Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #33 - Future Sight - Part 2

Episode Date: May 10, 2013

Mark Rosewater continues his discussion about Future Sight with Part 2 of the series. ...

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last week I talked about Future Sight, and today was part two. It is part two. But something interesting came up. Matt Cavada needs a ride to work. And for those that remember my podcasting on Planeswalkers, Matt lives right near me, and so occasionally he and I go to work together. And I thought, Future Sight, the one team Matt was on, the fates were speaking. So Matt's going to join us today for part two of Future Sight. We'll get some insight into maybe his take.
Starting point is 00:00:46 Because like I said, I've done a lot of design teams. I've done on 50 plus design teams. Matt's been on one, this one. So we're going to talk to him today about it. And I'm going to try to hit some of the issues I didn't hit last time. So we'll see if we can combine those together. So a quick reminder before I'm driving to get Matt right now. So Matt, at the time, Matt has a new job. But his original job was he was on the creative team, and he did names and flavor text.
Starting point is 00:01:10 And at the time, I was looking for a more offbeat design team to do Future Sight because I know we were doing a lot of crazy, you know, I really wanted a team that was outside the box thinking. really wanted a team that was outside the box thinking. Plus, I really wanted a member of the creative team on my design team, because not only were we designing future mechanics, but we also were hinting at future worlds. And I thought it'd be nice to have a person to do that. So Matt was filling multiple roles. So we'll talk to him today, and we'll try to figure out what his take on all of this was, because, like I said, I've done a lot of design teams, so I think maybe in some ways I'm a little more jaded. I've been doing this for a long, long time. But like I said, this was Matt's one team, so he'd probably have a different perspective. So, I'm almost there to pick him up. There are things you need to know before I get Matt.
Starting point is 00:02:07 As I said last time, remember that Future Sight was set up, we knew the time spiral was the past, we knew that planar chaos was the alternate present, and we knew that Future Sight was going to be a glimpse of the possible futures of magic, and all that entailed. And last time I talked about the time shift to cheat, and I talked about the mix and match cards, and I talked about the packs, the packed cycle. So today the goal was to talk about mechanics, but we'll see.
Starting point is 00:02:36 I'm going to pick Matt up and we'll figure out where we go. If need be, we'll have a third part here. I've learned that the podcast about the episodes, people like them to run over several episodes, so I'm willing to spend the time to talk about it. Aha, here is Matt. Let's pick him up. Okay. Welcome. Good morning. Okay, welcome to the show, Matt. You're already in progress?
Starting point is 00:03:10 I'm in progress, yes. I have to start when I leave my driveway because I have to begin every show by going, I'm pulling out of my driveway. So, yes, my rule is that my podcast is from the start of my drive to the end of my drive. Have you had any flat tires or any such thing? I got gas ones. I don't know. I've been in traffic a few times, so.
Starting point is 00:03:31 I always expect, like, more somehow my actually being in a car mattering, but it only matters, like, 175 shows. One of these days, someone's going to sideswipe you, and this show's going to be awesome. Yeah, it'll be the Roge Rage episode. Okay, so here's what I was saying before you got in the car, was I have been on 50 some design teams.
Starting point is 00:03:49 You've been on one. So I said, what are the chances of the one I'm talking about is the one that you were on? So that felt like fate. Fate. So let's start with this, which is, what was it like being on the only design team you've ever been on? You know, I have no perspective because, like you said, I've only been on one. I imagine
Starting point is 00:04:12 that 99 out of 100 people who play Magic, who are really into it, think of how much fun it would be to be charged with designing cards that will ultimately end up actually getting put into a card set and i have to say that it was that it was very cool um however i can say that i i didn't experience all that often what it feels like to design a card and then actually see it printed. I can only think of two. Okay, what are the two cards that you're afraid to print? The only two I can think of, they both kind of suck.
Starting point is 00:04:59 One is the Putrid Cyclops. Okay. Sky One Cyclops. Just seemed funny to me. And the Yixla Jailer. Okay. What does the Yixla Jailer do? Cards in graveyards do nothing.
Starting point is 00:05:17 They have no abilities. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a new card. Yeah. It's a hoser. People sometimes actually play with it.
Starting point is 00:05:28 Whereas the Cyclops lurks in binders. It was played in Limited. Yeah, not every card, you know. I mean, one of the things people don't realize is we make tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of cards, and so few of them actually make it to print. The other thing that I wasn't aware would happen is that while you might not design, start to finish a card that gets printed, you dabble on all kinds of cards as a team.
Starting point is 00:05:58 Yeah, well, people ask me all the time, like, why don't we credit the designers on the cards? And I'm like, like, with the artists, we know who drew the card. With the designer, like. Four names attached to one card. Yeah, and a lot of times someone has an idea and someone tweaks the idea. Someone else says, what do you do this? Right. You know, and it's very, very hard at the end of the day to know some cards who even made the card.
Starting point is 00:06:18 Right. You know, I mean, some cards, like I said, there's definitely cards where I made the card, no one touched it. I know I made the card. Yeah. Last episode, I was talking about some of the cards I made in Future Sight. I was talking about the time-shifted cards were extra hard because of the rule that said it had to be something Magic's never done before. And that's... I remember, so I said that when I put together the team, three of the six members on the team had never been on a Magic design team before,
Starting point is 00:06:44 which is very bizarre for a Magic design team. But I was trying to... Get out of the six members on the team had never been on an Imagine Design team before, which is very bizarre for an Imagine Design team. Right. But I was trying to... Get out of the box. Yes. And wind it out of the box. I thought you were an out-of-the-box guy, so... Another thing that I talked about is we were trying to show off not just future mechanics,
Starting point is 00:06:58 but future creative elements. You can talk about that a little bit. Well, there were a small handful of ideas that we thought we would get to at some point. And you and I talked yesterday about the Sarkamite mirror. Yeah. We had an inkling that Phyrexia would be back. Well, I mean, Sarkamite, for those who don't realize, we knew that the Phyrexians had invaded Mirrodin when we did Mirrodin.
Starting point is 00:07:22 Right. Like, if you go read the novel, I mean, the fact that the Phyrexians are invading was worked into Mirrodin. So we knew we were going to go back. Now, the big change, I talked about this in my podcast on Scars of Mirrodin, was we thought we were going to go back to New Phyrexia, and then at the end
Starting point is 00:07:36 of it, oh my god, it's Mirrodin! But we ended up going to Mirrodin and watching them get taken over. We also planted a Lorwyn card directly in. Yeah, I think we planted cards for the whole next block. I think there was a Lorwyn and Eventide, a Shadowmoor, and a
Starting point is 00:07:52 Morningtide card all put in. There was, and I can't say that this is actually going to happen or not, but we put some dinosaur stuff in there. Yeah, is it Miraganda?
Starting point is 00:08:08 Yes, there's that. And I think we did, wasn't there a dinosaur of some kind in there? Yeah, there was, there was. Was Imperiosaur in there? Yeah, I think so, I think so. There's some dinosaur stuff in FutureSight for sure. I mean, one of the things I think we did was, we knew some worlds we were going to go to,
Starting point is 00:08:27 and we knew some worlds that we thought one day we might go to. Right. And then you guys just screwed around a little bit. Right. And then there was, of course, Coward World that we plan on going to at some point. Yes. Oh, so let me ask you a question. So the card that I get the most questions about, see if you can guess this,
Starting point is 00:08:48 of all the cards in Future Sight, the card that generates the most conversation that I get bugged the most about would be what card? Tarmogoyf? Tarmogoyf is the one that people talk about as far as being the most powerful. But I get a lot more mail about another card from Future Sight. See if you can name it. Putrid Cyclops? Yes, they go, where are you going to make more Putrid Cyclopses? And Ix the Jailers, can you please make more of that?
Starting point is 00:09:06 No, I'll give you a clue. It involves assembling contraptions. Oh, yeah, yeah. Steam Flugger Bus. Do you remember anything about the creative of Steam Flugger Bus? I think that was one where our tongues were firmly planted in our cheeks. I don't think any of us dreamed that that would actually come true. No, no, we didn't.
Starting point is 00:09:33 Yeah. Aaron actually admitted, and like, right after it came out, he admitted that it was a joke and we never planned to do it. And I'm like, Aaron, why did you tell them that? Now we're like destined to somehow have to figure out how to do it. So, I was like, it's a joke. The beauty of the joke was we didn't tell them the joke. So,
Starting point is 00:09:51 it's kind of like, remember in Dr. Strangelove, the Russians, Dr. Strangelove, invented this machine that's supposed to scare everybody else. It stops nuclear war by being this like, if you bomb us, we'll bomb everybody. It was a machine.
Starting point is 00:10:07 But they never told anybody about it. We have to tell people about it, or else it doesn't work. Okay, so... In front of you is a list of all the mechanics in the set. Well, all the non-Evergreen mechanics in the set. You know what might happen on this podcast
Starting point is 00:10:25 that makes driving matter okay what is when Matt vomits from reading his card I'm driving
Starting point is 00:10:34 so well by the way one of the days someone keeps you and I have to do this on a future podcast they want to do a podcast
Starting point is 00:10:41 where I answer questions but I can't do that while I'm driving so I need to have someone else in the car read me questions so maybe one day we'll do that we to do a podcast where I answer questions, but I can't do that while I'm driving. So I need to have someone else in the car read me questions. So maybe one day we'll do that. We'll do an Ask Mark and Matt day. Okay. Okay, so.
Starting point is 00:10:54 Wow, that's a lot. I mentioned this in part one. So before Future Sight came out, like Planar Chaos previously, there were 56 keywords in Magic. How many keywords? Well, they're not even all there because the evergreen ones aren't there. There were 48 keywords in Future Sight. Those are just ones that were introduced in Future Sight.
Starting point is 00:11:18 These are all... Well, I'm sorry. These were new, and these were expert ones brought back. That doesn't include flying in First Strike and stuff like that. What is typecasting? Like wizard casting. So like wizard cycling.
Starting point is 00:11:34 Wizard cycling, it's called. Okay, I remember that. Yeah, one of the things that was interesting about making mechanics was, so a lot of what we were doing was what we call extrapolative design, which was we were trying to surprise the things you'd never seen before, but a lot of what we were trying to do is design obvious places we could go
Starting point is 00:11:54 from stuff we had done. For example, we had like a morph cycle. Remember the morph cycle? Yeah. And so... Pre-evolving. Right. So the morph cycle was a vertical cycle
Starting point is 00:12:04 in which normal morph takes creatures and they morph. So we took the other permanent types that existed at the time, because planeswalkers didn't exist yet, although they almost did, and we took a land, an enchantment, and a artifact, and then each one of them morphed into that. Okay, so pick one of these and we'll talk about it. Talk about Grandeur.
Starting point is 00:12:32 Oh, Grandeur. Okay, what do you remember of Grandeur? That was the Legend ability. Yes, yes. That was the ability. That's actually pretty cool. It was very cool. Do you know who designed the Grandeur ability? I'm sure you don't, but a little trivia question. No sure you don't, but... No. A little trivia question. No, I don't. No one on the design team, so that's why it's a trick question.
Starting point is 00:12:50 It was designed by Bill Rose, who's the VP of R&D. Bill had come up with the idea... So one of the things that... One of the ongoing problems... Maybe I'll have a whole podcast on this, because it's the legendary, the super-type legendary. The problem is, it's the legend, you know, legendary, the super type legendary. The problem is it's this awesome thing
Starting point is 00:13:08 that we want people to be excited about, right? These are characters that are unique except the legendary ability is just a downside. It's like there's no,
Starting point is 00:13:17 I mean, I guess you can play commander with it but other than that, I mean, it is, there's no great advantage to being a named character
Starting point is 00:13:24 other than now you can't have more than one in play. Right. So Bill said, is there anything we could do to make the legendary ability better? Right. And Bill came up with the grandeur ability. So for those who don't remember, what the grandeur ability says is you can discard copies, extra copies of it to have an effect. And the idea was that
Starting point is 00:13:45 that way if you drew a second one, it wasn't a dead card anymore. And we did them in a cycle. I think it was a cycle? I think so. Now, if I remember correctly, all the legends were ancestors of famous people. Is that correct? Oh, now I'm remembering.
Starting point is 00:14:02 Right? They were like I think they were... Was Blackblade one of those? Yeah, Blackblade was one of remembering. Right? They were like... I think they were... Was Black Blade one of those? Yeah, Black Blade was one of those, right. That was Dak and Black Blade's, I don't know, grandsons or something. There were some kids. Yeah, I mean, it was us doing future generations
Starting point is 00:14:17 of known characters. Right. Like I said, that's more extrapolative design. Like, instead of making brand new characters, we riffed off characters you knew and showed their offspring. I think that that's a pretty cool ability. It is.
Starting point is 00:14:31 I'm surprised we've never used it since. We will. In my mind, if I take all the abilities that we introduced in Future Sight, they fall in three categories. Category one is, for sure, for sure,
Starting point is 00:14:42 we'll do them again. Now, it takes us a while to get to some of them. We have to find the right place for them. So just because we haven't done it doesn't mean I'm not interested in doing it. There's a bunch on there that I've actively been looking for places to put it. Do you imagine that Grander would apply only to your own self? Or could I discard any legend with Grander to use that ability?
Starting point is 00:15:02 Oh, I think it's just your guys. I don't think if your opponent has a guy in play, you can discard yours. If I have legend A with grandeur on the board, but legend B with grandeur in my hand, can I discard him for legend A's bonus? No, that's not how grandeur works. Grandeur says that you can...
Starting point is 00:15:23 All about me. Yeah. Legend A can discard other copies of Legend A. Now, what I thought you were asking was, what if Legend B is another version of Legend A? You know what card I want to see? What? I want to see a legendary rat lord
Starting point is 00:15:38 who you can have any number of copies of that guy in your deck. Okay. What is that card? Relentless Rats? Well, there's Relentless Rats. Yeah, that's the one which gives you as many as you want. It's based on Plague Rats,
Starting point is 00:15:51 which a lot of people used to play with lots of Plague Rats, although. And he has Granger, of course. Yes. Rat Granger. It's my all Rat Lord deck. So we've made a few Rat Lords,
Starting point is 00:16:00 although nothing... He doesn't actually have to be a Rat Lord. Yeah. You know what I realized I goofed up on in Gatecrash? I didn't make an Ooze Lord. I dropped the ball.
Starting point is 00:16:10 Nothing says the city like an Ooze. Well, the Simic have lots of Ooze. I mean, it would have fit. A Simic Ooze Lord would have fit. Okay, pick another ability.
Starting point is 00:16:19 I pick... Fate Seal. Fate Seal! Okay, so what is Fate Seal? What inspires... Fate Seal's extrapolated design. What is Fate Seal. Fate Seal. Okay, so what is Fate Seal? Fate Seal is extrapolated design. What is Fate Seal? Is Fate Seal like Scry on your phone? Yes, it's negative Scry.
Starting point is 00:16:33 So one of the things I did was, because we were doing past, present, future, I wanted to make sure there was one unique mechanic for each set that played up that theme. So the past was flashback, right? Because that's remembering the past. And the alternate present, I did vanishing, which was a redone version of fading. Because it's all about, you get it right now, but it goes away.
Starting point is 00:16:54 And then for the future, I saved scry. And then I said, well, you know, scry you can only use on yourself. What if you use scry against your opponent? Have you used that since? Well, okay, so I didn't finish this before. So there's three categories. Category number one is
Starting point is 00:17:09 definitely, I'm looking for a place for it. I believe one day we'll do it. Category number two is I don't know. I think assembling contraptions falls in this one. Maybe if we can find a way to do it. The category two I'm willing to do it I mean I'm the category 2
Starting point is 00:17:25 I'm willing to do but I'm they're more challenging they're not slam dunks like category 1 is look I know we'll find a place category 2 is
Starting point is 00:17:33 I don't know maybe category 3 is I don't think we will ever do this mechanic again I think basically we'll follow the category 3
Starting point is 00:17:42 because it is it is the most unfun violating like doesn't that seem very dimm. Because it is the most unfun, violating... Doesn't it seem very Dimir, though? It is very Dimir. We talked about doing Fate Shield for Dimir. Fate Shield, sorry, for Dimir. But it is just the most unfun thing.
Starting point is 00:17:57 Like, we've been spending all this time and energy trying to take things with things that just suck the fun out of the game. And that mechanic is really like... I don't know, it is fun sucking. It's fun sucking gets. Are there any others in the we'll never do that section? Well, if we get to one, I'll tell you. How about Fortify? Fortify!
Starting point is 00:18:19 I don't remember Fortify. What do you think Fortify is? I have no idea. It gives you vitamins to make you stronger? No, Fortify is What do you think Fortify is? I have no idea. It gives you vitamins to make you stronger? No, Fortify is equipment for land. Oh, oh. Yes, so that is in the category one. I'm looking for a place to use it.
Starting point is 00:18:35 I need the right place. I mean, the thing with... I can think of a place. Well, I mean... And we can't talk about that here. We can't talk about it here. This is not the riff on the future stuff. That's what they want, by the way.
Starting point is 00:18:47 They go, just do a podcast on Huey or something. Okay, so Fortify was artifacts, equipment for land. We actually talked about doing it in Zendikar, because Zendikar was a land set. But we had a lot of other stuff going on. Anyway, it didn't seem like the right place. But it's Category 1. There will come a time and a place.
Starting point is 00:19:13 We will do it, I believe. Yeah, that seems cool. Okay, next. What about AuraSwap? What is that? AuraSwap. So AuraSwap was... Is it just like I trade an aura in my hand for the one that's on a guy?
Starting point is 00:19:26 Yeah, I believe that's how it worked. Basically the idea of Aura Swap is if a creature has Aura Swap, then it has the ability it has, but it could change at any moment into another one. So the creature has it, not the... No, no, no, the aura has it. But if aura has Aura Swap, that means it could transform into an aura that's in your hand. So any creature that has aura swap, you have to be suspicious that it could change. I guess that's category two.
Starting point is 00:19:53 I mean, it's not that I would... It's a tricky one to use is the problem. Like some of the other ones, like, no, no, I know where to go, I know how to use it. This one, it's tricky. I mean, it's not in category three, it's not like we'll never do it, but it's kind of like I have to find know how we can use it. This one, it's tricky. I mean, it's not a category three. It's not like we'll never do it, but it's kind of like I have to find the right way to do it. It requires a lot of finesse, and it's tricky.
Starting point is 00:20:12 It also requires friends. You know, if auras don't already kind of matter, are they going to be enough of a thing to even warrant shining another spotlight on it? Yeah, no, no, no. It definitely, it's a linear mechanic in that. What that means is it requires other cards of its kind or a certain kind. So, right, you have to have an aura deck to make aura swap really matter.
Starting point is 00:20:35 So, what about the lifelink, deathtouch, shroud, and reach? Did we just rename those? No, we introduced them. Those didn't exist? Yes, those did not. I mean, they weren't keywords. Got it. So what happened during FutureSight was I had been meaning,
Starting point is 00:20:50 one of the problems I had run into was I felt we were too stingy with our keywords, and I really wanted to spread them out. Because what happened was, like, haste was a red thing. Only red had haste. And my feeling on keywords is it's this valuable commodity what are we doing we have to spread them out a little bit because from a design standpoint we kept making the same cards we needed a little more flexibility so my plan was and happened during future site was to introduce them give them keywords and then um spread them out in colors so the ones that
Starting point is 00:21:20 introduced lifelink which at the time was mostly a white thing, we spread to black. Deathtouch, which was mostly a black thing, we spread to green. Shroud, which was a green thing, got spread to blue. The blue and green had both done similar things. And then Reach. Reach only existed. We didn't spread Reach anywhere. In fact, there's a big question of who's supposed to get Reach other than green.
Starting point is 00:21:45 I think it's white is supposed to be secondary Reach, but we very rarely ever do reach it in any other color. Because it has flyers. Maybe red. I'm not sure who needs reach. But the reason we did it was I didn't care if we had it. I didn't need to keyword it because it's not the kind of thing we tend to use in keyword form a lot. The reason we
Starting point is 00:22:02 need keywords is when you make a cycle of things and you're doing some new thing and you need to give them variety, we tend to give them creature keywords, but we need keywords is when you make a cycle of things and you're doing some new thing and you need to give them variety we tend to give them creature keywords but we need a single word and so when they're spelled out it's hard to fit on the card that's why I needed to keyword them
Starting point is 00:22:14 and reach by the way we made reach not because I needed it from a design standpoint the rules he needed it because it made it easier to write the flying text. Because if you just, if flying is, I can only be blocked by creatures with flying and reach, then it just defines it.
Starting point is 00:22:32 Although it's a circular logic where like reach and flying define each other by the other. Kind of like in the dictionary when, like what does this mean? It gives a synonym. What does that mean? It gives the first word. Okay. Okay, give me another one. Absorb. Absorb. Oh, absorb. Okay, so. Give me another, give me another one. Absorb. Absorb. Oh, Absorb. Okay. So the idea of Absorb was we did a trading card game called Star Wars. Star Wars, the trading card game. And it was a Richard Garfield design. And then I was in charge, I worked
Starting point is 00:22:59 with Richard on the original design. And then I was in charge of doing the very first set, like the core set. And one of the abilities, I'm not I was in charge of doing the very first set, like the core set. And one of the abilities, I'm not sure whether this ended up in the first set or not, but the idea of armor, the idea that when you shoot something, it takes less damage because it had armor. And so Absorb was the idea of taking that mechanic that we had come up with for Star Wars and bringing it to Magic. So what ends up with Absorb? Is that a creature ability? Yeah, it's a creature ability. So what it means is absorb one means that every point of damage the creature takes,
Starting point is 00:23:29 it takes one less. Oh, so I got it. Right. So what category, where's absorb? One, two, or three? Um, I don't know. So you would think one, because it's a clean ability,
Starting point is 00:23:46 it's really flavorful, but it's two. It's kind of hard for a user to... Why is it two? Why is it two and a half? No, I think we can... I mean, the idea is... I don't know.
Starting point is 00:23:56 I'm not sure absorb was the best word, but the flavor of armor is pretty cool, of like, I'm harder to hurt, you know? I thought the flavor was cool. Is that the reason? Because it's not correctly flavored? No, no, no, no. It's the development reason, actually.
Starting point is 00:24:09 It's too good? It's really, really, really freaking good. Absorb One is really good. Like, insanely. Like, we didn't realize how good it was until we made a couple, and then we're like, oh, this is insanely good.
Starting point is 00:24:20 And that's not even... You can start comboing with things. That's true. You can't be... Let's say if you have five toughness and you have absorb one, someone can't shoot two spells at you to kill you. Right.
Starting point is 00:24:32 It has to be such overkill. Correct. I forget what size we have. Imagine you have a 5'5". It's like two lightning bolts is not enough to kill you. Right. That sucks. You know?
Starting point is 00:24:43 I'm not saying we'll never do it. That's why it's in category two. But I do admit that it's a developmental problem. And whenever I bring it up, like a couple times I said, what do you guys, maybe what do you think of Absorb?
Starting point is 00:24:53 Development always says this. Okay, I'm making a face that you can't see on audio. But I'm a grimace. Yes, a grimace. Yes. So, anyway, I like the flavor Absorb.
Starting point is 00:25:04 I think Absorb is a very cool flavor. And it works a little better than Star Wars where we didn't have... Star Wars had a lot more damage happening. So reducing one damage is a die-rolling game. You get a lot of dice. So reducing one damage wasn't this big deal when people were rolling, you know, eight dice or 20 dice or whatever. Okay, try that next one.
Starting point is 00:25:22 Gravestorm. Gravestorm. Okay, so Gravestorm is a variant of? Storm. Storm, very good! I'd like to throw you some easy ones as well. Gravestorm was, I came up with Gravestorm. I was trying to come up with a tamer storm was the idea.
Starting point is 00:25:43 Because storm is this mechanic that I always joke is kind of like the relationship that went bad that you keep thinking maybe next time it'll go better and so every time you rekindle it it goes horribly again and then you're like okay you know that's it I've learned my lesson
Starting point is 00:26:00 and then somehow you keep going back and going this time it'll work and Storm has burned us every time we've ever used it. Did Gravestorm burn us? Well, Gravestorm problem is, it's too much like Storm, I think. It's just, I mean, we did it on one card
Starting point is 00:26:16 and I think it was okay, but it's not the kind of card you can put in lots of mechanics, because it's just, I mean, it's not quite as broken as Storm, but that's, you know, like... I don't know, it's like comparing, you know, it's not quite as much a dictator as Mussolini, but...
Starting point is 00:26:31 Notice I went to Mussolini because everybody does Hitler, so I'm trying to go different... How about Frenzy? Frenzy? I... Okay. Frenzy is a mechanic that I like a lot. So Frenzy is Frenzy Frenzy I okay Frenzy is a mechanic that I like a lot
Starting point is 00:26:46 so Frenzy is Frenzy N and when you if you attack and are not blocked you get plus N plus O and we've made a few cards I mean not called Frenzy
Starting point is 00:26:55 but Magic has had a few cards that have done this I like Frenzy a lot Development does not like Frenzy and so we are we have this constant fight because I think Frenzy is a real cool mechanic
Starting point is 00:27:03 and Development doesn't like it so so it only triggers when you're not blocked right when you're not blocked I don't even understand So we have this constant fight. Because I think frenzy is a real cool mechanic, and development doesn't like it. So it only triggers when you're not blocked. Right, when you're not blocked. I don't even understand why they don't. I mean, I kind of understand. But I think it's this neat mechanic in that it says, hey, you better get in a fight with me or else I'm pretty dangerous.
Starting point is 00:27:17 And it kind of encourages combat. But development does not like it. So I've tried to get frenzy in multiple times. And each time, development sort of said they didn't want to do it. So I'll put this in camp two. It would be camp one if development liked it at all. So I'll put it in camp two in that I need to slowly warm them up to it. Okay, we have one last one before we're going to get to work.
Starting point is 00:27:39 Transfigure. Transfigure. Okay, so Transfigure was a take on Transmute, which was the Dimir mechanic from Ravnica. And Transfigure, I think,
Starting point is 00:27:52 Did you just do it from in play instead of in your hand? Is that what it was? Well, no, no, no. I mean, Transmute was from in your hand. But Transmute was,
Starting point is 00:27:59 I turned any spell into any other spell that had the same converted mana cost. Right. I think Transfigure are creatures that turn into any other creature with the same mana cost.
Starting point is 00:28:08 But aren't they in play? They're in play. Yeah. So the idea is I attack with this thing and I can, if I have the mana, I can turn into any other creature with the same mana cost as me. The problem with Transfigure is the same problem with Transmute, which is
Starting point is 00:28:24 again a developmental issue, I mean, a with transmute, which is, uh, again, a developmental issue. I mean, a design issue too, which is what we call, um, repetitive gameplay where part of the fun of magic is you want different things to happen in different games. And if the same thing keeps happening,
Starting point is 00:28:35 then it becomes kind of boring. And so we're very dubious and mechanics that say, Hey, every time I play the same thing is going to happen. And so tutors tend to lead to that. Okay. Anyway. Um, so guys, to lead to that. Okay, anyway. So guys, we've not gotten through all the keywords. I want to talk about all the keywords,
Starting point is 00:28:50 so I will do a part three next week. Matt probably won't be with me. I'm out. That's enough. Done. So I want to thank Matt for joining us today, and we will have him in the future. He's my most... Now you're the second show,
Starting point is 00:29:03 so now you're my most used guest, I guess. I'm honored. So, anyway, thanks for joining us and guys, next week we'll do,
Starting point is 00:29:11 I'll talk about the rest of the mechanics, maybe my 30 minutes in. We'll see, there's a lot of mechanics. So anyway, thanks for joining us and it's time
Starting point is 00:29:18 to go make the magic.

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