Storm Scale: Throne of Eldraine through Strixhaven, Part 2
Two weeks ago, I did another Storm Scale article where I talked about the mechanics of published sets to rate the chance of their return in a premier set. I had so much to cover that I couldn't get it all into one article. Today is part two.
Modal Double-Faced Cards (Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, and Strixhaven: School of Mages)
Popularity: Very Popular/Popular
Modal double-faced cards (MDFCs) were introduced in Zendikar Rising as cards with lands on the back. They then appeared in Kaldheim on the Gods. Finally, they were in Strixhaven: School of Mages on the Deans and some spells. The land versions were the most popular and the Deans were the least popular (for being too wordy on the back). Players seemed to really like MDFCs, but there are some lessons we learned about what makes them most appealing (keep the back simple). Also, I should point out that DFCs as a category (which includes transforming DFCs) is quite popular with players.
Design Space: Large
This is more of a tool than a mechanic, and there are a lot of things you can do with it. The biggest issue is that choice is powerful, so the two sides must each be costed with that in mind, which does have some impact on what you can design (while keeping things exciting). There's also a conversation to be had about when to use split cards versus when to use MDFCs. Our current policy is to avoid DFCs that could be split cards.
Versatility: Flexible
The reason you don't want one MDFC in a set is mostly about production and logistics rather than game design. An MDFC being in a set doesn't cause the set to have to change much, mechanically speaking. Adding a few ways to get cards back to your hand so you can cast them as the other side makes the biggest impact.
Development/Play Design: Neutral/Not Problematic
Play design does a lot of spells with choices (such as split cards or cards with kicker), so MDFCs aren't really adding something to the table that they aren't familiar with. Andrew has told me that the trickiest MDFCs to balance are the MDFC lands, as their play design is very time-consuming because there are a lot of numbers to figure out.
Playability: Playability Affected
MDFCs require sleeves or a checklist card. There are memory issues with what's on the backside (why wordy backs are unliked). They also have some weird rules interactions.
Storm Scale: 4
MDFCs, when done in moderation and considering how easy they are to process in your hand, play well and are very popular. They also have a huge amount of flexibility, allowing us to do cool new things with them in the future. I'm quite optimistic we'll be seeing them again. I do want to note they're more of a design tool than a mechanic, so I believe there's also a lot of new design space to explore where it's doing something a little different than what's already been done.
Party (Zendikar Rising)
Popularity: Unpopular
Party was the least popular of the named keywords from Zendikar Rising. Like mutate, it did have its fans who are quite fond of it, but overall, it was not a hit with the players.
Design Space: Medium/Small
If you're talking about the larger use of batching creature types together, there's a decent amount of space. Focusing specifically on the batch that is party, the design space gets a lot smaller. The effect needs to have an upgrade and tie into creature strategies, as party requires having a lot of creatures on the battlefield.
Versatility: Rigid
Party requires a lot of structure to support it, not just in the set itself, but in the sets around it. One of the biggest strikes against party (and my guess why the rating was low) is that it was hard to successfully build competitive Constructed decks with it. It just required too many different pieces to all work. Not a lot of Constructed decks can manage to keep four different creatures on the battlefield, for example.
Development/Play Design: Problematic
This was one of only two mechanics that Andrew dubbed "problematic." Party requires a lot of support to be viable, and it's dependent on a heavy creature-based strategy that's hard to make work in competitive formats.
Playability: Playability Affected
It requires constant monitoring of what creature types you have. This is especially hard for an opponent who is less familiar with the deck.
Storm Scale: 8
Not beloved and hard to balance—not a recipe for a return, but there was something lovable about the flavor, and I do see players requesting that we bring it back.
Snap-on Equipment (Ravnica, Mirrodin Besieged, Ixalan, Throne of Eldraine, and Zendikar Rising)
Popularity: Popular
Players generally like Equipment but aren't overly excited by it. It's flavorful and plays well. Snap-on Equipment is on the higher end of Equipment players enjoy. Players tend to like getting free things, so a free equip is well regarded.
Design Space: Medium
Most Equipment effects could snap on, so the design space is of a decent size. There are some in R&D who believe all Equipment should snap on because they think it plays better. The other side believes that Equipment already feels better than Auras and that the free attach would just make Auras feel even worse.
Versatility: Flexible
Sets can have any number of Equipment, even one, and any Equipment could snap on, so it doesn't do much to dictate the structure of the set it's in.
Development/Play Design: Not Problematic
Snap-on Equipment is easy to balance and plays well. The only issue Andrew brought up is that it adds a line break that can cause problems with wordier effects.
Playability: Playability Not Affected
There are no major issues (rules, memory, logistics, play aid, etc.).
Storm Scale: 2
Equipment is evergreen, so I'd call snap-on Equipment deciduous. Any set with Equipment can consider using it.
Boast (Kaldheim)
Popularity: Not Popular
Boast fell in the bottom 25%. I think people saw this as a drawback mechanic—"here's a cool activated ability that you can't use all the time." It was meant as an attack trigger that required mana, but I understand that how we template a mechanic matters a great deal in how it's publicly perceived.
Design Space: Medium
Boast is near the line between small and medium, so I was kind to it. Boast activations usually want to be something that's relevant during combat, although sometimes it's just an ability that you must risk the creature to access. Boast is yet another example of a mechanic that has a smaller vein of good design space that plays well inside a larger vein that's potentially doable. When grading future design space, I'm counting what we'd print and not what technically could be printed on a card.
Versatility: Neutral
Every set has creature combat, so boast could work in most sets, but to optimize it, you really want a set that's more focused on creature combat than the average, and you probably want some cards that encourage or aid you in attacking.
Development/Play Design: Not Problematic
To quote Andrew: "A creature-centric attacking mechanic that involves mana is play design's bread and butter."
Playability: Playability Not Affected
Boast has no rules issues, no memory issues, and no play-aide issues. There's the tiny logistical issue of tracking what creatures are attacking, but the game makes you pay close attention to that anyway.
Storm Scale: 6
Boast would be easy to bring back, and in the right set, we'd consider it, but it's not the kind of mechanic players clamor for a return.
Changeling (Lorwyn block, Modern Horizons, and Kaldheim)
Popularity: Very Popular
Creature-type themes are very popular, so it comes as no surprise that the best creature-type glue we've ever made is a hit with the players.
Design Space: Large
Any creature could have changeling mechanically if we wanted. It would raise the cost on most cards, but there's a huge number of potential designs we could make.
Versatility: Neutral
You wouldn't put a creature with changeling in a set unless that set has a creature-type theme in it. Most do, so the barrier is low, but odds are when you're including it that creature types play a larger role than normal.
Development/Play Design: Neutral
Play design has learned over time that the way to balance creatures with changeling is to have it cost a lot for the effect, because when it does matter, the effect can be quite strong, especially in older formats.
Playability: Playability Not Affected
Creatures with changeling force you to monitor for creature-type effects, but that's usually a theme your deck is dedicated to, so it's something you're already looking out for.
Storm Scale: 4
Players adore changeling, and it's good glue for a creature-type set, something we make often. I have every belief that we'll see it return, most likely numerous times.
Foretell (Kaldheim)
Popularity: Very Popular
Foretell was the most popular new mechanic in Kaldheim, and one of the more popular mechanics of the time frame of this Storm Scale article.
Design Space: Medium
Foretell can go on any card type, but it tends to want to be on an effect where foreknowledge will lead to interesting game interactions. While this isn't a narrow category, it's not as robust as one might assume. In other words, you can put foretell on just about any effect, but not every effect wants to have foretell or will necessarily play better because of foretell.
Versatility: Neutral
Foretell is a good example of a mechanic that can be dropped in a set and work but is better if the set builds in tools to optimize it. You want to create moments where you can make plays that consider that you have the foretell available, which requires pushing the design in certain directions.
Development/Play Design: Neutral
The tricky part about balancing foretell cards for Constructed formats is that you want enough of them to be relevant so the opponent doesn't automatically know what the foretell card is. Meaning you need to pick enough effects that will matter to the Constructed formats you're building toward, which further limits what effects make for the best foretell cards.
Playability: Playability Affected
There are logistical issues to putting a card in a zone other than the battlefield while remembering that it's relevant to the game. In addition, the face-down nature of it requires some extra concentration by all players.
Storm Scale: 4
Foretell was a big hit, and it's flexible enough that it has uses in various types of sets, so I'm optimistic we will see it return.
Snow (Ice Age block, Coldsnap, Future Sight, Commander (2019 Edition), Modern Horizons, and Kaldheim)
Popularity: Popular
Snow ended up in the second quarter of the polling. Overall, it was well liked, but it was more polarizing than the average mechanic. Fans of the snow supertype adore it, but others were cold on it (pun intentional).
Design Space: Large
Technically, the snow supertype has a huge design space. Most cards, if flavored correctly, could have it, but we tend not to include it unless there's a larger reason for it. There has been a lot of debate in R&D about whether all cards that match the flavor should have the supertype, but there's a big worry that it leads down a slippery path where we include a lot of extra words for minimal mechanical payoff. Why stop at cold things having their own supertype? Once you open that Pandora's box, things can get quite crazy if you let them.
Versatility: Neutral/Rigid
That argument has a lot of sway with how you judge this category. If you believe snow should only show up when it's mechanically relevant, then there's a decent restriction on when you can use it because it requires an environment where snow makes sense in addition to a mechanical reason for its existence. If you're on the other end of the argument where you feel it's something to make cards mechanically relevant in the big picture, but not necessarily in the set, there's a lot more freedom for when you can use it.
Development/Play Design: Neutral
The current rule is that we only add snow when it's mechanically relevant, so it adds an extra layer of mana requirements whenever we use it. This is the biggest deal in Draft where we have to make sure we're setting the levels right that enough people can draft snow mana sources without it being too easy to do so. It's also the kind of mechanic that we must be very careful with for larger formats because the runway to make something relevant without causing problems is narrow.
Playability: Playability Affected
Snow requires the monitoring of snow permanents. As this can be any permanent type, it sometimes is hard to keep track of, especially for the opponent who is less familiar with the deck.
Storm Scale: 5
Snow has a lot of fans, and we make plenty of environments where it flavorfully can work, so I'm confident snow will be the kind of mechanic that shows up from time to time, although my guess is not too frequently.
Lessons and Learn (Strixhaven: School of Mages)
Popularity: Liked
Lessons and cards with learn were in the third quarter of polling. They're tricky in Draft and not playable in Commander, so I think most players don't have much experience with them. The players who have opted in to playing Lessons and learn spells do seem to enjoy the gameplay.
Design Space: Medium
There's a decent amount of design space for Lessons and the learn mechanic. I could imagine that different sets will want to be fetching different things, but I'm intrigued by the scope of what these mechanics hint at. That said, any mechanic that lets you choose from a variety of options is more powerful than it might seem at first glance and requires us being very conservative about what cards we let players fetch.
Versatility: Rigid
With Lessons, we must be very conscious of the environment they're being played in. You want to make sure the things you're fetching make sense in the larger context of the structure of the set, including which subset of things you're looking for and how the rest of the set cares about that thing. Fetching instants and sorceries, for example, worked well in Strixhaven: School of Mages because it was a set all about playing them.
Development/Play Design: Neutral
Andrew said that Lessons and learn spells were not as difficult to design as they were time-consuming. You have total control over what's fetchable, but there's a lot of number wrangling.
Playability: Playability Affected
There's a logistical issue because you must monitor cards that aren't in your deck.
Storm Scale: 6
I assume we'll do Lessons and spells with learn again, or something similar, but we need to find the right set where it makes sense.
Magecraft (Strixhaven)
Popularity: Popular
Magecraft was well liked, as was the instant and sorcery theme of Strixhaven. Only the Mystical Archive scored higher.
Design Space: Medium
We mostly design magecraft to go on permanents, and it needs effects that are generally useful when you'd cast an instant, which can limit some options. It's also the type of mechanic where there are a lot of nuances in designs that play well. That said, there are plenty more magecraft cards to be designed.
Versatility: Neutral
Magecraft can work in any set, but ideally, we would want it to be in one where there are more instants and sorceries than normal. Also, the mechanic cares about copying, so extra copy effects are also a nice thing to have.
Development/Play Design: Not Problematic
Magecraft is what we call an A/B mechanic (that is, two different elements that have to be combined together, in this case, A is magecraft and B is instants and sorceries). A/B mechanics are a bit easier to balance because play design has control over the volume of each component.
Playability: Playability Not Affected
Magecraft needs you to monitor when instants or sorceries are cast or copied, but that's not too tough of a thing to care about.
Storm Scale: 5
Magecraft needs the right environment to shine but is popular, has a lot of design space, and is easy to balance, so I expect it to return.
Mystical Archive and Bonus Sheets (Time Spiral block, Strixhaven, Modern Horizons 2, and The Brothers' War)
Popularity: Very Popular
Bonus sheets, in general, have always been a fan favorite, and the Mystical Archive particularly was the runaway hit from Strixhaven. Bringing back popular reprints is always a recipe for success.
Design Space: Medium
If all we had to do was reprint any old card, there would be plenty of cards to choose from, but bonus sheets want popular cards from the past, so that greatly lessens the available card pool. Still, there are a lot of cards players want us to reprint, especially with new art and/or frame treatments.
Versatility: Neutral
One of the things R&D cares about is that a bonus sheet is integral to the set it's included in. Some sets have themes that make that easy, while others have themes that make it much more difficult. Also, we must be careful how often we do bonus sheets because reprints are a resource, used in many different products, that we have to carefully dole out.
Development/Play Design: Not Problematic
Andrew said that as long as there are extra cards available allowing them to kick out problematic cards, play design doesn't have a huge issue with bonus sheets. The biggest impact, one you can see in Strixhaven and The Brothers' War, is making the bonus sheet an integral part of the Limited environment. That's the element that takes the most time to balance properly.
Playability: Playability Not Affected
Bonus sheets sometimes use mechanics that don't show up in the rest of the set, so there can be a little extra complication and/or rules issues, but other than that, they're straightforward.
Storm Scale: 4
The popularity of bonus sheets means I expect us to repeatedly use them, although judiciously, in the future.
"The Storm Has Passed"
It took two columns, but that's the Storm Scale for Throne of Eldraine, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, and Strixhaven: School of Mages. I get a lot of requests for Storm Scale articles, so I hope you all enjoyed it. As always, I'm eager to hear your feedback about today's column and any of my ratings. You can email me or contact me through my social media accounts (Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok).
Join me next week for some trivia!
Until then, may you enjoy all those two years of Magic had to offer.