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Feb 15, 2010 -- 4:58PM, willpell wrote:

Feb 15, 2010 -- 2:04AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Also, what is wrong with pauper having more defined colors?

Definition = boring.  Your house analogy is poor; I'm not asking for a house with no bathroom and no kitchen, I'm asking for a house that does not always have exactly two floors with four rooms on the top floor, five on the ground, and a three-room basement.  Pauper decks do not *change* significantly from block to block; red always burns, blue always draws cards, green always has lackluster fatties.  Cards that take the game in interesting new directions are almost always rare or uncommon.  And their excuse is that they want to balance Limited, a format that IMO shouldn't even exist, but which Wizards is only too happy to encourage its players to like, because it lets them sell absurd quantities of boosters.

Please don't criticize Limited in this context. As one of the other formats in which players care greatly about common cards, it should be an ally in the effort to create interesting new common cards. The problem isn't balancing Limited, the problem is Wizards of the Coast's definition of "balance."

I see several needs for the distribution of card types and abilities in common.
1. Simplicity. Newbies need cards that are easy to explain. We Prerelease players need cards that are quick to understand, since we construct decks of new cards under a time limit. Keeping the majority of cards in a booster pack simple solves both problems.
2. Represent each color. Each color has its own style, but the game also requires pushing the boundaries on individual cards. The commons can anchor the style while the rares and uncommons can be more experimental.
3. Maintain average power level. Collectors hate getting a crap rare or even a mediocre rare. So Wizards of the Coast likes to boost the power level on rares and mythic rares. This forces the cards of average power into the common and uncommon slots.

I have not played Pauper format, but my usual decks are heavy in common cards. I like to win without playing broken cards or overpowered combos. I like to win by mastering a strategy innate in the colors I am playing. Good commons give the best victories.

Mark Rosewater sacrificed a lot of detail in his article when he chose an imaginary set as his example. The loss of detail stripped the design-skeleton process down to its basic elements, so that we could clearly see its essence, but I worry that Mr. Rosewater's description left out some key elements that enabled creativity in the process. For now, however, let me assume the skeleton operates exactly has his description stated.

Mark Rosewater explained,

Next, I have to weave in whatever the set is about.

... while I'm weaving the block mechanic in, I'm also going to weave in what I call the basic effects. Let's run through these quickly. These are effects that pretty much show up in every set in common in a particular color:

and followed that with lists of the basic effects of each color. Okay, lists of basic effects do help represent each color. But I have two problems with them.

The first problem with the basic effects is that they define each color as a list of effects rather than as a style of winning. Both black and white have creature removal, but I want their styles of removal to feel different, and I don't think that black sending creatures to the graveyard and white sending creatures to exile is sufficient difference. Black should feel like it is heartlessly killing creatures, and white should feel like it is judiciously containing threats.

The second problem is that keeping to the list does not create balance. I ran into this problem when my friends and I played Eventide league. We build sealed decks from six Eventide booster packs each and dueled them against each other for two weeks. In that format, the Mimics, such as Battlegate Mimic , were especially powerful. And the set had almost no effective answer to the combination of Riverfall Mimic and Clout of the Dominus . Play Riverfall Mimic on turn three, enchant it immediately with Clout of the Dominus , attack for five unblockable damage on an untargetable creature, and trigger the Mimic on the following three turns for the win. Instant spell solutions in Eventide, such as Unmake , Puncture Blast , or Dream Fracture , cost three mana, so they could not be played unless the opponent played first and kept all three lands untapped on his or her third turn. In which case, the blue-red player would see the open mana and lead with Noggle Bandit instead. The cheapest enchantment destruction was Wickerbough Elder , which cost four mana to cast and one mana to activate. I was so frustrated that Flame Jab was a sorcery rather than an instant.

Feb 16, 2010 -- 3:26AM, jeff-heikkinen wrote:

Red gets Trample, period, while Green only "sometimes" gets Reach? Not in the sets as actually printed.

Green has about as many common creatures with Reach (eight) in current Standard as Red has common creatures that mention Trample in Extended (nine). Of the nine, three require non-red mana, either to cast in the first place or to get Trample. Two of the others only get (or grant) Trample via an activated or triggered ability; another can lose it by ceasing to be a Sliver (a very real possibility with Lorwyn block in the environment). That leaves three creatures in nearly seven years, an average of less than half a creature per block, that are common, can be cast using only red mana, and have the simple keyword "Trample" printed on them (and one of those is hybrid; another is a Ball Lightning variant, which really functions more like a burn spell than it does a creature).

I conclude that common red creatures that have, or can grant, Trample are highly unusual, especially if we restrict that phrase to those that can have a lasting and relible presence on the battlefield using only red mana.

This is why I suspect that Mark Rosewater oversimplified his description: the results don't match the description.

And, ironically, I like the results. Red gets trample as needed, such as on Ball Lightning and the Zektar Shrine Expedition creature token. But red seldom needs trample, because it has the more destructive strategy of burning potential blockers with direct damage and the more chaotic strategy of robbing potential blockers of their ability to block. Green gets reach as needed, about one creature per set to block flying creatures. The needs and styles govern the abilities, not some numbers crunched from a list. I like number crunching, but not if people start with the wrong numbers.

current color pie breakdown:

white - aggro
blue - control
black - removal
red - HURF DURF
green - fatties