just check sums to make sure I wasn’t missing any cards. They were very helpful as I was constantly missing 1 in a certain area.
• This is throughout all of Magic. If they were printed as a common in any release (I did not include MTGO’s Master Editions changes in rarity because it’s a weird circumstance), they showed up here. Set themes have a role to play since Mark Rosewater has repeatedly told us that the set’s theme should be seen in the commons. This does not take into fact all of the abilities a card has, such as flying, haste, shadow, whatever. These are just the raw numbers.

What can we gleam from this?

Here are the average costs of a typical Magic common creature:

• White – 1.52/2.04 with a CMC of 2.75
• Blue – 1.81/2.12 with a CMC of 3.06
• Black – 1.92/1.68 with a CMC of 2.96
• Red – 2.10/1.94 with a CMC of 2.94
• Green – 2.21/2.38 with a CMC of 3.16
• Colorless – 2.1/2.2 with a CC of 3.43

But if we go by actual mode route (most likely) route, here are the numbers:

• White – 1/1 with a CMC of 2
• Blue – 1/1 with a CMC of 3
• Black – 2/1 with a CMC of 3
• Red – 2/1 with a CMC of 3
• Green – 1/1 with a CMC of 3
• Colorless – 1/1 with a CC of 3

Now, that Green number is a little deceiving because the numbers are so close to each other. It could almost be a 2/1 for 2 if a new more cards swing that way, which would be the most aggressive color (in terms of mode). White and Blue are the “Weeine” colors while Black/Red tend to be more aggressive.

White has no large creatures. It only has three creatures with power 4 or greater: Lairwatch Giant (5/3 for 6), Loxodon Convert (4/2 for 4), and Yoked Plowbeast (5/5 for 7). None of them really exciting. On the other hand, Green has a good number of the fat with larger creatures at greater or equal to 4 power and toughness. Black reaches its limits at 4 power, but I believe that a number of keywords work in Black’s favor.

I’ve always had issue with Blue’s “Serpents”. Back in Alpha/Beta/Unlimited there was Sea Serpent, where it had Islandhome (a discarded keyword that was there for flavor reasons: it said if an opponent didn’t have an Island, it couldn’t attack and if you didn’t control you, sacrifice it. It makes perfect flavor sense, but really limited). It’s supposed to be a drawback and help “stall” for Blue, but it’s just a huge monster in a color that really shouldn’t get big monsters, especially at common.

• Chained Throatseeker – 5/5 for 5U, can’t attack unless defending player is poisoned
• Harbor Serpent – 5/5 for 4UU. Islandwalk, but can’t attack unless there are five or more Islands on the battlefield.
• Ronom Serpent – 5/6 for 5U. Snow-Covered landhome.
• Scrapdiver Serpent – 5/5 for 5UU. It’s unblockable if defending player controls an artifact (semi-Serpent-like).
• Sea Monster – 6/6 for 4UU. Can’t attack unless defending player controls an Island.
• Sea Serpent – 5/5 for 5U. Islandhome.
• Shoal Serpent – 5/5 for 5U. Defender. Landfall – loses defender. (to be fair, that was a fast environment so I doubt this got much play)
• Slipstream Eel – 6/6 for 5UU – Can’t attack unless defending player controls an Island. Oh, and it cycles.
• Slipstream Serpent – 6/6 for 7U. Islandhome. And it Morphs (for the “fair” cost of 5U).
• Whimwader – 6/4 for 4U. Can’t attack unless defending player controls a Blue permanent (in the Shadowmoor block).
• Floodchaser – 0/0 for 5U (enters the battlefield with 6 +1/+1 counters on it). Can’t attack unless defending player controls an Island. U: remove a +1/+1 counter from it, target land is an Island until end of turn.
• Serpent of the Endless Sea – */* for 4U. P/T are equal to the number of Island you control. Can’t attack unless defending player controls an Island.

Yes, there’s plenty of history there with the “Serpent” ability, but all of those are at common. Is it supposed to help break ground game stalls between Blue players? Or is it something that gets thrown in there for the next block’s mechanics to create a “drawback”? I don’t get why Blue gets this huge creates at common while White, the second creature color, gets shafted at anything about a 4 power? Even with toughness, Blue matches White at toughness 3 and greater, where White is supposed to be the defensive color. Are the other colors supposed to win by turn 5 before Blue gets one of these creatures down to act as a wall? My knowledge of limited environments is growing, but this still baffles me.

Red has no common creatures that cost RR. This is funny to me. Every other color has a CC common creature. Only Green has a common creature where it requires 3 of a certain color to cast it. Kidercatch debuted in Innistrad, so it’s a new novelty.

White controls just under 24% of creatures with powers 2 or less. Green is second (19%), but with powers greater than 3, Green has that wrapped up at 29% (where Red is second at 24%). For toughness, Green takes the cake at toughness greater than 3 at almost 30% of the cards. Blue takes second place at 19% beating out white be .31 percentage points.

I haven’t mentioned Red or Black much because the data from it hasn’t looked too different that what I thought would happen. There’s a little more Red power in the upper end, but they’re both aggressive colors looking to lay the beats down fast.

Again, none of these number might not tell you anything, or they could mean a whole lot. There are no keywords attached to any of them, so it’s hard to quantify where some of these creatures fit with evasion and combat tricks. That takes a ton more time to find all of that out. Of course, I might end up doing that anyway.

Look over the PDF, and point out what you find interesting. If there’s an outcry for the spreadsheet, I’ll throw it up on Google Docs. All of the raw numbers are there through Dark Ascension.

Magic is a complicated game.

I really don’t have to tell you guys that. One of the hardest barrier to entries to this game is overcoming all of the language and all of the rules. But once you get past that, Magic’s still really complicated. With all of the timing issues and layers upon layers, there has to be an intricate judge program to make sure the high levels are adjudicated properly. And that’s not always the case.

So when you’re designing a card for a game that’s so complicated, sometimes you forget what goes where or if it all works. That’s why people playtest their works (I hope you’ve been doing that). Sometimes you need a little help. And that’s what I intend to do.

I’ve designed a cheat sheet (one of many, hopefully), that will help you guide yourself in the process. This isn’t intended to be an end all type of thing, but it’s here to help you when you’re breaking down the parts of the game. Even though the game has a huge amount of rules, luckily they can be dissected down to the common language building blocks to make the game work.

For this first part, I’ve tacked two of the very basic concepts of Magic: zones and parts of the card. Now, this isn’t a replacement for if you have a question about the rules, this is a cheat sheet that will help you make sure you’re on the right track. It covers:

• The different zones in the game
• Language used for when cards transfer between zones
• Parts of the card
• Card types
• Card supertypes
• Card subtypes
• And notes between the interaction between Zones and parts of the card
• Examples of what it this looks like on two cards

Like I said, it’s a cheat sheet. It doesn’t explain everything, nor do I believe it doesn’t have to. This was created that the reader has the basic knowledge about the game, but it’s a nice refresher as well.

You’re free to save it to your computer, link back to it, print it out, etc. But please don’t claim it as your own; not that I have any copyright issues with it since I’m using Magic cards, it’s just a jerk thing to do. If you have any questions, ideas, or feedback, please let me know. My contact info is on the page itself.

Click for full size

This represents version 1.1, as suggested by some of the changes by alextfish in the comments below. Added Artifact subtypes and lowercased all of the zones.

http://wp.me/p5VSx-1ie

I usually don’t get political (especially on a non-political website). Sure, there might be issues that I have an opinion about, but nothing like this. I have never written my Congressman until a few days ago. I never called my Congressman until just a few weeks ago about this very topic (I just got one of his aides, which is completely understandable).

If you’re following me on twitter (@mtgcolorpie), you’ve noticed that for the past several weeks I’ve been tweeting about SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act (and if you’re sick of it, I’m sorry). It’s a bill that’s currently being debated in Congress to try and “stop” online piracy of movies, music, software, and maybe prescription drugs and other fake merchandise. It’s a well intnetioned act, and it basically declares “war” on online piracy.

And since our government has done such a bang up job on the “wars” on terror, drugs, poverty, education, I’d say this act is going go be of equal success.

Source: SMBC-Comics.com

It doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are- Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist- this is a matter that affects us all. And it will kill the Magic community online. How you may ask? Buy not allowing us to talk about Magic.

If you don’t know what SOPA is, here’s the quick rundown: Basically to stop online piracy, anyone who holds a copyright to something can force a website to be shut down. It can also prevent payment to those websites by its advertisers. full more of an overview of SOPA (which is the House of Represenatives bill) and its sister PIPA (Protect IP Act, the Senete bill), check out this video:

“Big deal, it won’t affect me,” most of you are saying. “I don’t even have a website.” No, but most likely you have a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or anything of the 2.0 web. And if you happen to link to something, anything, that could be copyrighted that copyright holder has the right to not only get your account shut down, but the entire site shut down as well. “But Congress won’t let that happen. Surely they will allow those sites to continue.” No, those site will be shut down too.

This is Congress that we’re talking about. In the debates before Christmas, Maxine Waters (D-CA) basically said “We don’t need to discuss this, just pass it.” What? I thought your entire job was to discuss the laws that you’re making. Why do believe that, because that’s what I was taught when I was growing up.

But that’s not the only thing. Mel Watt (D-NC) said, “I’m no expert the Internet, but I disagree with all the experts.” What? That’s like saying, “Robby, we know something’s wrong with Vintage, so what should we ban?” While I do have some idea of what Vintage is and what gets played, I’m not an authority on such a topic to discuss metagames and what is actually screwing up the format (If anything at all). So I would A) do some research and B) listen to experts. If you want to rule on something you better know what you’re talking about.

Back to Magic. Most, if not all, Magic sites tend to have Magic cards on them, or at least Magic art. Nobody (hopefully in their right mind) is saying that they painted them, or designed them, but the cards and the art, and the logos are still up there. You know who owns all of that work? Wizards of the Coast. If they wanted to, currently under the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), they could send a cease and desist letter to any of us who own a blog and tell us to remove our content. They are perfectly within their rights to it.

However, they don’t. Why? Wizards wants to foster a community to get players to talk about the game and have it grow. Yes, it’s a self serving thing because the more people talk about it, the more likely they will buy the product, but it makes sense. One of the best ways to do this is to allow players to blog, and tweet, and use their cards and art to talk about the game. While there is some grey area about making money while using their images (One of the reasons why I don’t advertise on this site), it’s pretty clear that you can’t use Wizards’ work to make money directly. This is the main reason why you don’t see me selling t-shirts or stickers with my logo on them.

It has five pieces of Magic art, one representing each of the five colors in Magic. I photoshopped this image which is a direct homage to the “original” color pie that debuted on Mark Rosewater’s column when he first explained heavily about the concept (for those of you wondering where I got my name from). Due to the five pieces of Magic art, each by a different artist, I could never put this logo on anything and sell it without Wizards getting all mad and suing me.

And I know that Wizards employees have read my blog because I’ve talked to them about it because they like to read what the outsiders are thinking about Magic; if you’ve got a blog or Tumblr, they most likely have read that too. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it from them. They could use the protection used by the DMCA and have gotten me to take down almost every image on this blog while keeping my blog intact. Under the SOPA act, they could very well just shut me down. But I’m not worried about Wizards.

I’m worried about Hasbro.

Hasbro owns Wizards, which means they could theoretically do the same thing. if SOPA passes, all Hasbro has to do is sneeze and my blog “gets taken offline.” Not only my blog, but everyone else’s who write about Magic. In fact, any site that uses Magic art or a Magic card could be attacked by Hasbro. While it would be funny to see StarCityGames suddenly become a text based website in response, the concept is not a laughing matter at all. Gone is Magiccards.info. Gone are all the blogs, the tweets, the YouTube videos.

Oh yeah, those. If you think that you’re going to see draft walk-throughs on MTGO by your favorite pros, you’re dreaming. Youtube will most likely have to shut down anyway because of all the content on that site.

But why would they do that? Because, it’s better for them that way. Techdirt has the reason why almost any website can be shutdown:

The true impact of this section was only made clear by Rep. Polis’ attempt to limit it, as he highlighted how this broad immunity would likely lead to abuse. That’s because this section says that anyone who takes voluntary action “based on credible evidence”: basically gets full immunity. Think about what that means in practice. If someone sends a service provider a notice claiming infringement on the site under this bill, thefirst thing every lawyer will tell them is “quick, take voluntary action to cut them off, so you get immunity.” Even worse, since this is just about immunity, there are no counternotice rules or anything requiring any process for those cut off to be able to have any redress whatsoever.

The best legal action is to shut down anything everywhere. It’s not just pictures, or videos that could harm the bloggers and the websites. Under this power, anyone who says anything bad in a product review could possibly be shut down as well since, well, “copyright infringement.” That two word phrase “Copyright infringement” could mean anything under SOPA; Set names, Planeswalkers, even Magic is copyrighted. Yes, it’s not like I can just make this a text-only blog and be fine from SOPA; if I voice my opinion and it’s potentially harmful to Magic (ie, I didn’t like the new set), they could shut down my blog. For everyone that complained about the new Planeswalker Points (PWP) system, you could’ve been taken offline if Wizards thought you were causing a problem.

You may think I’m going all 1984 on you, but think about this for a moment. The intended use of this act is to prevent online piracy. Intent is such a strong word, but if you’ve been playing Magic for a while, you know that it’s a silly phrase. Squee was intended to be a fun card that you got back after it died, not a repeatable pitch card to Survival of the Fittest/Masticore. Stoneforge Mystic was intended to help bridge the Zendikar/Sacrs of Mirrodin blocks together, not be so good it was banned in multiple formats. The intent of the Artifact Lands in Mirrodin were to help with the flavor of the world, not break the game in half with Affinity.

It’s like Congress is burning down a house because one of the shelves in the kitchen is not level. You have to fix that shelf rather than decide no one should live in it. And the house that Congress is burning? Our house.

Gone will be the draft videos from LSV, and Brian Kibler, and Mike Flores, and Conley Woods.

Gone will be the videos of Evan Erwin (The Magic Show), Richard Castle (Inside the Deck), KormanAndHolt (Their Youtube Page), and any of the hundreds of people who post on YouTube everyday talking about Magic.

Gone will be the blogs that you read. The little voices, the ones that you’ve watch go from small, independent, self-run holes in the wall to major players on the major Magic websites.

Gone will be the large, non-DailyMTG sites that you buy your cards from and get your decklists and ideas. Gathering Magic, Star City Games, Channel Fireball, Magic.TCGPlayer.com, BlackBorder, and the like would be no more. The SCG Open would be gone too, there would be no way to advertise it.

Gone will be Twitter, where almost everyone in R&D communicates with the public. Gone will be Tumblr, where multiple people quick blog about Magic, including Mark Rosewater himself. Gone will be Facebook, where you chat with friends about Magic, where there’s an official Magic page, where you live you life. Gone will be Reddit and /r/magictcg where forming group of Magic players gather. Gone will be Flickr, where you share pictures of your epic matches late at night. Every possible social media website and experience will be shut down.

Gone will be MTGSalvation, because if you think that’s going to survive with all the spoilers, you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, gone will be all the forums everywhere including on DailyMTG.com.

Gone will be MTGCast, where you get all your favorite podcasts from.

Gone will be Magic Set Editor because, well that be too hard to figure out.

Gone will be all the voices that you have become accustomed to while learning Magic and about the Magic community. Gone will also be all the other voices that never had the opportunity to be heard. The creative endeavors, the user created content will be no more.

What can you do about it?

Tell people you know. Then act upon it.

But don’t just tell people you know online and be done with it. Tell co-workers, tell parents, tell friends. If all you do is just tell people online you’re doing one part. If you’re just screaming on the internet for Congress not to do anything with the internet, they aren’t hearing you. You’re an animal in a forest trying to tell the lumberjacks not to cut down the trees where they want to build an zoo to house all the animals of the forest they just cut down.

You cannot just tweet “Boo SOPA.” You cannot go on Facebook and go “I hate SOPA.” The Representative who is supporting this bill, Lamar Smith (R-TX), doesn’t believe the people who oppose this bill have legitimacy nor are they large in number. They won’t read your blog post, they most likely have interns that read their own Facebook page. You have to email, call, and/or meet with them face to face. You have to converse with them on their terms.

Call your Representative (SOPA).

Call your Senators (PIPA).

Write to them. Have a meeting with them. Ask them if they agree with it. Ask them why. Be kind about it. Question them. DO NOT BE RUDE.

How you can get more involved.

I have already called and emailed my Representative (Dave Reichert), and I’m going to call him again plus my two Senators (Patty Murry and Maria Cantwell). The Senate is meeting in the 24th to talk about PIPA, which is almost a mirror of SOPA. That needs to be addressed as well. Reddit is planning a blackout all day on the 18th while streaming the “geeks and nerds” that will testify before the house committee trying to explain why this is wrong.

This thing is much bigger than Magic, but for the people who believe that the only people who are against SOPA/PIPA and fear it are pirates, they are dead wrong. I like interacting with all of you, where we have discussions and meet face to face at tournaments. Having our community is one of the greatest things about Magic; if that was taken away I don’t know how little Magic I would play, or even if I would care about the game.

The goal the SOPA/PIPA is trying to achieve is noble and understandable; they’re just going about it completely wrong. OPEN (Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade), is another proposed bill that will do a much better job at enforcing piracy while keeping the internet viable. “An action needs to be done, this is an action, so we’re doing it” is the wrong philosophy for Congress to take at this time.

SOPA/PIPA won’t kill Magic. It will still be sold in game stores and Wal-Mart and Target. Sets will still be made, Duels of the Planeswalkers will still be released, kitchen tables will still be battlefields for our matches. What SOPA/PIPA will do is make the game a shell of its former self.

You can do something about it. Now is your opportunity. If this passes, all of us online will be silenced.

For more information about SOPA/PIPA, please visit: http://americancensorship.org/

Yes, this card is somewhere on this list.

http://wp.me/p5VSx-1iw

Best laid plans…

This series was originally going to be a part of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). What was going to take place was that I was going to reveal 5 cards a day for 20 days, or slow roll the top 10 (I hadn’t completely decided), where each card had its own little write-up.  Along with the write-up it was going to look pretty fancy with graphics and stylized nicely, like you would see in a publication. It was going to be a fun thing to talk about during the longest break between new set releases where it’s traditionally the slowest Magic news time of the year; it only had the World Championships to compete with at the end of the run.

Alas, like everything else lately, I just ran out of time. So I’m presenting the whole list today, only without commentary.

What follows is a list of what I consider to be the 100 best designed* cards in all of Magic. And there’s an asterisk with designed because I know that not all cards are designed but developed as well. This is a design blog, and I understand the Development has an equal hand in how the cards you play with shape out. But we’re doing it this way and that’s that. It doesn’t mean that any of these cards are going to be reprinted (in fact, I know that some of them won’t be), but I wouldn’t disagree ripping any of these out of a booster pack in the future.

I went through all the Magic cards ever printed. To be on this list they have to be the best designed cards according to modern design standards. There’s no Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Maze of Ith, or any of that ilk on this list. Any of these cards could be printed today, and many of them have. They have appropriate mana costs, fit in the right color with the correct philosophy, and are balanced. There are some cards that are/were tournament staples, and some that little to no play outside of casual and Commander. The cards were not given weight to any particular format of limited to constructive (outside of #100 for obvious reasons). Cycles of cards were considered, and if each card in the cycle was designed very well, it was included as one entry (4 such cycles made the list). I decided that the cutoff to be on this list was M12 so nothing from Innistrad on will be on this list.

Of course, this is a highly subjective list. There are some on here that people will disagree with (I’ll talk about #2 in a moment), but this is my feeling of the best designed cards. They were not chosen on this list because they were good for tournament play or that they inspired other cards years later. They were included on this list because the card was well designed; it broke new ground in a well done way, or did a concept the most eloquently. The card, on a whole, makes sense mechanically and flavorfully.

Now I believe that #2 will be one of the most controversial cards on this list. I strongly believe that it’s a well designed and balanced card, only the environment it was played in broke it in half. Taken outside of that, there hasn’t been too much issue with the card. There will be a future post (whenever that will be) that I’ll use to try and defend my opinion on that card.

Before I get to the list, here’s a bunch of stats:

• Color Breakdown:
  White – 14
  Blue – 15
  Black – 16
  Red – 13
  Green – 12
  Artifact – 10
  Land – 4
  Colorless – 1
  All (Cycle) – 2
  Multicolored – 13
• Type Breakdown:
  Noncreature Artifacts – 7
  Creature – 45
  Enchantment – 9
  Instnat – 19
  Land – 4
  Planeswalker – 2
  Sorcery – 14
• Magic Ages Breakdown of First Printing:
  Alpha-Alliances – 10
  Mirage-Prophecy – 12
  Invasion-Saviors – 31
  Ravnica-Rise of the Eldrazi – 40
  Scars of Mirrodin-M12 – 6
  (One cycle of cards goes between those two ages)
• Other Breakdowns:
  Invitational Cards –  3
  On Reserved List –  2
  Number of Jaces – 1

And now, without commentary, is the full 100:

This week, Fearless Leader wrote about the five dynasties of Magic Design (actually, it was kinda of a rehash of his State of Design of this year, but it makes sense in Transformation Week). If you didn’t click the link, nor read the article, don’t worry, here’s the info “that will be on the test” version:

• First Stage (Alpha through Alliances): This stage was about the focus on individual card design. Design decisions tended to be made on a card-by-card basis.
• Second Stage (Mirage through Prophecy): This stage was the introduction of the block and the focus of design in thinking of Magic in terms of a year.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Saviors of Kamigawa): This stage was the introduction of block themes. Blocks were no longer just a collection of mechanics, but contained specific things chosen to highlight the block’s theme.
• Fourth Stage (Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi): This stage was the introduction of block planning. Instead of picking a theme and continuing it through the block, design now planned out how exactly the block was going to evolve. This planning allowed for themes to be better set up and paid off.
• Fifth Stage (Scars of Mirrodin through ???): Now we get to last year. What I believe Scars of Mirrodin block has done that shifts design into the next age is to radically change how mechanical themes are looked at and used. For the last two stages, themes have been used as the foundation to build the block on. Starting with Scars of Mirrodin, mechanical themes are now thought of as tools used to put a block together. Metaphorically, themes are no longer the canvas, but the paint.

All of this is great. You really see the evolution of Magic when it gets separated into these categories. In fact, this isn’t the first time that MaRo has brought to us these dynasties (as highlighted in his State of Design right before Ravnica, the fourth stage). Here it is broken down:

• First Stage (Alpha through Alliances): Design on a card by card basis.
• Second Stage (Mirage through Prophecy): Blocks are created and keywords are enforced.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Saviors of Kamigawa): Creation of the Block Theme (Multicolor being Invasion, and so on).
• Fourth Stage (Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi): Tying the block closer together by having the sets in the block interconnect better.
• Fifth Stage (Scars of Mirrodin through ???): Design a world that encompasses and design for that plane.

That fifth stage is a little card to pin down since we’ve only seen 4 sets (plus a Core Set), of this new design philosophy. As fellow GDS2 participate, and eventual winner, Ethan Fleisher said:

During the Designer Search, I was working based on some obsolete assumptions. Not only could I not see the next eight to twelve sets worth of innovation that were in the works, but I had to look back several years in order to get a clear picture of what sorts of standards existed in common between sets.

And he’s right. We’re in a total lag of trying to stay on top of what Wizards considers “proper” design. For people not working at Wizards, we’re trying to decipher what is not laughable when it comes to designing cards of our own. Everyone started making Planeswalkers when they first were announced, but we didn’t know exactly how they worked and what their impact would be. Wizards did.

So for today, I give you the four dynasties of amateur Magic design. It’s because of this constant catch up, and the way people design cards, that I believe that this is how people create cards. Of course, this is just one man’s opinion and everyone else is a little different.

The Four Dynasties of Amateur Magic Design:

• First Stage (Alpha through Weatherlight): Design on a card by card basis.
• Second Stage (Tempest through Prophecy): Blocks are created and keywords are enforced.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Worldwake): Creation of the Block Theme (Multicolor being Invasion, and so on).
• Fourth Stage (Rise of the Eldrazi through ???):Design a world that encompasses and design for that plane.

Got it? We’re done, right? Well, not really.

If you notice that I’ve taken the steps as above, move some sets around, and skipped a stage. For what the players were seeing, this is what Wizards were teaching us to do when we make our own cards. The enforcement of keywords wasn’t drilled into us until Tempest came along. But obviously just because we’ve moved on to a new stage doesn’t mean that we’ve given up the old one. Each of them overlap into the next.

The differences between the stages is that these are new ways of designing cards that were not thought of before. While most amateur designers don’t have the knowledge or experience or extra sets of eyes to take on full blocks, we do the best that we can.

To the analysis:

First Stage: Design on a Card by Card Basis

This is what most people do. They have an idea for a card, and decide that they should create a card for it. There is no harm in any of this, but all of these cards exist in vacuums. They could theoretically be in any set (especially any Core Set), and it doesn’t matter the type of environment that they would fit best in. You saw this plenty of times in the early sets because it was all about creating awesome cards. There may have been a cycle of cards, but there wasn’t a full structure about how this card should fit in this world.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with this. If you’re creating a joke card or a one of, it’s a great model to follow. But when people want to start to create their own sets, filling it up with cards in this stage cause nothing but problems. Besides the obvious drafting problems (which amateur designers may or may not care about), it just doesn’t flow together.

The best way to describe this is imagine that each card in the set is a person, and have these people meet in crowd together. If it looks like this:

the set doesn’t look like it goes together. Sure, there’s a ton of amazing stuff in there, maybe some of your favorites, but instead of being part of the same set up, there’s stuff that doesn’t belong.

But that’s ok. You’ve decided to change some stuff up and go to the next step.

Second Stage: Designing Around Keywords

Now we come to something more sophisticated: keywords. By having a common identifier to a group of cards, it’s easy to design around a basic concept. Sometimes you just want to show off that cool idea that you had, other times, it’s what it could be. But the good news is that Ever since Onslaught, it’s been ok to reuse keywords, so why not do your own variation of this.

This, I believe, is the second most common way people design cards. They were disappointed that a keyword they liked didn’t see print more. Or if they just design around this one keyword, they can create like 15 cards. What a deal! Sometimes the keywords go in obvious directions, other times it take a turn that no one thought possible.

Creating your own keyword is hard (another topic we’ll get into some other time), but it was from here that it looked more and more like a real Magic set. Then Wizards threw us for another loop.

Third Stage: Creation of the Block Theme

In Invasion we were introduced to the block theme. Invasion it was Multicolored, Odyssey was Graveyard, Onslaught was Creature types, etc. Now it was a collection of cards that reached a common goal. It was more than just a keyword, it a whole series of cards that played off each other as a common goal. You didn’t just have to choose one way of designing a card, you could come at it from several different areas, as long as it all tied into the block theme.

What’s great about this approach is that every color could get into this theme by doing things that it normally wouldn’t do, but still within the boundaries of the colors (Er, ignoring Phyrexian Mana). Green could be beneficial to artifacts, Red could care about creature type. And so on. This opened up so much more design space than just the usual keywords and top down designs. The larger issue is that if someone creates one card from this stage, it’s unknown with the block theme was. Easily fixed with a line of text explaining the card, but now designing for one card was more than just the card.

Speaking of that…

Fourth Stage: Designing a World

This is just a guess of what this stage is going to be (again, with only 5 sets since I included Rise of the Eldrazi into the mix), but this looks like where design is headed. What’s hard about this stage is that though would building might have been something that was done in the past, it wasn’t the main focus. But MaRo brought it out as part of the GDS2 and it was one of the things we had to do as contestants. Why force us to do something if that’s not where Magic is going to go?

Look at Rise, Scars and now Innistrad. All of these planes seem more fully realized then the last stage where they were just themes. Yes, even Ravinca with all of it’s world building was just a huge mass of collected block themes spread out over three sets. Basically every card has a purpose on the plane, nothing looks remotely out of place. When you’re trying to sell a horror block to people you want them to feel the horror, and I believe that Innistrad does exactly that. How many cards from Scars block look out of place on Mirrodin/New Phyrexia?

Very few.

Now, it’s much harder for us to encompass the flavor/style when we don’t have an art department/budget, but we make due. But the card should be more than just the art to tie it in with the environment; it has to be the whole package. A great number of cards just “feel” right to be in those sets. Sometimes they’re cool ideas that can only fit on that plane, or based off a mechanic, or of the theme of that block, but they belong there.

If you notice, each one of the steps looked at the larger picture each time a card was designed. It was first the awesome card, then a series or connected card, then a conglomeration of cards, and finally the whole plane. The way design is going makes it harder and harder to develop just a series of singular cards. Take a look back at that Futurama picture again. Yes, there are a ton of great ideas, but they don’t look like they should go together from a design point of view (Sci-Fi is a little different since you want to show off your wide range of designs, but that’s not always what’s best for Magic).

But these days, I can’t go into a card creation forum and just look at one card. I can get an idea of what the world is in one card, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. That’s unfair because it can’t; it’s just one card. For Magic to tell its story, its vision of what’s happening on the plane, you need more than one card. Any card can look good and be the best card in a vacuum, which is why I believe that most amateur designers design for the first stage: it feels better and it’s easier to design this way.

As the public, we’re months, even years behind what Wizards dictates as the most modern design. We think we may know, but we don’t. MaRo’s touting the 5th stage of Magic Design and I believe we have some time to explore in this area before we move onto the next one. It might be a while that we can play in this sandbox before there’s another design philosophy shift. All we know is that Wizards has a head start over all of us.

The best we can do is try and play catch up.