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Two thumbs up for the dancing Mark at the end.

Hearing from Alexis Janson the same day as enrollment in GDS2 closes, but not having the article be about GDS1, is odd.  Sure MaRo is covering the GDS topic, but I still would have expected either AJ or Ken Nagle (the two who could most be regarded as the GDS's winner, AJ for officially winning the contest itself and KN for being the one who actually ended up working as a full-time designer rather than getting some other Wizards job after the design internship) to have said some things about their experiences before-during-and-after they discovered they'd won, as a heads up to those about to participate in something similar.

Also, if anyone involved in wallpapers should poke their head in here - GLIMMERVOID WOTW PLZ KTHBAI.

Sigh, Alexis, you were the one who first came up with "make artifacts colored cards" during GDS (that blue crown thingy), and I will say again now what I first said then, before Alara or even Future Sight made it real:  IT WAS A BAD IDEA.  I am SO glad it was done what they did here in Mirrodin.  The whole POINT of artifacts is their colorlessness, the fact that since they're physical objects rather than static spells, you just have to cast a colorless "my blade, to me!" spell and your sword is right there ready for you to hack something in half with it.  They had no reason to ever be colored; Esper was a fairly decent design but it totally could have functioned without the "everybody's a robot" design, and might well have been more interesting without that rather lazy mechanical basis.  (Laziness being forgivable in a set that required five times the usual amount of design, but still, slapping one extra word on the typeline of every creature and playtesting for borkenness is hardly the most impressive of accomplishments.)

Seeing the art full-sized, I suddenly wish Saberclaw Golem had been named "Goblin-Face Golem".  Sadly Alexis says nothing about why they printed this overwhelmingly dull card (in my color, sob), when every other member of the "artifacts with color mana activations that aren't named Something Replica or Trigon of Whatever" cycle is at least somewhat interesting.  Glint Hawk Idol is far and away the coolest, which is funny considering that it was a last-minute include; had I been on that design team, all the others would have been promptly ditched and a full Idol cycle created, though there would have needed to be a replacement for Soliton or else Heavy Arbalest would have sucked.

Sigh, Alexis, please tell us you were joking this time too about how "perfect" Affinity was.  Remember, sarcasm is invisible over the internet.

I wonder if "Still Haven't Found What We're Looking For" is a reference to the hidden track on Disturbed's latest album.  Alexis doesn't impress me as the metalhead type, but then if you had never seen my Mustaine-like mane and seen me headbanging at my desk while processing some financial nonsense or other, you might not have thought I had that type either.

Oct 10, 2010 -- 10:49PM, fractal wrote:

Oct 10, 2010 -- 10:27PM, willpell wrote:

Sigh, Alexis, please tell us you were joking this time too about how "perfect" Affinity was.  Remember, sarcasm is invisible over the internet.

There was sarcasm, and it wasn't invisible.  Just turn the gain on your sarcasm detector up a bit higher.

I forget who said this originally, but a quote in someone's signatures on the Giant ITP forums is "The Internet removes the two most important tools in detecting sarcasm: tone of voice cues, and the assumption that the speaker is sane".  Seriously, trying to be stealthily snarky on the web is a baaaaad idea.

By the way Alexis, congratulations on creating Wurmcoil Engine, easily one of the five coolest cards in Scars of Mirrodin and I can't think of any offhand that better deserve the #1 spot.  I just wish it cost more so I could regard it as balanced.  (But now I want an Equipment card called "Legs of Dauntless Standing".

Delicious sounds like a good mechanic for Jund, if we ever somehow go back to a plane which no longer exists.

One could have included Affinity for Artifacts, but in a vitiated form: instead of giving it to something that costs :6mana:, give it to something that costs :2mana: . A Mox Opal with Affinity would even have been possible - instead of having its effect depend on Metalcraft, have it cost :3mana:, just like Darksteel Ingot or Coalition Relic . But then, since the initial cost isn't :0mana:, its name wouldn't be able to have Mox in it, making it a less exciting card.

I'm happy to see some revelations about rare design; I remember when the secrets of common design were revealed, in

www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.a...

and, sadly, they were largely reviled rather than the article being praised for its candid nature. Taking care of the easy stuff first - and avoiding the pitfalls of Fourth Edition - doesn't mean sets are now stereotyped.

Of course, the Mocks could have been the grand old cycle of Marble Diamond , Sky Diamond , Charcoal Diamond , and Moss Diamond , as another alternative to dreaming up new cards, but obviously the classic Myr were more appropriate in this set for flavor reasons. I was also just reviewing Magic: 2011 the other day, and I notice it has a lot of powerful artifacts in it, not just the obvious Voltaic Key .

Oct 10, 2010 -- 10:27PM, willpell wrote:

Sigh, Alexis, you were the one who first came up with "make artifacts colored cards" during GDS (that blue crown thingy), and I will say again now what I first said then, before Alara or even Future Sight made it real:  IT WAS A BAD IDEA.  I am SO glad it was done what they did here in Mirrodin.  The whole POINT of artifacts is their colorlessness, the fact that since they're physical objects rather than static spells, you just have to cast a colorless "my blade, to me!" spell and your sword is right there ready for you to hack something in half with it.  They had no reason to ever be colored; Esper was a fairly decent design but it totally could have functioned without the "everybody's a robot" design, and might well have been more interesting without that rather lazy mechanical basis.  (Laziness being forgivable in a set that required five times the usual amount of design, but still, slapping one extra word on the typeline of every creature and playtesting for borkenness is hardly the most impressive of accomplishments.)

The one place where I really love it is colored equipment  Basically you can have color-specific (and thus more powerful) equipment that doesn't suck like auras. Love m!

Oct 10, 2010 -- 11:54PM, QmunkE wrote:

How does R&D reconcile affinity being "dangerous" and yet still continue to print free spell mechanics such as Cascade, which always seemed inherently unfair when stapled to Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast, let alone the menace that Hypergenesis became in old extended? Without the artifact lands, surely affinity wouldn't really be that much of a problem?

Good question. What does the design/development article from cascade week say again?