Post by Colorcrayons on Jul 23, 2015 16:34:16 GMT -6
I wanted to sit down and talk about spell cards in general, but I think I need to devote energy to one single spell deck first, and that's 
.
But first, some commonly known armchair designer ideas about game mechanism theory that will be pertinent to the rest of the article.
Card Advantage & Resource Management
In Arena of the Planeswalkers, your spell deck is the resource that you manage. Currently, you MUST have 12 cards in your deck, and it can be comprised of up to 200 points worth of cards. These 12 cards become a very carefully guarded and played part of the game, as it is these which give you bonuses or take away your opponents bonuses at key times if played right and with a bit of luck. And these resources do not come back. Once they are gone, they are gone. They are not to be squandered and are precious.
The same is said for your summoned units as well. Once they are dead, with few exceptions, they are gone.
Therefore, anything that screws this up, especially if such a tactic is only available to a single color, then we encounter some problems.
"But Colorcrayons..." I hear you say "... such a thing works just fine and is pretty balanced in M:tG"
True. It does. But that game has other bits of resource management to give advantages to other colors.
has mana acceleration, and big stompy monstahs played quickly. 
is strong on the defense in both magic and their creatures. 
is usually the bane of , able to have answers to it's diametrically opposed color. 
's own life is a resource, along with that of the life of it's creatures and can destroy other creatures with ease.
All of the above have tricky ways to manipulate the Mana management. Mana is not present in this game, however.
Yet we still see the same tricks that is known for. Counters/Milling/Card Draw, etc.
Lets take a look at these:
Card Drawing:
Jace's own special ability allows him to look at his top card of his deck, and if he wants to, put it on the bottom of his deck. This decision is a form of agency that should never be discounted, and is definitely card advantage.
In M:tG this is known as "tutoring", because of the various tutor cars in M:tG, especially Diabolic Tutor.
At the cost of the current card being played, you get to search your library for the sorcery that you need right now. Definit card advantage. Big time.
Nifty card. Graveyard recursion. For the cost of this card, you can dig through any opponent's graveyard and play a sorcery card found there. Now the actual point cost for this card is quite high, so I cant really criticize it too much as annoying because of that. But speaking of costs of cards...
Resource Denial:
Most of the rest of 's spell deck so far is comprised of denial in one form or another. The reason why is the color of "NOPE!".
Commonly referred to as a "Milling" card after the M:tG card "Millstone".
Let's just make sure 16.6% of your deck is now useless, M'kay? For the cost of one card, we have eliminated two of yours. Heaven forbid there are duplicates of this in a deck... Denial and card advantage. For 5 friggin' points, no less.
Commonly called "Bounce" by M:tG players. Got something unique close to me that you are gonna attack me with, that took you several careful turns to maneuver into position? NOPE! Put that back in your reserves for the cost of me playing a card while I titter and chuckle, hiding my gales of laughter behind my enormous hand of cards. KTHNXBUHBYE!
Attacking me? Are you attacking me? NOPE! Resource denial.
...Because having Aetherspouts wasn't nearly enough. Let's make sure squads are just as protected. NOPE! See the trend here?
Are you still trying to attack me? NOPE! Imma attacka you, suckuh foo!
...And then Imma just go over here, M'kay? I'm also gonna need you to work on saturday, M'kay? Thanks...
You wanna play a sorcery? NOPE!
You wanna play an enchantment? NOOOOOPE!
Hey! Would ya look at that! You've been struggling against me all game and you FINALLY got a decent threat toe to toe with my units and/or planeswalker. Congrats!
Too bad that huge attack buff is now your defense.
Nice enchantement. I think I'll move that over here, with absolutely no restriction whatsoever. because that makes sense and is fair. Or just give you a crappy trap. Whheeeeeeee!
"But Colorcrayons..." I hear you begin to say again "...the creatures for are not as good as the other creatures in the game"
Maybe. This is subjective though. The illusions allow Jace to teleport all over the map, and it is a cringe worthy sight. Unsummon those and you can keep drawing cards. YAY! The Phantoms just come and go as they please with a grand defense.
But their seeming deficiencies hardly matter when you are stripped of your magical abilities and cant even keep your own units on the table a lot of the time.
I posit, that there needs to be some serious buffing of the other colors in expansions. I would comment further why, but this is long enough and just looking at the card reference library here, along with the Pwalkers and units of other colors, it seems pretty obvious that there is at the very least a slight
discrepancy.
I might even go so far as to say that this is a bit of sloppy and lazy design work for this color. Many of 's card archetypes are so easily translated here, without much thought put into prudence and how the other color should have an answer for 's answers. buffs it's creatures and has a single bit of enchantment elimination. is similar to , yet 's effects are temporary. is the strongest contender against in this regard. You have enough control in , yet some buffs and other shenanigans. plays well enough on it's own, but again, the denial really makes just sit down and shut up pretty often.
The way plays is very thematic to M:tG. Each color is true to its color, more or less. But this isn't quite M:tG. The other colors can't take advantage of their usual advantages as easily here. Or at least weren't as designed to take advantage within the design theater of this game. They just went overboard with denial for .
always should have some, but nearly every card in the deck?
Your thoughts?
.But first, some commonly known armchair designer ideas about game mechanism theory that will be pertinent to the rest of the article.
Card Advantage & Resource Management
In Arena of the Planeswalkers, your spell deck is the resource that you manage. Currently, you MUST have 12 cards in your deck, and it can be comprised of up to 200 points worth of cards. These 12 cards become a very carefully guarded and played part of the game, as it is these which give you bonuses or take away your opponents bonuses at key times if played right and with a bit of luck. And these resources do not come back. Once they are gone, they are gone. They are not to be squandered and are precious.
The same is said for your summoned units as well. Once they are dead, with few exceptions, they are gone.
Therefore, anything that screws this up, especially if such a tactic is only available to a single color, then we encounter some problems.
"But Colorcrayons..." I hear you say "... such a thing works just fine and is pretty balanced in M:tG"
True. It does. But that game has other bits of resource management to give advantages to other colors.
has mana acceleration, and big stompy monstahs played quickly. 
is strong on the defense in both magic and their creatures. 
is usually the bane of , able to have answers to it's diametrically opposed color. 
's own life is a resource, along with that of the life of it's creatures and can destroy other creatures with ease.All of the above have tricky ways to manipulate the Mana management. Mana is not present in this game, however.
Yet we still see the same tricks that
is known for. Counters/Milling/Card Draw, etc.Lets take a look at these:
Card Drawing:
Jace's own special ability allows him to look at his top card of his deck, and if he wants to, put it on the bottom of his deck. This decision is a form of agency that should never be discounted, and is definitely card advantage.
In M:tG this is known as "tutoring", because of the various tutor cars in M:tG, especially Diabolic Tutor.
At the cost of the current card being played, you get to search your library for the sorcery that you need right now. Definit card advantage. Big time.
Nifty card. Graveyard recursion. For the cost of this card, you can dig through any opponent's graveyard and play a sorcery card found there. Now the actual point cost for this card is quite high, so I cant really criticize it too much as annoying because of that. But speaking of costs of cards...
Resource Denial:
Most of the rest of
's spell deck so far is comprised of denial in one form or another. The reason why is the color of "NOPE!".Commonly referred to as a "Milling" card after the M:tG card "Millstone".
Let's just make sure 16.6% of your deck is now useless, M'kay? For the cost of one card, we have eliminated two of yours. Heaven forbid there are duplicates of this in a deck... Denial and card advantage. For 5 friggin' points, no less.
Commonly called "Bounce" by M:tG players. Got something unique close to me that you are gonna attack me with, that took you several careful turns to maneuver into position? NOPE! Put that back in your reserves for the cost of me playing a card while I titter and chuckle, hiding my gales of laughter behind my enormous hand of cards. KTHNXBUHBYE!
Attacking me? Are you attacking me? NOPE! Resource denial.
...Because having Aetherspouts wasn't nearly enough. Let's make sure squads are just as protected. NOPE! See the trend here?
Are you still trying to attack me? NOPE! Imma attacka you, suckuh foo!
...And then Imma just go over here, M'kay? I'm also gonna need you to work on saturday, M'kay? Thanks...
You wanna play a sorcery? NOPE!
You wanna play an enchantment? NOOOOOPE!
Hey! Would ya look at that! You've been struggling against me all game and you FINALLY got a decent threat toe to toe with my units and/or planeswalker. Congrats!
Too bad that huge attack buff is now your defense.
Nice enchantement. I think I'll move that over here, with absolutely no restriction whatsoever. because that makes sense and is fair. Or just give you a crappy trap. Whheeeeeeee!
"But Colorcrayons..." I hear you begin to say again "...the creatures for
are not as good as the other creatures in the game"Maybe. This is subjective though. The illusions allow Jace to teleport all over the map, and it is a cringe worthy sight. Unsummon those and you can keep drawing cards. YAY! The Phantoms just come and go as they please with a grand defense.
But their seeming deficiencies hardly matter when you are stripped of your magical abilities and cant even keep your own units on the table a lot of the time.
I posit, that there needs to be some serious buffing of the other colors in expansions. I would comment further why, but this is long enough and just looking at the card reference library here, along with the Pwalkers and units of other colors, it seems pretty obvious that there is at the very least a slight
discrepancy.I might even go so far as to say that this is a bit of sloppy and lazy design work for this color. Many of
's card archetypes are so easily translated here, without much thought put into prudence and how the other color should have an answer for 's answers. buffs it's creatures and has a single bit of enchantment elimination. is similar to , yet 's effects are temporary. is the strongest contender against in this regard. You have enough control in , yet some buffs and other shenanigans. plays well enough on it's own, but again, the denial really makes just sit down and shut up pretty often.The way
plays is very thematic to M:tG. Each color is true to its color, more or less. But this isn't quite M:tG. The other colors can't take advantage of their usual advantages as easily here. Or at least weren't as designed to take advantage within the design theater of this game. They just went overboard with denial for . always should have some, but nearly every card in the deck? Your thoughts?
