I like that they planned tools to push for fewer colors, but I think the hybrid cards are an awful place to do that. By definition, hybrid should be played by more decks. A blue/black hybrid card can be played in white-blue, blue-black, blue-red, black-red, monoblue, monoblack, etc. If it has too many hybrid symbols, it can only be played in blue-black, monoblue and monoblack (okay, when the manabases are crazy, you can splash or whatever, but it's harder).
But you know what restricts a lot already? Gold. If you don't want people splashing, use many colored symbols. I hate when the line of gold and hybrid is blurred (and people often think of hybrids as gold cards, especially with the guild watermark and everything). Demigod of Revenge and friends was fun because it was one cycle in a block with other hybrid cards, the exception. With only three hybrid cards per color pair, I think it's irresponsible to put that many hybrid intensive cards.
Boros Reckoner could have cost , and it wouldn't be played except in Boros because part of why it's good is that you can ensure it lands on turn three. The same with Nightveil Specter if it cost . And it's not like you are trying to push monowhite decks using the Reckoner or monoblue decks using the already-awkward-with-few-colors Specter.
Then you would have had slots to put on hybrid cards that are actually exciting by any deck that played either color. Something to think about.
The appeal of something like, say, Spitemare is that the insane flexibility allows it to be played in any number of decks. Red, white, red white, white-X, red-X, etc.
Things with an incredibly heavy mana cost like the Shadowmoor/Eventide God cycle, or Boros Reckoner have a different focus I imagine. They don't necessarily want them to be played in any deck that has either of the colors so much as they want those cards to be playable in mono-color decks. Demigod of Revenge and Deus of Calamity have both been used as finishers in All-In Red lists, and that simply would not be possible if they were traditional gold instead of hybrid.
Things like Mistmeadow Witch and Cankerous Thirst would lose a lot of their appeal if they were gold. Witch for example, can be cast on turn 2 if your lands are a mountain and an island, or a swamp and a plains. If it were it would not. Cankerous Thirst can be cast if you're colored screwed and never draw your second color. No, it's not ideal then, but it's still playable.
Yeah, I think Boros Reckoner is fine. It's usable in monowhite decks and in monored decks, where Spark Trooper obviously isn't. Meanwhile Arrows of Justice is eminently splashable in Gruul, Orzhov, and whatever else. They've got different intended uses.
Note that allof Return to Ravnica's common hybrids have double coloured mana in their costs. This was clearly a deliberate design decision, to try to discourage people from splashing e.g. Vassal Soul into an Izzet deck (for some reason).
I dislike Mistmeadow Witch , though. (Design-wise, that is; as a Johnny deckbuilder I love the card.) It's only any good in a blue-white deck; it should be gold. There's no reason to drop it on turn 2, even: a vanilla 1/1 for 2 mana is bad even for .
(Okay, in Shadowmoor limited there was Steel of the Godhead , but really, it'd be preferable to have a vanilla and the Witch be gold than to have the Witch be "hybrid" in some sense that's not really hybrid at all. In fact, better still would have been to make the Witch activate for , because Turn to Mist shows either colour can get the effect. But this isn't meant to be a rant about Shadowmoor. This is just an argument not to set too much stock in that one cycle of dubious hybrid cards, any more than we'd try to argue a general point from Augury Adept .)
Su92: I'm very disappointed with hybrid in RTR and GCR. In today's development article, they said they made hybrid intensive cards (like Boros Reckoner) to push decks with fewer colors. But hybrid should be played in many decks. The Reckoner, for example, can only be reasonably played in monowhite, monored or Boros, not Azorius or Rakdos. And you only do three per color pair so it seems like a wasted opportunity. I'd understand if you had no other way, but gold intensive cards could have done the same.
Mark Rosewater:
Ravnica blocks really aren’t the place where we push hybrid in the way you’re talking about. In Ravnica, hybrid is a tool to help us make cool guild cards not make cards that go in any deck using one of the two colors.
There will be blocks where hyrbid does that (Shadowmoor block being the historical high point) but not here. That’s not its purpose in this block.
The difference between Reckoner at vs is that printed version can be played on two plains and a mountain. In the high-level constructed that we usually think about, sacred foundry makes that much less important, but for a casual player, whose mana base is 10 mountains, 11 plains, and two guildgates, it's very important.
You should never explain layers to people unless one of the following is true: they're studying for a judge exam, you're both in a Ben Affleck movie and it's the only way to save the world, or you hate them.
Occassionally when catering, I've been put the task of arranging Fruit and Cheese or Grilled Vegetable platters. More than once a high class buffet has started with the mark of Phyrexia upon it. Since i've got a good eye for color so it looks great to people who don't get the "joke" (it's a niceley divided circle after all: the outline gives you 4-6 "regions" to work with), this has actually got me put on platter design more often, resulting in Phyrexia's presence at more private and industry events.
Things with an incredibly heavy mana cost like the Shadowmoor/Eventide God cycle, or Boros Reckoner have a different focus I imagine. They don't necessarily want them to be played in any deck that has either of the colors so much as they want those cards to be playable in mono-color decks. Demigod of Revenge and Deus of Calamity have both been used as finishers in All-In Red lists, and that simply would not be possible if they were traditional gold instead of hybrid.
Yeah, I think Boros Reckoner is fine. It's usable in monowhite decks and in monored decks, where Spark Trooper obviously isn't. Meanwhile Arrows of Justice is eminently splashable in Gruul, Orzhov, and whatever else. They've got different intended uses.
I know the difference (and I find cool that hybrid intensive cards mean something different). But talking about Standard (which is the point of the article), I doubt there will be a monowhite or monored deck using the Reckoner, or a monoblue or monoblack deck using the Specter, so for the purposes of "Let's have two-colored decks, too.", gold would have been fine.
On the other hand, we don't get too many hybrid cards, so the difference between what decks can play Spark Trooper and Boros Reckoner in Standard isn't that big. Don't get me wrong. I love how these cards are different in that they make you play those two colors or monocolor. But if Reckoner was gold, we'd instead have a rare hybrid that could do its job as a hybrid. As it is, Reckoner does almost the same as if it was gold, except we have one less red-white hybrid.
Note that all of Return to Ravnica's common hybrids have double coloured mana in their costs. This was clearly a deliberate design decision, to try to discourage people from splashing e.g. Vassal Soul into an Izzet deck (for some reason).
I didn't catch on this. What a bad way to use hybrid, though, especially in common.
I dislike Mistmeadow Witch , though. (Design-wise, that is; as a Johnny deckbuilder I love the card.) It's only any good in a blue-white deck; it should be gold. There's no reason to drop it on turn 2, even: a vanilla 1/1 for 2 mana is bad even for .
(Okay, in Shadowmoor limited there was Steel of the Godhead , but really, it'd be preferable to have a vanilla and the Witch be gold than to have the Witch be "hybrid" in some sense that's not really hybrid at all. In fact, better still would have been to make the Witch activate for , because Turn to Mist shows either colour can get the effect. But this isn't meant to be a rant about Shadowmoor. This is just an argument not to set too much stock in that one cycle of dubious hybrid cards, any more than we'd try to argue a general point from Augury Adept .)
We agree on this. Hybrid to mask gold cards isn't really hybrid.
Things like Mistmeadow Witch and Cankerous Thirst would lose a lot of their appeal if they were gold. Witch for example, can be cast on turn 2 if your lands are a mountain and an island, or a swamp and a plains. If it were it would not. Cankerous Thirst can be cast if you're colored screwed and never draw your second color. No, it's not ideal then, but it's still playable.
The difference between Reckoner at vs is that printed version can be played on two plains and a mountain. In the high-level constructed that we usually think about, sacred foundry makes that much less important, but for a casual player, whose mana base is 10 mountains, 11 plains, and two guildgates, it's very important.
I'm aware of the little differences, but you don't make Naturalize cost and do nothing if you didn't spend green mana, even though it could do something relevant like filling the graveyard or triggering Blistercoil Weird . Not using two colors to play those cards (and some hybrids, especially from Shadowmoor block) make the bad so so bad that its pretty much unusable, or at least a lot worse to what normally is available if you pick another average card. (By that I mean you can play Cankerous Thirst as a removal spell, but they wouldn't print "Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn" for with a straight face.) In this case, I'm talking about the design, and what it tries to express. The Witch isn't "I'm a cool card that can be played with either color but gets better if you have both" as much as "I'm a white-blue card. Period.".
I feel like denying Hybrid access to Cankerous Thirst and Mistmeadow Witch -style cards artifically shrinks their (already very small) share of the mechanical pie. (Although, I feel more strongly about the former than the latter). Could either of them have been printed as a gold card? Yes. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be gold. If it's a gold block, we'll print Agony Warp . If it's a hybrid block, we'll print Cankerous Thirst . There's definitely room for both and hybrid definitely needs the option.
Rules Advisor as of 03/01/2013 Zammm = Batman "Ability words are flavor text for Melvins." -- Fallingman
I feel like denying Hybrid access to Cankerous Thirst and Mistmeadow Witch -style cards artifically shrinks their (already very small) share of the mechanical pie. (Although, I feel more strongly about the former than the latter). Could either of them have been printed as a gold card? Yes. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be gold. If it's a gold block, we'll print Agony Warp . If it's a hybrid block, we'll print Cankerous Thirst . There's definitely room for both and hybrid definitely needs the option.
"Pay one color to get an effect, or two to get a better effect" is perfectly fine. However, cards like Invert the Skies are awfully overcosted with only one color, the same way you wouldn't play Kederekt Parasite 99% of the time without red permanent cards in your deck. Maybe Cankerous Thirst isn't the best example (because the removal part is probably playable and definitely has a role in Limited), but it's the idea of "let's push the 'play both colors' part of this hybrid card a lot" that bugs me a lot.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with Cankerous Thirst . It's quite different from being an actual gold card, it's more like a split card with entwine.
Deathrite Shaman , too, I think is okay, simply because it's a one-drop and that's the only way of doing multicoloured one-drops. Besides, the card sees play in Modern in decks that are only splashing one of the two colours and are happy to just use two thirds of the card otherwise.
I'm not sure how I feel about Reckoner, but I lean toward it being okay in general but probably a better fit in a Shadowmoor-type block than a Ravnica one. There aren't too many of them in this block, but if you had a whole bunch, it would actually reward monocolour play over multicolour play. As was pointed out, Deus of Calamity and Demigod of Revenge saw play in (the same) mono-red decks, and those decks could play Boros Reckoner too if they wanted -- but try playing all three of those together in a multicolour deck. I agree that if pushing two-colour play is your goal, a bunch of CCD or CCDD mana costs makes more senes.
I do agree on Mistmeadow Witch , but that card really just speaks to the deeper problem with Shadowmoor which is that it wasn't supposed to be a multicolour block at all but became one to play better with Alara block.
None of these things bothers me nearly as much as the other side of the coin does. (That being Giant Solifuge and Augury Adept .)
