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Feb 26, 2010 -- 12:26AM, Chah wrote:

"Comeback Potential" is an interesting concept, and I've never thought about it. I've only thought about slow spells and fast spells, but this is somewhat different..

I'm wondering, how can comeback potential be increased in the set? Can comeback potential only be increased by making cards that are "bad" in some way? For example making the early-game spells be as good as blank draws in the late game, or increasing the ability to be screwed by randomness and bad draws in the late game? Those seem to be the more frustrating moments in Magic.

Are there any good spell effects that are considered to be comeback effects? The only ones that comes to my mind is Wrath of God. While these are great, I guess too many reset spells can make the game frustrating, since you'd have to hold back on permanents and can't play aggressively. Cards like Balance always get abused rather than help even the board. I wonder if there has been any other spell effects besides reset spells that have been successful in specifically helping you when you are behind rather than when you're ahead?

Finally, don't multikicker cards also work as comeback spells? Depending on how you look at it, they can be considered as fatties (creatures that can turn around the board position in the late game), except that they have an alternate mode that allows them to be cast in the early game so you can have a higher ratio of "fatties" in your deck than you can with usual fatties. I guess the life-gaining multikicker angel must have been designed as a comeback spell. Maybe a vigilance multikicker creature, a lifelink multikicker creature, or one that makes tokens with fog effects could also have made multikicker a force for comeback rather than just being a way for the player who is ahead to keep drawing relevant spells every turn.

This old Sirlin article is pretty interesting read regarding comeback potential.

In Magic, obviously you've mentioned board resets like Wrath of God .  A more extreme example of a comeback reset would be something like  Decree of Pain .

Then there are cards which are better when you have less life.  Convalescent Care is one of the best examples of this.  Other cards in this category are things like Mirror Universe / Reverse the Sands , Pulse of the Fields , Death's Shadow , etc.

There are cards that get better when you have less resources.  Land Tax / Tithe / Weathered Wayfarer , Pulse of the Tangle .

Feb 26, 2010 -- 2:47AM, alextfish wrote:

I generally like  games with less variance. I do love dramatic turnarounds, but IMHO a  dramatic turnaround isn't caused by an opponent's deck suddenly giving  them rubbish for several turns in a row. When I'm on the ropes and my  opponent says "I just need to draw one more of my ten X in the next four  turns" (where X = burn spells or whatever), and then their deck gives  them the freak draw of rubbishness and I go on to beat them, I don't  feel like I earned that victory; I feel sorry for them, because it's  like their deck let them down. I don't think increasing that factor is  particularly desirable.

I somewhat agree, but I also feel that the most memorable games of Magic are those where one or both player can come from behind, and make it interesting down to the end.  If you reduce the variance, you reduce the opportunity for that to happen.  It's just unfortunate that the mana screw games are part of having that higher variance.

Feb 25, 2010 -- 11:04PM, Remnos wrote:

About the poll-

It upsets me greatly that Dragonmaster Outcast got more votes than Omnath, Locus of Mana.

Omnath has a better name. He has a much cooler ability. He has a better picture. And I consider him more fun to play. Then again, I guess the Outcast is a more powerful card... but still! 

Human that makes DRAGONS >> walking blob of (yawn) Green mana.

In all seriousness, though - I think Omnath would have been better concepted as some kind of swarm of tokens, where each token is "a mana", or something like that.  That feels more Green than just one more big giant guy.