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I've been thinking about how I might do a wedge block (really, haven't we all thought about that at some point or another?) over the past couple of days, and I thought I'd like to do a mechanic for each wedge ... so, without further ado, here's what I've come up with! I only have very lose flavor-stuff in mind right now (the GWB wedge is all about the cycle of life and death, the GUB wedge is about a hive-mind like organism, the WRU wedge is about a zealous, patriotic, techno-American society, etc)



Rebirth {cost} ({cost}, sacrifice a creature: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Rebirth only as a sorcery.)

Rebirth card Show

Colonize (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay . If you do, put a 0/1 Citizen artifact creature token with haste onto the battlefield.)

Colonize card Show

 



This one gave me the most trouble, but I eventually settled on this:

Gravemind {cost} ({cost}: This creature loses this ability and gains all abilities of target creature in your graveyard as long as that card is in your graveyard.)

Gravemind card Show



Definitely the simplest keyword, but also one of my favourites. Inspired by a comment mentioning Rakdos on the Kaalia of the Vast gatherer page. 

Warcast (This spell costs less to cast for each creature that attacked this turn.)

Warcast card Show  



The first keyword I designed (mostly because I really love and feel it's criminally underexplored).  I think I went through about ten versions of this ability before I settled on something I was happy with. As a note: the wedge will have a lot of ETB and haste creatures.

Dreamfuel (As you cast this spell, you may return a creature you control to its owner's hand. If you do, copy this spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.)

Dreamfuel card Show

comments/criticisms/declarations of personal vendettas all welcome and encouraged 

They all look pretty well developed. There is lots of potential to build around them.

The content you build around those is what's important now. You've got the keywords down.

That "colonize" keyword seems to be red-green, and maybe red-green-white if you remove haste. That "Gravemind" keyword sounds incredibly dangerous, there's a reason (that I don't know!) why they never printed cards that can borrow non-activated abilities of creatures in graveyards.

Dec 8, 2012 -- 11:18PM, cats_and_me wrote:

That "colonize" keyword seems to be red-green, and maybe red-green-white if you remove haste. That "Gravemind" keyword sounds incredibly dangerous, there's a reason (that I don't know!) why they never printed cards that can borrow non-activated abilities of creatures in graveyards.

I'm aware that putting tokens onto the field (especially small tokens) is usually green's shtick, but the idea here is that they're assembling artifacts (which green hates, blue loves, and white is a fan of particularly since these ones are creatures).

Gravemind is the one that seems most likely to have the potential to be busted, I'll admit. I'm keeping an eye on it at the very least. 

Yeah, and that's definitely mono-white, especially because the color blue only cares about few high-quality creatures instead of many low-quality creatures..

Dec 8, 2012 -- 11:28PM, cats_and_me wrote:

Yeah, and that's definitely mono-white, especially because the color blue only cares about few high-quality creatures instead of many low-quality creatures..

The idea is that blue's excited over the artifact part of it (which was actually the flavor I tried to capture with Devout Artificier. Perhaps I failed :P)

The idea for the RWU Wedge (which, next to BUG, was the hardest to come up with) is that it's all about zealotry, about belief in a progressive, free system and proselytzing on behalf of said system (yes, very much like America; I couldn't resist). Blue's piece of the Colonize keyword will come in most in what it can do with the abundance of Artifacts you get out (which blue does like to do, or at least likes to some time: Sharding Sphinx , Grand Architect which relies on multiple artifacts, Master of Etherium )

Yeah, but such cards are super-rare and care about non-creature artifacts or artifact creatures rather than "regular" creatures..

Dec 8, 2012 -- 11:40PM, cats_and_me wrote:

Yeah, but such cards are very rare and care about artifacts and/or artifact creatures rather than "regular" creatures..

(The Citizens are robots)

Colonize puts a 0/1 Citizen artifact creature token with haste onto the battlefield.

Okay, I read "citizen" as creature type and then didn't pay enough attention to the type-line anymore..

Dec 8, 2012 -- 11:43PM, cats_and_me wrote:

Okay, I read "citizen" as creature type and then didn't pay enough attention to the type-line anymore..

Yep! My first idea was that Colonize (then called "Infrastructure") would put dud artifacts onto the battlefield; not liking that it was basically a "Count these and do this" mechanic, I changed it to memnites, which felt too powerful and not particularly red. It was a friend of mine who had the brainwave of making them hasty 0/1s, which I thought was more or less perfect!

But abilities that require tapping your artifact creature tokens don't care about haste, what's the point?

Dec 8, 2012 -- 11:52PM, cats_and_me wrote:

But abilities that require tapping your artifact creature tokens don't care about haste, what's the point?

For a white creature like this:

Prophet of Citizenry |
Creature - Human (R)
Colonize
Artifact creatures you control get +1/+1 
2/2 

Or a red instant like this:

Outcry |
Instant
Target attacking creature you control gets +3/+0 until end of turn. 

or a RWU card like this:

Master of Ceremonies |
Creature - Human Artificer (R)
Colonize
, Sacrifice an artifact creature you control: Each creature you control gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
"Behold the power of our Great Nation! Behold the power of belief!"
3/2

 or a blue sorcery like this:

CARDNAME |
Sorcery
Citizens you control get ": Draw a card." until end of turn. 


These are all kind of off the top of my head, but that's the sort of thing I want to do with Colonize.

(Not to mention, it synergizes nicely with its most similar wedge, Warcast) 

Okay, but why does that encourage you to put non-blue / non-white abilities like haste on the creature tokens? Does the white-blue-red wedge really need surprise attackers that rather belong into a red-green-black shard?

Dec 9, 2012 -- 12:09AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Okay, but why does that encourage you to put non-blue / non-white abilities like haste on the creature tokens? Does the white-blue-red wedge really need surprise attackers that rather belong into a red-green-black shard?

I think it's a little more in that these "surprise attackers" can't surprise anyone without a little fine-tuning; also, while "haste" is non-white and non-blue, it has made its way onto some artifacts.

That "colonize" keyword would be perfect for a white-blue-red wedge if there wasn't haste, but maybe that's just me! Your other keywords have a lot more respect for the modern color pie, I wouldn't complain about them..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 12:23AM, cats_and_me wrote:

That "colonize" keyword would be perfect for a white-blue-red wedge if there wasn't haste, but maybe that's just me! Your other keywords have a lot more respect for the modern color pie, I wouldn't complain about them..

Hrm. You know, I can definitely see where you're coming from.

I'll ask you and everyone else: what would you think of Colonize if it made 1/1 Citizen artifact creature tokens (for )? 

Colonize seems kind of weak and not color focused. Gravemind just seems stupid powerful.

Rebirth is very good for the 3 best creature recursion colors, Dreamfuel is interesting, and Warcast seems appropriate as well.

Gravemind just seems horribly bad because, unlike the others in this list, the power of the mechanic is highly variable based upon othe cards in the deck. The power of Rebirth, Dreamfuel and Warcast is entirely dependent upon the card they are printed on.

I'd replace Colonize with something along the lines of:

Interchange (During your upkeep you may pay , if you do you choose an opponent, then exchange control of a permanent you control with converted mana cost of X with a permanent of converted mana cost of X that opponent controls of the opponent's choice.)

I think this captures reasonably well. Red and blue both deal with control changes and exchanges, and it is coupled with white's ideal of fairness and equality.

As for , something related to card drawing or tutoring, perhaps?

You could use these creature tokens that Puppet Conjurer produces, there's no reason to increase the power because that forces you to heavily increase the mana costs of the cards that can produce them..

I feel like gravemind will also have memory issues unless it does something like imprinting (ie exiling) the target card

The potential power of dreamcast makes me apprehensive, especially if you're going to put in cheap guys with tons of EtB value like that UG card you posted

I like colonize a lot, especially because the RWU wedge's (lack of) mechanical identity can be super frustrating. Devout artificer is like a sensible version of kevin's stupid shrimp. 

Does anyone know the problems that prevent creatures like Dark Impostor + Necrotic Ooze from copying other abilities than activated abilities?

my rules knowledge sucks, but I suspected they were trying to avoid a creature with conflicting characteristic-defining abilities

Scenarios of which contradictory abilities would create confusion.

For example, Chaos Lord // Blistering Firecat .

or Maraxus of Keld // Battle Squadron .

I solved this problem by simply developing advanced rulings, but they must have not wanted to bother.

Again, my rules knowledge sucks, but I suspect the problem isn't the rules being able to handle it, it's that players would have no idea how to handle the situations such a card would create without deeper rules knowledge than the average casual player can boast.

Oh yeah, that's what causes heavy problems! As long as that "gravemind" mechanic only copies one single creature card, you should be fine..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 3:48AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Oh yeah, that's what causes heavy problems! As long as that "gravemind" mechanic only copies one single creature card, you should be fine..

I always thought it was heavy flows that caused heavy problems.

By the way, putting that "gravemind" ability on the stack multiple times allows every creature that has that mechanic to execute some of the game-warping combos that Necrotic Ooze could execute, tight?

Warcast is fine. Encourages overextension, but that's not too important.
Rebirth is okay. While the mechanic itself is sound, it can lead to highly consistent and repetive games if there's a good enough card out there. Especially dangerous on limited bombs.
Colonize isn't all that hot for me. I think you might end up with a bunch of cards that are only useful with a bunch of other cards, and they are all somewhat useless on their own. There's only so much you can do with it on common, since it by itself creates a lot of chump blockers, stalling limited games.
I'm not sure what to think of dreamcast. I don't like the name, but other than that I don't know. Feels a lot like conspire.
Gravemind has aforementioned issues.

Really sad you didn't go with "When ~ is reborn,"

For a specific issue with Gravemind, instead of these nebulous possibilities: Wormfang Manta . Combined with any Gravemind card, that's free turns. Lots of them. To fix it, you could make it into the Necrotic Ooze mechanic.
Which ever way you go with it, it needs to feel more green, and green's main graveyard interaction is stuff like Eternal Witness , so the whole mechanic may need to change.
One idea for a mechanic that I've had which would fit in Black, Blue and Green is this: "At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~ is in your graveyard, you may exile another card from your graveyard. If you do, return ~ to your hand and skip your draw step." It's a mix between Genesis , Ichorid , and Dredge, basically.

I've always found haste over rated

and firstrike underated

@3-7-15-1-292: I'm afraid that's green-black or even green-black-white, not blue!

I agree that dreamfuel is very similar to conspire, and also think that you might want to go with dream fuel X, creating a variable for the number of creatures, or maybe a minimum combined CMC.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 5:15AM, cats_and_me wrote:

@3-7-15-1-292: I'm afraid that's green-black or even green-black-white, not blue!

since it's a power that goes off on turn 3 I don't want to be paying mana for it

The mechanics with the two biggest problems seem to be Colonize and Gravemind.

Part of the problem with colonize is: seriously, look at what has in common and get back to me (the answer is: not a lot). I went with making an army of artifact creatures because honestly it was the only thing that felt like it could remotely fit that wedge. I do think that an individual Colonize card could be more useful than you think: the ability to consistently produce artifact tokens for a small cost isn't negligible by itself. Not giving them power, though, prevents said single Colonize card from copmletely dominating a given match. I'm relatively happy with Colonize.

Gravemind, meanwhile, might be too swingy. How would you guys feel about:

Gravemind (When this creature enters the battlefield, exile a creature from your graveyard. This creature has all activated abilities of the exiled card.) 

Or

Gravemind {cost} ({cost}: This creature loses this ability and gains all activated abilities of target creature in a graveyard as long as that card is in a graveyard. Activate this ability only as a sorcery.)

I'm not 100% sure a cost is needed on it, but I figure both versions are worth looking at. 

Some abilities that are red-blue-white are creatures with flying, changing targets of offensive spells + abilities, gaining control of cards that did something this turn..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 6:05AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Some abilities that are red-blue-white are creatures with flying, changing targets of offensive spells + abilities, gaining control of cards that did something this turn..

None of which is particularly ripe grounds for a mechanic, I'm afraid (I most thought of gaining control of cards, but that effect is really too "big" to put on a mechanic). Also, I wanted to avoid changing targets of spells/abilities because that's very close to copying, whcih I've put more in .

Seriously. You look up the existing cards in Magic and I think there's like, four, and one is Lightning Angel , another is that dragon that destroys lands, and the only other noteworthy one is Zedruu the Greathearted

Convert - Whenever a permanent deals damage to this creature, you may pay . If you do, gain control of that permanent until your next end step.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 6:14AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Convert - Whenever a permanent deals damage to this creature, you may pay . If you do, gain control of that permanent until your next end step.

That feels a touch too narrow for me. How often will it actually be relevant? Red and white in particular would want to snag something for the combat step, which would basically never happen here.

I think an important question is: Do you need a mechanic for it? I like theScion's take on it, which used the Ally tribe, although I wasn't too happy about the saboteur mechanic he went for.
Auras should have something that RUW could care about.

I really don't think copying abilities is something that you want in abundance.

I think that blue-white-green should be the shard that cares about enchantment.. Anything that hampers or redirects or complicates something that would harm you and your creatures sounds red-blue-white..

Hunting Eagles in Kazakhstan: It's Not What You Think

Hunting Eagle
flying, first strike
target creature gains first stike until end of turn
Hunting Eagle does 1 point of damage to target creature
~"An Eagles can spot a fish in water from hundreds of feet above"
(1/2)

Dec 9, 2012 -- 6:10AM, TherealphatMatt wrote:

Seriously. You look up the existing cards in Magic and I think there's like, four, and one is Lightning Angel , another is that dragon that destroys lands, and the only other noteworthy one is Zedruu the Greathearted

Numot, the Devastator , thank you very much. I use him in EDH. That deck draws fire like no one's business. Partly because I run strong defense and mass land nukes. Numot's job is to slam the weakest enemy and nuke the lands of the biggest threat.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:06AM, Escef wrote:

Dec 9, 2012 -- 6:10AM, TherealphatMatt wrote:

Seriously. You look up the existing cards in Magic and I think there's like, four, and one is Lightning Angel , another is that dragon that destroys lands, and the only other noteworthy one is Zedruu the Greathearted

Numot, the Devastator , thank you very much. I use him in EDH. That deck draws fire like no one's business. Partly because I run strong defense and mass land nukes. Numot's job is to slam the weakest enemy and nuke the lands of the biggest threat.

The problem is you can't exactly build a land destruction mechanic (well, you could, but it'd be asking for trouble in about five dozen different ways).

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:08AM, TherealphatMatt wrote:

The problem is you can't exactly build a land destruction mechanic (well, you could, but it'd be asking for trouble in about five dozen different ways).

I can't really argue much against that.

And you are correct that doesn't have much in common between the three colors. has things in common, has things in common, has things in common... All 3? Not so much.

What about a mechanic that somehow resembles rishadan cutpurse 's ability?

could be like blending

crack the earth or misguided rage /cutpurse and other blue taxing effects/ soul tithe and other white taxing effects

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:13AM, metalevolence wrote:

What about a mechanic that somehow resembles rishadan cutpurse 's ability?

could be like blending

crack the earth or misguided rage /cutpurse and other blue taxing effects/ soul tithe and other white taxing effects

The problem is that ability doesn't feel very blue (sure, it may have been on rishadan cutpurse back in masques, but just about everything got thrown blue's way back then, anyhow)

I think it feels pretty blue, mostly because of the mana taxing.

Come on, it's mechanical common ground for UWR! kind of potentially 

Pin Point Land destruction is useful. A land destruct deck is restrictive and not fun. I think land destruct with choice is the way to go. Destroy land and/or destroy artifact and/or do damage and/or conquer /exchange  or cycle.

Yeah, taxation abilities would definitely be something red-blue-white! While red would mainly have positive abilities for yourself that allow opponents to deactivate them by paying mana, the colors white + blue would mainly have the well-known things like Ghostly Prison + Mana Leak ..

Rather than pick an action unique to red/white/blue that they all share in common, you could instead focus on something that red white and blue can all support in different ways. 

The one thing that comes to mind is tap abilities. There's not much common groud, but Red haste plus blue and white untap effects and vigilance lets all three colors contribute in interesting ways.  So maybe something that triggers on activating abilities, or lets abilities be shared among creatures.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:26AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Yeah, taxation abilities would definitely be something red-blue-white! While red would mainly have positive abilities for yourself that allow opponents to deactivate them by paying mana, the colors white + blue would mainly have the well-known things like Ghostly Prison + Mana Leak ..

I'm not so sure that "taxation" would necessarily be a fun mechanic for any of the players involved. Do you really want to have to always be looking for permission to play Magic? Having red basically get the opposite of blue/white's "taxation" feels a little counterintuitive, as well.

Creatures like Flailing Manticore are great red cards, especially because they're cards that often don't really work properly once someone interferes, and that's definitely something red..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:37AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Creatures like Flailing Manticore are great red cards, especially because they're cards that often don't really work properly once someone interferes, and that's definitely something red..

While it may be red, it's also potentially a great deal of unfun.  I'm fairly confident that ability hasn't been used en masse since the Masques block, which probably says a great deal about it.

Cards like Vexing Devil that allow opponents to affect + change what they're doing are printed often, although they're using triggered abilities instead of activated abilities..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 7:53AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Cards like Vexing Devil that allow opponents to affect + change what they're doing are printed often, although they're using triggered abilities instead of activated abilities..

The problem is coming up with a decent way to use that for all the colors in the Wedge.

As I think I've mentioned a dozen times by now, is a heck of a wedge to design for :P 

I'm in late, but I really like these and would like to issue my comments. They are (mostly) all very good right off the bat, and for the most part my criticism here is meant to be helpful in adjusting power levels, because I feel that you've captured a great basic feel for each wedge and I wouldn't want to see them changed greatly unless necessary.

Rebirth: This feels like a difficult ability to cost. It lends itself greatly towards token/small creature play, but if you want to make a deck that doesn't revolve around these strategies, then expensive rebirth AND having to sac a good creature is a bit much. Is there someway to balance the creature sacc'd with the cost? Maybe "costs less for each toughness of the sac'd creature" or something? That's literally the first thing I thought of, but just an example of creating equivalence.

Colonize: I like it, but I don't see why they are artifact creature tokens. I assume the artifact is to give them a "construction" feel, but mechanically I wouldn't associate that wedge with a lot of artifact play, and in fact red is (one of, forgot about green!) the main artifact hater.

Gravemind: I like it. I'd maybe do something like activated abilities only though; is it really fair that they can never actually get rid of your crazy stuff ? Maybe compensate with some other bonus, or allow it to copy activated abilities of any card, not just creatures?

Warcast: Has the problem of what was going to be the original Rakdos keyword, paincast , in that it's only helpful after you've got momentum, which doesn't allow the keyword for much breadth of use or power. This is the only one that I would actually change.

Dreamfuel: I really like this, but it's also clearly crazy. Still though, it's pretty cool, I don't really have much to say other than "I would like to use this plz"

As I said, except for Warcast, they are awesome and my comments are only really for balance's sake

Dec 9, 2012 -- 8:01AM, nukeshooter wrote:

I'm in late, but I really like these and would like to issue my comments. They are (mostly) all very good right off the bat, and for the most part my criticism here is meant to be helpful in adjusting power levels, because I feel that you've captured a great basic feel for each wedge and I wouldn't want to see them changed greatly unless necessary.

Rebirth: This feels like a difficult ability to cost. It lends itself greatly towards token/small creature play, but if you want to make a deck that doesn't revolve around these strategies, then expensive rebirth AND having to sac a good creature is a bit much. Is there someway to balance the creature sacc'd with the cost? Maybe "costs less for each toughness of the sac'd creature" or something? That's literally the first thing I thought of, but just an example of creating equivalence.

Colonize: I like it, but I don't see why they are artifact creature tokens. I assume the artifact is to give them a "construction" feel, but mechanically I wouldn't associate that wedge with a lot of artifact play, and in fact red is the main artifact hater.

Gravemind: I like it. I'd maybe do something like activated abilities only though; is it really fair that they can never actually get rid of your crazy stuff ? Maybe compensate with some other bonus, or allow it to copy activated abilities of any card, not just creatures?

Warcast: Has the problem of what was going to be the original Rakdos keyword, paincast , in that it's only helpful after you've got momentum, which doesn't allow the keyword for much breadth of use or power. This is the only one that I would actually change.

Dreamfuel: I really like this, but it's also clearly crazy. Still though, it's pretty cool, I don't really have much to say other than "I would like to use this plz"

As I said, except for Warcast, they are awesome and my comments are only really for balance's sake

Shucks Nice to see SOME PEOPLE LIKE THESE (unlike the rest of you ungrateful cretins).

(I'm joking, I actually really appreciate constructive critiism, which is what this thread has been filled with )

Rebirth: I don't think Rebirth needs to get a cost decrease depending on the sac'd creature. Being able to bring back a creature, repetitively, is pretty crazy good by itself.

Colonize: Red isn't the main artifact hater (green is). Red gets some artifact love (Though I'll admit, not much; trying to make this mechanic feel "more red" is my biggest obstacle, now. Well, that or changing Colonize altogether)

Gravemind: I've since introduced a couple of modified versions of Gravemind. The one I like the most thus far is:

Gravemind (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature from your graveyard. If you do, this creature gains all activated abilities of that creature)

Warcast: The original problem with the Rakdos mechanic, I believe, was that it was way too strong, not that it took too long to get going (look at some of the R/B aggro decks in standard and tell me they couldn't produce a paincast bonus of like 6 by turn 3). I feel like attacking creatures helps it a lot (also enables some fun instants, I think).

Dreamfuel: Thank you kindly.
 

Maybe change when/what triggers colonize. Red wants aggression so maybe make it when a creature attacks? The risk could also let you shift around exactly what tokens you make.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 8:17AM, azuro_arcanis wrote:

Maybe change when/what triggers colonize. Red wants aggression so maybe make it when a creature attacks? The risk could also let you shift around exactly what tokens you make.

Y'know, I originally considered an "on attack" trigger ... maybe that might be something to look into.

Oh right about green artifact hate, I don't know why I blanked on that. But I think giving the tokens haste makes them very red, but keep them 0/1 let's you plan around them or just use it as extra defense. I just think artifact-iness on top was unnecessary but it's certainly not a breaker of the mechanic and I wouldn't change it

I like that gravemind version, but I wouldn't even necessarily exile the card. For one thing it makes it too much "imprint light" and secondly I think the fun is allowing it to be repeated. But maybe keep the feel of "one gravemind at a time" per graveyard creature, rather than have a battlefield full of faux- royal assassin s

That's also conversely true about paincast, and warcast is a bit better in that it only needs attacking, rather than actually damage, so you can still use it on a field full of blockers.

Anyway, all things to think about, hope it was helpful and you've clearly given them plenty of thought. 

You know what we need if wedges are here to stay?  Wedge obelisks!  (Each of them is named after a Commander, this is based off of allied obelisks like Obelisk of Bant and Obelisk of Esper )

Ghave's Obelisk
Artifact
Add , , or to your mana pool

Kaalia's Obelisk 
Artifact
Add , , or to your mana pool

Obelisk of the Mimeoplasm
Artifact
Add , , or to your mana pool

Riku's Obelisk
Artifact
Add , , or to your mana pool

Zedruu's Obelisk 
Artifact
Add , , or to your mana pool

another idea for gravemind:

Gravemind (When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. Creatures you control on the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on them share activated abilities with this card.)

Gravemind (When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. Creatures you control on the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on them have this card’s activated abilities.)

Yeah, counter-based activation sounds gree-blue-black, although your creatures would have a very large number of abilities later in the game..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 9:08AM, cats_and_me wrote:

Yeah, counter-based activation sounds gree-blue-black, although your creatures would have a very large number of abilities later in the game..

That's part of the fun! Beware the gravemind! *Jazzhands*

So, what do you guys think: does sharing abilities make it too abuseable? The obvious combo is with Rebirth. 

So it's basically "graft from the graveyard" that's a lot more reliable because it's much harder to remove cards from there.. Wizards decided to use activated abilities for "graft" creatures because that way creatures didn't always have a very large number of abilities, they started each turn with zero abilities and you were asked to pay mana before creatures gained them..

Dec 9, 2012 -- 9:14AM, cats_and_me wrote:

So it's basically "graft from the graveyard" that's a lot more reliable because it's much harder to remove cards from there.. Wizards decided to use activated abilities for "graft" creatures because that way creatures didn't always have a very large number of abilities, they started each turn with zero abilities and you were asked to pay mana before creatures gain abilities..

I'm going to level with you, I have no idea what you just said.

Don't forget that you have to get the creature to die, so you have to cast it, wait around for a bit, have it die, then put a +1/+1 counter on a creature already on the battlefield, etc. You don't have quite as much control over the process as you do with graft (you choose when creatures ETB; you don't always choose when your creatures die).

Sharing all the abilities with anything with counters seems WAY too strong to me. I know it would need to be built around for abuse, but not by much. consider a dredge style deck with counter generation. Boom, you've got an insane army very quickly. Seems a little OP; I much preferred the exile version or similar where you can reuse but not spread to multiple creatures at once.

Helium Squirter forced you to pay mana again and again instead of granting its abilities to each creature with +1/+1 counters, unlike slivers that granted each sliver their abilities.. So yeah, in the first case the creatures have zero abilities on the start of the turn and you'll have to activate them for each creature, and in the second case the creatures always have a very large number of abilities, that's pretty messy!

Y'know, I see your point. I think I could have some cards that share abilities more liberally, but on the mechanic it's probably too good. Perhaps this instead:

Gravemind (When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. As long as this card is in your graveyard, creatures with +1/+1 counters on them you control have gravemind.)

EDIT: this isn't suppoed to stack. I'm hoping the wording has it that way. Perhaps this?

Gravemind (When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. As long as a card with gravemind is in your graveyard, creatures with +1/+1 counters on them you control have gravemind.)

Or is that necessary? 

That doesn't have enough potential, you won't be able to design lots of different cards that don't work the same way..

It does at least give me access to "Creatures you control with gravemind," "Creatures in your graveyard with gravemind," and "creatures you control with +1/+1 counters" triggers. It's not as expansive, no, but I think it has plenty of potential without being as broken as the older versions were. I can also replicate the previous version of gravemind with stuff like (and this won't necessarily be a card, just an example):

Murkspreader |
Creature - Zombie Knight
Gravemind
: Regenerate target creature with  a +1/+1 counter on it. Activate this ability only while Murkspreader is in your graveyard.
2/1 

Maybe you meant "mimetic sludge"? Because "memetic" means "a unit of cultural information". It comes from the word "mimic", but still...

@cats_and_me: I didn't see it as green. (It is, after all, an artifact creature, and, um, green hates artifacts . Like, a lot.) White loves artifact creatures, being as they are artifact creatures. Green hates artifacts, but green and black can look at artifacts as individuals rather than as Artifact. (Meaning, any synergy is modular, rather than linear. Of course, every color gets modular artifact synergy. A notable exception is mana rocks, because those go in a cycle or add "one mana of any color".)

On taxing, that's more , to my opinion. In general, are the "control" shard.

Gravemind isn't so bad, rules-wise, so long as it's only one. Mixing and matching is what the rules team hates. BUT! It gets dangerously close to a reanimator ability. I'd prefer a card draw mechanic, though. Also, you could do like Mirrodin and make a 20-part infinite combo over the course of the block.

@Escef:
has artifact synergy. Goblin Welder -type cards in red; equipment love, tokens, and Tempered Steel -like effects (since white loves both artifacts and creatures) in white; and artifact-counting mechanics in blue.

I've recently come up with a newer version of Gravemind that should have a touch more design space:

Gravemind X (When this creature dies, distribute X +1/+1 counters among creatures you control.  As long as this card is in your graveyard, creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have gravemind 1.)

I actually thought about going for something that draws cards as well, bay_falconer, but I honestly have no idea how to make a mechanic around card drawing. If anyone had any ideas about that or suggestions about where to look for inspiration, actually, it'd be a great help. 

(and I meant "memetic"! Think of ideas being passed on and I think the flavor connection should be fairly obvious)

EDIT: right now I do plan for there to be a "drawing cards" subtheme among the cards 

Wow this is already around 70 posts. Note to self- wedge designs generate huge traffic.

It's always interesting to see the parallels between different people's wedges. Everyone has trouble with .
Rebirth sounds super sweet. I do have some worries about it though. Rebirthing two creatures off of each other over and over sounds like a cool combo but it could get repetitive and I suspect there'd be lots of situations where the guy playing across from you would want to kick you in the shins. I suppouse proper costing of the ability could solve the problem but exiling the creature you rebirth onto might be the simplest solution.
Somebody also mentioned that the rules term for a creature comming back from the grave this way should be "when ~ is reborn". Please do that.

I think colonize has the right idea. I don't know if it needs to be a keyword though. You could just have lots of cards that make the same tokens. It might open some ddesign room if it wasn't always tied to an upkeep trigger. You would have to compensate with lots of identity building though to tie the wedge together.

Gravemind is pretty interesting. The easiest way to keep it balanced might be to have it work more like imprint and exile the card. Otherwise it's hard to balance the mechanic over the course of the game. See Cat's argument for elaboration. Maybe the gravemind cards can choose to imprint on another creature each upkeep or go back to the grave when the, uh graveminded creature dies?

Warcast. I designed pretty much the same thing as a Boros mechanic. I don't think it's too dependant on momentum. There would be situations where attacking doesn't net you anything other than letting you bring out the card you need a few turns early. You can also trigger it off of an opponent's creatures to put up defensive measures when you're taking a beating.

Dreamfuel rocks. I used bouncing your own creatures as a cost reduction mechanic when I was putting together a wedge block. I think that copying spells is a lot more interesting.

I have one overall critque as well- almost all of these mechanics are combo oriented. It doesn't seem like htere's enough balance between playstyles.