Dead Horse: Beaten
Just when you didn't think it was possible, we banned “Affinity” cards in precisely the format that we thought we didn't have to ban them in: Mirrodin Block Constructed.
Why, you may be asking, are we banning the ultra-powerful Ancient Den* in Block when that was two blocks ago? A fine question. I really don't know. I think we just felt bored not having to ban stuff in other formats.
Speaking of everyone's favorite Edo-period law enforcement weapon (that would be the Jitte for those of you not cool enough to use wikipedia… Did all of you know that Mark Rosewater has an entry in wikipedia? And no, he didn't make it himself. He couldn't code a hyperlink to save his Blue/Red soul.), we yanked Umezawa's Legendary Cuisinart from the list of allowable cards in the online Tribal Wars format. In a world made up of decks of smallish creatures, he who harnesses the Jitte is king. Let's save that for the more cutthroat formats, eh?
What Time Izzet? “Izzet?” Get It?
I'd love to tell you some long, complicated tale of all the twists and turns the Izzet guild and its cards took as Guildpact went through development, but there was very little turmoil. The guild was designed with an “Instant/Sorcery” theme, and that theme stayed in place all through development. The key cards that played into that theme—Gelectrode, Wee Dragonauts, and Izzet Chronarch—all came in from design, and only numbers changed on them. The Izzet Guildmage was the only spell-helper created in development, and it was done by Rosewater. Replicate underwent no philosophical overhauls, although the exact wording of the mechanic was difficult to nail down, as I'll explain next.
The initial definition of replicate—called “polycast” in design—was that it allowed the caster to pay the spell's mana cost multiple times to generate its effect multiple times. The design team liked that definition because it was very clean and created the gameplay feel we wanted for the Izzet—“If we can last until the late game, our spells will be better than yours.” There was no potentially variable cost associated with polycast; like echo, the additional cost was defined as the spell's cost, plain and simple.
It was always very fuzzy whether or not a single counterspell could take out an entire replicated spell (similar to how splice works) or not (similar to how storm works). During development, we playtested it both ways on and off, just to see which one felt better. In the end, the templating team pinned us to a wall and made us decide which it would be—would replicate produce one big spell or many little ones? Because this block followed on the heels of Kamigawa's splice (which makes one big spell), we opted for several little ones, even though that crippled the Izzet Guildmage's ability to interact with his guild's mechanic. (No big deal… he's got plenty of other stuff to fork these days, including some of the aforementioned splice cards).
It wasn't until the editing and templating asked if we wanted to put a mana cost on the replicate ability that we even considered that the two could be different.
Person 2: No, it doesn't need it.
Person 3: Well, what if we want to make the costs different next time?
Person 2: Hmmm… well… good point. Put the mana cost there then.
So even though the costs are all the same this time around, the door is open for significant tweaking when we inevitably return to this mechanic.
As for tuning Izzet for Constructed, we knew we'd have issues putting power into the guild before development even started. Although we didn't predict the exact Blue/Red decks that would emerge pre-Guildpact (Annex-Wildfire, Urzatron, Red Ninja beatdown, Magnivore, Howling Mine, etc.), we knew that those two colors possessed the best cards in a vacuum. Red had plenty of burn and land destruction, Blue had tournament playable card drawing and countering, and they both had a decent array of creatures. Knowing that, the best we could do for Izzet was give it the cards to fill gaps in their strategies (like Electrolyze) and possibly enable some crazy new deck with cards like Gelectrode, Izzet Guildmage, or Cerebral Vortex.
Here are some notes on individual cards:
- Electrolyze. We tried it at "
, deal two damage to a single target and draw a card," we really did. It was far too good, so we added a mana, but the card didn't feel powerful enough. I suggested at one point that Steamcore Weird be able to split up his damage, but Brian Schneider felt that would be a better upgrade for Electrolyze. That change makes it better at killing things like Sakura-Tribe Elder, since you can have a second target which prevents the spell from “fizzling” when the sacrifice the Elder. - Cerebral Vortex began life as a
Wheel of Fortune. Playtesting showed it to be too strong at that cost. Development was going to print it as a much worse card—perhaps at six mana, perhaps having each player only draw five—unless we could come up with a suitable replacement card that matched the art. Cerebral Vortex came to the rescue. One day we'll figure out how to do an interesting and powerful Wheel of Fortune variant that isn't either too ridiculous (like Windfall) or too lame (like Temporal Cascade). - Wee Dragonauts used to give only +1/+0 per instant or sorcery played. They weren't as swingy then, but they weren't nearly as enjoyable. I'm glad we juiced them up, as they are one of the most-liked commons in the whole set (thanks in large part to their awesome flavor).
- Stitch in Time had replicate at one point. Talk about swingy.
Pro Tour—Volcanic Island
What better location to have a Pro Tour during Izzet week than the Volcanic Islands of Hawaii? I'll be there doing coverage and hopefully squeezing in some time to “gunsling” against pros and locals alike. My deck of choice? A silly little Izzet number, of course, using many of the cards I talked about above. Is it a top tier deck? Not really. But it is loads of fun.
Invitational Votes
Speaking of Pro Tour and writing (gosh, my segue ways are fabulous this week), I'm one of the writers who get to vote one player into the Invitational based on the combination of personality and talent. In other words, who do I find the most fun to write about?
5. Osyp Lebedowicz. Osyp “gets it” as far as I'm concerned. He is a great combination of player (having won a Pro Tour) and persona. He writes the occasional online humor piece, and that same sense of humor is evident at events, whether he's in a crucial match or just hanging out with his pals.
4. Jeroen Remie. Jeroen and Osyp are very similar in my mind—both gregarious cults of personality that are among the best players in the world. Jeroen has befriended people from all across the globe and is quickly becoming one of the most recognizable players in the game. I give him the slight nod over Osyp because he is a more regular contributor as a strategy writer online.
3. Sam Gomersall. Although I don't know him very well personally, I love the idea of Sam Gomersall. He's a guy that lays it all on the line for the enjoyment of Magic. He's constantly drafting online and when he isn't, he's on a plane somewhere to an event. I've heard tales of him turning pocket change into money for dinner by winning bets at pool and Magic, and he mentioned in one of his online reports that he blew his entire stash of winnings on Magic Online drafting five colored Aura decks just for kicks. Sam really captures the ups and downs of the “professional gamer” in my eyes.
2. Tsuyoshi Fujita. Fujita has several years on most of the guys on this list, but those years have given him the wisdom to really contribute to Magic on many levels. In this age of net-decking, Fujita upholds the importance of the deckbuilding visionary, continually investing hours and hours of his own time to come up with creations that the rest of us can enjoy. Without people like Fujita, Magic would be a much more boring game.
Last Week's Poll:
| What is your favorite of the following styles of promo cards? | ||
|---|---|---|
| MPR textless spells | 4093 | 37.7% |
| Champs full-art | 4078 | 37.5% |
| DCI alternate art premiums | 2695 | 24.8% |
| Total | 10866 | 100.0% |
Wow, a close call between the two “large art” promos. The good news, of course, is that we're going to continue using all three for various Organized Play programs for the foreseeable future.
*: And Seat of the Synod, and Vault of Whispers, and Great Furnace, and Tree of Tales, and Darksteel Citadel, (/inhales) and Arcbound Ravager, and Disciple of the Vault, and Aether Vial. Omega Myr is still legal, so have at it.