Watch Out for Two-Headed Giants!

Version #1 would be a fine card to make. But #2 is a better card to make. First of all, version #1 doesn't work at all in Two-Headed Giant (2HG). In 2HG, if I play Version #1, the opposing team can just choose to deal damage my teammate (they attack the whole team, but they choose which player their creatures deal damage to). No damage is prevented, and the Alchemist ends up doing nothing. Version #2 solves that by having the option to protect my teammate as well.

Version #2 is also more fun in free-for-all multiplayer. If you control the Battletide Alchemist, you can protect or not protect whichever players you want. If someone is helping you or needs a hand, shields up—you can protect them. But if someone has been beating on you, or you just don't like them, shields down—they get damaged. This makes a lot of people want to stay on your good side! And if someone thinks you're going to shield them, chooses not to block, and then you suddenly drop the shields down and let them die... that's just hilarious.

This choice is a one word difference that means nothing in two-player Magic, but means a lot in multiplayer, whether free-for-all, Emperor, or 2HG. Both wordings are the same length, have the same flavor, and read just as naturally. Since it's a tie on every other measure, and the power-level boost in multiplayer is not broken by any means, just a fun little boost, it's a good idea to take the more fun multiplayer path and let it hit each opponent. We made the same choice on Morningtide's Ink Dissolver and Squeaking Pie Grubfellows.

Here's another case where the wordings function identically in two-player Magic, and they are basically the same length. So should we choose the more powerful-in-multiplayer version (#1) like we did with Nightshade Schemers?

In this case, actually, no. Version #1 is more flexible and open-ended. But #2 is the better choice to print here. The reason is flavor. The Greatbow Doyen teaches his archer followers to shoot their arrows through enemy creatures straight into those creatures' controller. That's the cool part. Shooting through John's creatures to hit Paul isn't nearly as satisfying flavor-wise.

In two-player games, these are basically the same. #1 plays a little better in Two-Headed Giant, because you can pump up your teammate's creatures while the two of you are attacking simultaneously. Unlike the relevance of the Battletide Alchemist word choice, This is such a tiny tiny gameplay benefit that it wouldn't be worth it if it took any more words to give the improved 2HG gameplay. Fortunately, #1 is actually shorter in words, and reads very naturally, so it is the better choice to print.

Version #2 would allow your 2HG or Emperor teammate to benefit from your Sage of Fables with his or her Wizards. And that seems like a positive. But be careful: #2 would play much worse in two-player games, because it adds +1/+1 counters to all your opponent's Wizards. In Ask Wizards on January 15, I gave our reasons for why we switched from Invasion's Elvish Champion pumping all Elves to Lorwyn's Imperious Perfect pumping only your own Elves. Those same reasons apply here, and are well worth staying away from pumping your opponents wizards with #2. Version #1 is the better choice.

At first, this seems to be the same category as Sage of Fables, which would suggest that Version #1's "you control" is important on the counter-adding ability here. Cenn's Tactician is even part of the same loose cycle of uncommon "class lords" that give +1/+1 counters, along with Sage of Fables, Bramblewood Paragon, Rage Forger, and Oona's Blackguard, all of which use "each other [creature type] creature you control" like #1.

For Cenn's Tactician however, Version #2 (without "you control" on the counter-adding ability) is actually the better choice to print. The difference is that Cenn's Tactician's counter-giving ability is used only when you tap it, not automatic like the other four "class lords," so there is no danger that you will pump up opposing Soldiers. Once you've realized that, you might as well go with the shorter template on the counter-giving ability here, which is the one that omits "you control." Just like Burrenton Shield-Bearers, the counter-giving ability reads very naturally without "you control." And there are a couple of wacky reasons in Magic you'd actually want to give +1/+1 counters to your opponent's creatures.

As for the multiple-blocking ability (which is coincidentally, on-theme, being the ability of the original Two-Headed Giant of Foriys), this one should definitely be "you control" to avoid your lord annoyingly pumping up enemy creatures like Elvish Champion does.

Here the flavor is the same either way. But the potential combos in multiplayer are way more fun with version #2. Sizzle + Notorious Throng. Mind Bomb + Notorious Throng! It's worth enabling people to build those multiplayer decks. Version #2 is the better choice.

This choice has its own development story. One of the goals of Future Sight was to try out various experiments from hypothetical futures of Magic. One such experiment was Grave Scrabbler. Besides his madness trigger, Grave Scrabbler also had the experimental Raise Dead template of being able to return any player's creature card to its owner's hand, not just your own. It's very easy to miss this weird Raise Dead version on Grave Scrabbler, but we got feedback from several Two-Headed Giant and free-for-all players that thought it was cool to be able to help out their teammates or friends.

Since that one worked out, we decided to continue the experiment by bringing a "Raise Dead for anyone" from Future Sight into "present-time" Magic. It is admittedly a little clunkier, and we'll see how this one plays out. If people say they like it, we'll do more in the future. If they find it too unnatural or bizarre, we will back down to regular Raise Dead.

Combos that kill one person in multiplayer are way more fun than combos that kill all the opponents at once. When a combo suddenly kills one person, it's like, "Holy crap! He's going crazy! Somebody kill that guy before he untaps again!" and you get an exciting struggle to defuse the doomsday device before more players fall. But when the combo is "And now I can do infinite damage to an infinite number of target players, so... I do," then you lose that exciting endgame.

You might give them an awesome surprise the first time, but once other players in multiplayer know you're planning to activate Gilt-Leaf Archdruid, they have some opportunities to kill your Druids to stop you before you get up to seven Druids. And if it said "Gain control of all lands," then they certainly would stop you. But if it just takes one player's lands, you might be able to convince Jeff to help your Druids stay alive just long enough for you to steal Joey's lands before he wins. And then right when you activate the Archdruid, you hesitate and say, "Maybe I'll steal all of Jeff's lands." That mind-game maneuvering gets lost if it takes everyone's lands at once. For these reasons, I strongly prefer #1 here.

Version #2 would create powerful multiplayer combo, especially in team Constructed multiplayer formats like Emperor or some 2HG games, since your allies would get to tutor for a creature for free too. In general we do like little multiplayer boosts on cards. The problem is that this combo would actually be absurdly powerful, to the point of being stupid. Imagine you are playing casual 2HG Standard Constructed with a friend against another team of two.

On turn four, Enemy A plays Boldwyr Heavyweights. You fetch Troll Ascetic, and your ally fetches Ohran Viper. Enemy B fetches and plays for free another Boldwyr Heavyweights. This makes enemy A fetch and play for free another Boldwyr Heavyweights. This makes enemy B fetch and play another Boldwyr Heavyweights. Each team in Two-Headed Giant Constructed is restricted to four copies of a given card, so your team now has four Troll Ascetics and four Ohran Vipers, and your opponents have four 8/8 tramplers. Then they cap it off by fetching Akroma, Angel of Wrath and attacking.

Or maybe the enemy who didn't tap out to pay 2RR for Boldwyr Heavyweights this turn plays something like Ashling's Perogative or Emblem of the Warmind to give haste to all thirty-two trampling power of four Boldwyr Heavyweights, who immediately come over and kill you (or come very close and wipe out your team) on turn four.

Whew! It's a really cool story to think about and talk about. And there are certainly lots of Shriekmaws you can imagine having in your own decks that would shut it down. But it would eventually get old that the enemy team was quadruple-tutoring up this ludicrous, bizarre, lethal combo for just 2RR. And if you can believe it, having the Emperor play Boldwyr Heavyweights in "range 1" Emperor Magic is even more broken. In any case, version #1 ends up being the better version to make.

And there's an appropriate final spokesgiant for Giant Week.