Monday, May 15, 2006
Early Game Decisions
(Hi. I haven’t updated for a while, so I thought I’d do that now. I’ve been busy all day putting cards into Excel, and the weekend was busy, so I haven’t had time to make pictures for the main cards and secondary pictures and whatever. So Anyway, I thought I should put up a preview anyway. It might not be as exciting as the Draft Options, but oh well. Maybe later I’ll update the post with pictures, but for now, here’s the next preview stuff.)
(Also, maybe some of you guys have noticed, but there are some secret preview cards around, if you look hard enough. Some are not so hard to find, some are hidden quite well. Don’t worry if you don’t find the well hidden ones. You’re not supposed to, heh.)
You get to put stickers on cards, how much crazier can you get? Well, to make a good fake set, you have to balance the amount of craziness and freedom with the set-rules of magic. There were some things with Unglued and Unhinged that… didn’t feel quite right. Some of it was fun, but eventually it turned into a spectacle rather than a game of magic. I didn’t want to do that, so fortunately (or unfortunately) that’s about it. No real deck of cards, no side games of Rock Paper Scissors or Smash, no cards dealing with cardname length or number of words in a textbox.
So with that out of the way, you can breathe easy now. Now that I’ve dealt with the craziness of the set, I had to tackle the other aspects. So we look back on playability.
What does it mean for something to be playable, at least, in a limited setting?
Warp World, for example, is unplayable. It has an interesting effect, but it costs waay too much. So definitely, mana cost is a factor of playability.
In order for cards to be drafted, they had to be aggressively costed. Watchwolf is a great deal – I don’t think we would’ve ever invented Watchwolf in a fake set if Wizards didn’t do it. Then in Ravnica, there are a few other aggressively costed 4/4s, namely Moroii, Loxodon Hierarch, and the Ghost Council of the Orzhova.
What does that mean? It means that you will see bigger creatures earlier in the game. So how do you balance that? If someone has a Watchwolf and a Hierarch in their opening hands, and the other person doesn’t, won’t the first guy win?
Well, the early-middle game seems to be pretty important, and I’m helping too! But, to balance that, I focused part of my set on the early game. So I made a few cycles of 1-to-cast and 2-to-cast creatures, that can take control of the board if not dealt with early game.
But aha! What if I miscalculated? What if now the second guy has all these little critters in his hand, but the first guy doesn’t actually have the Hierarch and the Watchwolf? Won’t the little critters overrun the board?
Well, I couldn’t go back and forth like that anymore. Basically, everyone should have little critters in their deck, along with medium-sized and large beasts. But, if all else fails – Fresh Tactics!
Did I (Bao) make a mistake in creating the early-game? Well, put a couple of these babies in your deck and everything will fix itself. The white mage will go back to neutral, and the blue mage will put up some defense so it can cast spells in peace.
Anyway, I will make up some rules right now so I don’t have to put them on the cards themselves: If you happen to play the spell or copy the spell or whatever when it’s not allowed (in this case, not on your first, second, third, or fourth turn), then it just fizzles and disappears; it ends up in your graveyard (unless otherwise mentioned) and it doesn’t count as you playing a spell.
There is one permanent which has this clause too (can only be played on turn etc) and if that comes into play somehow, it just ends up in your graveyard. It would count towards things like Vulturous Zombie, but no spells have been played.
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(Hi. I haven’t updated for a while, so I thought I’d do that now. I’ve been busy all day putting cards into Excel, and the weekend was busy, so I haven’t had time to make pictures for the main cards and secondary pictures and whatever. So Anyway, I thought I should put up a preview anyway. It might not be as exciting as the Draft Options, but oh well. Maybe later I’ll update the post with pictures, but for now, here’s the next preview stuff.) (Also, maybe some of you guys have noticed, but there are some secret preview cards around, if you look hard enough. Some are not so hard to find, some are hidden quite well. Don’t worry if you don’t find the well hidden ones. You’re not supposed to, heh.) You get to put stickers on cards, how much crazier can you get? Well, to make a good fake set, you have to balance the amount of craziness and freedom with the set-rules of magic. There were some things with Unglued and Unhinged that… didn’t feel quite right. Some of it was fun, but eventually it turned into a spectacle rather than a game of magic. I didn’t want to do that, so fortunately (or unfortunately) that’s about it. No real deck of cards, no side games of Rock Paper Scissors or Smash, no cards dealing with cardname length or number of words in a textbox. So with that out of the way, you can breathe easy now. Now that I’ve dealt with the craziness of the set, I had to tackle the other aspects. So we look back on playability. What does it mean for something to be playable, at least, in a limited setting? Warp World, for example, is unplayable. It has an interesting effect, but it costs waay too much. So definitely, mana cost is a factor of playability. In order for cards to be drafted, they had to be aggressively costed. Watchwolf is a great deal – I don’t think we would’ve ever invented Watchwolf in a fake set if Wizards didn’t do it. Then in Ravnica, there are a few other aggressively costed 4/4s, namely Moroii, Loxodon Hierarch, and the Ghost Council of the Orzhova. |
What does that mean? It means that you will see bigger creatures earlier in the game. So how do you balance that? If someone has a Watchwolf and a Hierarch in their opening hands, and the other person doesn’t, won’t the first guy win? Well, the early-middle game seems to be pretty important, and I’m helping too! But, to balance that, I focused part of my set on the early game. So I made a few cycles of 1-to-cast and 2-to-cast creatures, that can take control of the board if not dealt with early game. But aha! What if I miscalculated? What if now the second guy has all these little critters in his hand, but the first guy doesn’t actually have the Hierarch and the Watchwolf? Won’t the little critters overrun the board? | |
Well, I couldn’t go back and forth like that anymore. Basically, everyone should have little critters in their deck, along with medium-sized and large beasts. But, if all else fails – Fresh Tactics!
Did I (Bao) make a mistake in creating the early-game? Well, put a couple of these babies in your deck and everything will fix itself. The white mage will go back to neutral, and the blue mage will put up some defense so it can cast spells in peace. Anyway, I will make up some rules right now so I don’t have to put them on the cards themselves: If you happen to play the spell or copy the spell or whatever when it’s not allowed (in this case, not on your first, second, third, or fourth turn), then it just fizzles and disappears; it ends up in your graveyard (unless otherwise mentioned) and it doesn’t count as you playing a spell. There is one permanent which has this clause too (can only be played on turn etc) and if that comes into play somehow, it just ends up in your graveyard. It would count towards things like Vulturous Zombie, but no spells have been played. |