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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 11:27AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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Does "remove all counters from target opponent" actually DO anything? My initial reaction was "oh, something that deals with poison counters..." "... that only removes them from my opponent... awkward."
Am I missing some other fringe use of the card?
Nope, not missing a thing. Counters on players will never reach the critical mass needed to actually reference it outside of a Poison set. The only reason Proliferate cares about it is because it started out adding poison and -1/-1 counters. Had it been made for the original Mirrodin, it wouldn't have even mentioned counters on players.
Also, for Hybrid effects, each individual color needs to be able to do that effect, right? Is Blue allowed to "flicker"?
Flickering is part of blue's domain, just something it doesn't do often. In fact flickering was a subtheme in Shadowmoor for blue/white.
Also hybrids don't need to take from both colors, there's a subset of hybrids that treat themselves as multicolored cards. Giant Solifuge  and Augury Adept  are examples of such cards.
For the record, Maro hates these types of cards, so you shouldn't do them if you want to impress him.
"and come back next week—yes, next week, even though the rest of the site will be devoted to the Best of 2010—to read the judges' responses, see who gets cut, and find out the next Design Challenge"
I really, really hope this does not mean that the deadline for the next Design Challenge will be the day after Christmas...
Why? It's the day after Christmas, the contestants should have plenty of time ot finish up.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 11:48AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Sep 29, 2010
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Does "remove all counters from target opponent" actually DO anything? My initial reaction was "oh, something that deals with poison counters..." "... that only removes them from my opponent... awkward."
Am I missing some other fringe use of the card?
Utopia is the home of gold counters. See Devon's submission for challenge 1.
Goblin Artisans
a Magic: the Gathering design blog
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 11:53AM
#23
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2008
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Does "remove all counters from target opponent" actually DO anything? My initial reaction was "oh, something that deals with poison counters..." "... that only removes them from my opponent... awkward."
Am I missing some other fringe use of the card?
It's probably supposed to remove gold counters.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 12:06PM
#24
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These are just a cycle of Absorb Vis  , which is going to get lost unless you have no other common diggers.
But Absorb Vis is also part of a very succesful just a cycle.
Did Jon see that each color gets it’s own version of evolve? The blue dinosaur isn’t going to help blue’s evolve variant… in fact it’s expense makes it harder to evolve your blue creatures (since you need to cast two spells in a turn).
From the comments I got that Jonathon decided all the triggers were the green one:
Dinosaurs! Mechanically these beasts not only power up Evolve (whenever a creature with a larger power enters the battlefield, get a +1/+1 counter) but preeminence as well.
Also this is a sticking point with Ken, so I don’t know why it keeps happening, but don’t have cards that care about having more than “all opponents”.
Well, for a wincon I say you should do a lotta work =p
Hybrid’s a good idea to distinguish invaders, but has nothing to do with Utopia’s themes. Utopia isn’t multicolor, in fact it’s very focused on monocolor at the moment.
And Hybrid is awesome for monocolored play, as it increases the number of cards that can go into any monocolored deck. So from a gameplay-pov, it might work out rather nicely.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 12:25PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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But Absorb Vis is also part of a very succesful just a cycle.
Right, but that cycle had a distinct feature. They are the only cards in the game with Basic landcycling. The common dig cycle has nothing special about them but having very high costs.
I should have probaly choosen a card that wasn't arlready part of a cycle, but the point is still valid, that you shouldn't have a cycle that's only perceived to be a cycle because of a high converted mana cost. There should be some twist on dig to make it stand out.
Did Jon see that each color gets it’s own version of evolve? The blue dinosaur isn’t going to help blue’s evolve variant… in fact it’s expense makes it harder to evolve your blue creatures (since you need to cast two spells in a turn).
From the comments I got that Jonathon decided all the triggers were the green one:
Dinosaurs! Mechanically these beasts not only power up Evolve (whenever a creature with a larger power enters the battlefield, get a +1/+1 counter) but preeminence as well.
That's a pretty big thing to miss. IMO. Since these cards are likely to be played with the commons, and they aren't going to jive.
Hybrid’s a good idea to distinguish invaders, but has nothing to do with Utopia’s themes. Utopia isn’t multicolor, in fact it’s very focused on monocolor at the moment.
And Hybrid is awesome for monocolored play, as it increases the number of cards that can go into any monocolored deck. So from a gameplay-pov, it might work out rather nicely.
Hybrid has nothing to do with the set. Everyone made it extremely clear in the first round that you need a damn good reason to do hybrid mana in a set. Hybrid doesn't accomplish anything here, so it shouldn't be used.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 12:27PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2008
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Regarding the split cards:
We had to follow the normal split card conventions of making sure that each color of the cycle did not appear on the same side of two different split cards, so we didn't end up with Light consistently on one side and Dark on the other, unfortunately. Here's how it broke down:
Hell // Back was Dark // Light
All the others were Light // Dark.
While it may not be obvious from the NAMES of the cards which side is supposed to be Light and which is Dark, I think that most of the EFFECTS have a positive or negative connotation, and the art should help to make things clearer as well.
Jon and I were in constant email communication. I encouraged him to try to find a mechanic that could evolve over the course of the block. I think that his "color matters" theme that charts the course of mankind from the bare struggle for existence to the eventual ease of civilization was a perfectly reasonable thing to include in his submission.
-Ethan Fleischer
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 12:39PM
#27
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I think overthink is probably deceptively fair in constructed. Its a 7 cost, triple blue sorcery that wants multiple big creatures out (since being countered by removal isn't exactly what you want to happen to your 7 cost cards). I dunno about you guys, but normally in blue decks I've played, once I have a large creature on the board that stays on the board long enough for me to untap, I'm pretty far ahead in that game. A card that sits in your hand until you've resolved a dragon doesn't seem like the most powerful thing ever. Its certainly a card you would have to pay attention to when designing cards for the next couple of sets, but as long as you don't make some easily castable way to get multiple 4/x's or bigger into play, it seems like its porbably fine.
Of course, it, the green one, and the black one are all unbelievable good in limited.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 1:13PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2003
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"and come back next week—yes, next week, even though the rest of the site will be devoted to the Best of 2010—to read the judges' responses, see who gets cut, and find out the next Design Challenge"
I really, really hope this does not mean that the deadline for the next Design Challenge will be the day after Christmas...
Why? It's the day after Christmas, the contestants should have plenty of time ot finish up.
I don't like that they may be forcing contestants and audience participants to take significant amounts of time away from their families during a holiday weekend for the sake of the contest. It's also likely that a lot of people who are participating will be travelling on Sunday. It would be very easy to avoid those issues if Wizards cared to.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 1:21PM
#29
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Hybrid has nothing to do with the set. Everyone made it extremely clear in the first round that you need a damn good reason to do hybrid mana in a set. Hybrid doesn't accomplish anything here, so it shouldn't be used.
Well, flavorfully it's a plane with 5 very isolated-developed cultures, invaded by general-generic hybrid enemies. Mechanically it's about 5 distinct playing styles that get the critical amount of cards in limited because of the hybrids.
I don't know if this actually works, but it does sound like a solid concept to me =)
(Btw I agree (or see your point) with a lot of stuff you said, my comments were just where I thought you judged with incomplete information)
Regarding the split cards:
We had to follow the normal split card conventions of making sure that each color of the cycle did not appear on the same side of two different split cards
Well, it only dawned on me after the deadline that perhaps the cycle could get away with breaking that convention, and instead go for Light on one side on all, I'm very sorry for that 
Dark//Light
 //
//
 //
 //
// Light//Dark
//
//
//
//
// (Still, a convention is better than no convention at all, so the current is still better than just the 5 'best' split cards lumped together)
I'm also very sorry that I didn't thought of this better wording for Give in time:
Give
2
Sorcery
Target opponent gains control of target permanent
I know enough people who'd enjoy that in multiplayer. "Here player B, because you've been so nice you can have player C's Darksteel Colossus  ".
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3 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 1:23PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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Regarding the split cards:
We had to follow the normal split card conventions of making sure that each color of the cycle did not appear on the same side of two different split cards, so we didn't end up with Light consistently on one side and Dark on the other, unfortunately. Here's how it broke down:
Hell // Back was Dark // Light
All the others were Light // Dark.
While it may not be obvious from the NAMES of the cards which side is supposed to be Light and which is Dark, I think that most of the EFFECTS have a positive or negative connotation, and the art should help to make things clearer as well.
The idea that Light = good, Dark = bad, is a bit boring. I was under the impression that the light side and dark side had themes that went deeper than "good" and "evil".
I'll go through them again and see if i missed something (which i'm prone to doing)
Jon and I were in constant email communication. I encouraged him to try to find a mechanic that could evolve over the course of the block. I think that his "color matters" theme that charts the course of mankind from the bare struggle for existence to the eventual ease of civilization was a perfectly reasonable thing to include in his submission.
It seems to me that civilization and social evolution would be more fitting for the second or third set not the first. It's not a big deal, it just seems weird in a set that's not about multicolor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, i went back and checked out all the abilities of the split cards. Using what i know about the light/dark conventions.
Here's what i got:
Light mechanics:
Look at the top 10 cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Dark mechanics:
Put up to two target nonland, noncreature permanents on the bottom of their owners’ libraries in any order.
^ Assuming you switched "put on the bottom of the library" from light to dark.
Every other mechanic could fit either side. While split cards are a good way of showing off the duality of two opposing factions, having uneven factions leads to problems. Ravnica got around this by having a ten card cycle of split cards.
But in a set where white is always on one side, and black is always on another, you can't avoid the problem of having one card not follow the rest.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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