So I'm going to review the cards as they're spoiled. I want to talk about them from a design perspective and their uses for EDH.
Colorless:
We'll start with the big one, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Ugin is a really good card. Ugin's +2 can kill your opponent on its own. Ugin is maybe the best planeswalker at defending himself on board since he comes stapled to All Is Dust. The obvious comparison is to Karn since they are both big mana colorless planeswalkers. His + can stop on board threats unlike Karn who has to act as a disrupting scepter to build toward his ult, though Karn builds faster, he is also easier to attack. Ugin's negative ability can splash your own board, whereas Karn's is always pinpoint. Karn's ult is often game winning, but that's not the point of Karn. I can see many situations where Ugin's ult is going to be a real threat that you have to stop. Ugin is going to require a non-permanent threat to stop him on his way to winning the game for you. In non-edh environments Ugin can even ult into himself and chain things together. In EDH his ult can bring some unbelievable board states to life.
Ugin was clearly designed to be the marque card of the set. He is an incredibly internally consistent card that wins the game for his controller in multiple ways. I'm expecting him to show up in Standard, Modern, EDH. He might be strong enough to show up in legacy since he murders literally everything players play in that format. In EDH you'll play him in any big mana oriented deck. Teferi, Temporal Archmage would be a great fit for Ugin, as would other artifact mana based decks. The other route is to play him in some green acceleration based deck like Azusa. He can be slotted as either a board wipe or essentially as an enchantment that does three damage a turn. The other way to think of him is as a delayed Sphinx's Revelation.
No matter what you play him in or for, lots and lots of people will be playing Ugin. The mechanics of his card set him firmly as the opponent to Nicol Bolas, particularly the ultimate. The art is reflective of this, as is the mana cost. They are setting up Ugin to be the one to oppose Bolas in the alternate future.
White:
Honor's Reward -
Bolster as a mechanic is really good at catching you back up from behind. It makes your little dudes into big dudes. Having that effect stapled to a three mana instant might have been good enough. Having that instant gain you four life is going to be very solid as you can take a hit or two while pushing with your weenie creatures and leaving your smallest creature behind, threatening to make it much larger. That they are counters means you get to permanently enlarge your smallest guy, probably making another guy your bolster target from then on. This card is pretty well designed, but just doesn't have enough impact for EDH.
Soul Summons-
Manifest as a mechanic is going to be very strange for people to get used to. This is essentially a 2 mana 2/2. I suppose having a Manifest Bear was going to be inevitable though I think it could have (or maybe even should have) been a colorless spell. Its possible Ugin is the only colorless non-artifact spell in the set because if you were doing other ones Soul Summons seems like the perfect candidate. Once you decide that his should be a colored spell basically any color would do. I would have liked this in blue since it represents an inherent form of trickery. Hilariously enough, just a 2/2 for 2 in green isn't good enough nowadays. White is fine, but I am surprised this is a colored spell. Obviously in EDH this is a way to put morph creatures into play on the cheap and its decent in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top. That's probably not good enough but that's where this is. Manifest as a mechanic is going to rely heavily on library manipulation to be good.
Valorous Stance-
This is obviously a crazy good card. Reid Duke spoke about it at length. I'll simply say that designing this much flexibility and strength must have cost White a lot of its budget for instants in this set. In terms of EDH I always judge white instants by Sunforger. This is a pretty damn good Sunforger target because of its flexibility, effectively being two targets in one. Outside of Sunforger this is still a good card but other effects are bigger and you'd be more comfortable draw them over having the timing based half of Valorous Stance.
Dragonscale General-
This guy is pretty damn good. The idea is that you leave your weakest creature on defense and make use of everything else, pumping up your smallest dude. You can also do the attacking pre-combat and surprise your opponent with a huge blocker if he doesn't want to block. This card plays really well with convoke. I can see this getting played in EDH decks that are either really aggressive or like the set of convoke cards, like Rhys. I love the alternate art, but the regular art is...iffy.
Blue:
Jeskai Sage-
This is a pretty good card. Prowess remains unchanged from KTR, and on the Sage the idea is that they don't want to block it since its on death trigger replaces itself. But if they don't block it, the Prowess can add up. Its a unique combination and it might work out in conjunction with Seeker of the Way. For the purposes of EDH, there aren't as many Blue value deck running around. Most Blue decks are either in the camp of huge mana threats or tricksy instant speed shenanigans. Jeskai Sage feels like it belongs in a Black deck. That's not to say it won't see play. Decks that want what it does want it very badly, its just not going to have a wide appeal.
Sage Eye Avengers-
This card is dangerous. It has the potential to lock your opponent out of the game in 1v1. That it costs 6 mana and doesn't protect itself are why its not being regarded with fear. I understand the idea behind it but printing something this frustrating to play against is something they won't do often. That said, the interplay between Prowess and the trigger is very cool. In EDH I can see this coming into play off a Sneak Attack or with some other haste granting effect and foiling someones best laid plans. Alt art is superior here as well.
Jeskai Infiltrator-
This card is very odd. It might just be because of Manifest but this set has a much higher number of bazaar cards than usual. I like the idea of it hiding itself among other creatures, and only becoming hidden after it has "infiltrated" the enemy. The card has a solid logical consistency, that will unfortunately not do enough in EDH to be worthwhile.
Temporal Trespass-
I was curious how far they would go in on a delve creature. Indeed,
after the shake up that delve has caused in eternal formats I was
curious if we would even see the mechanic. I'm happy that they didn't
shy away in the second set since delve is one of the better mechanics
they've done in years. It has very obvious rewards and a pushes you to
do things differently than you would if you didn't have delve cards in
your deck. It's also obvious to your opponent what you're doing if you
play things like thoughtscour or mental note.This card has one of the best lines of text in magic. Between this, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time we basically have delve versions of the blue power, like Time Spiral all over again. This card though, unlike the others, is probably not good enough. In EDH the cheapness doesn't count for as much since in terms of time you can generally play Temporal Manipulation faster. It also eats itself, and extra-turns that are non-infinite are pretty miserable for everyone involved. Outside of EDH this is UUU, which makes it super hard to cast. It also takes 8 cards, the most of the delve spells, and doesn't replace itself in the graveyard for future delve action. I'm happy they made this card since it wouldn't have felt genuine to make delve recall and not delve timewalk. I'm happy the card that saw print is just on the edge of playable.
Black:
Crux of Fate-
This is it. The whole point of going into the past. This is also a new black board wipe. I'm curious how often the choice will be relevant. They wouldn't have made the condition if the condition didn't have a chance of mattering. For EDH it certainly has a better than average chance to be a real choice. That said, there are already plenty of wraths in Black. If you want to pay more than four mana for a wrath then there are better options. The exceptions being Skittles, Karrthus, or some other Dragon general where its a board wipe for your opponents and not you.
Gurmag Angler-
This guy is not some revolutionary reinvention of the wheel, but he is amazingly solid. A one mana vanilla 5/5 is probably as far as they are going to push delve on the creature side. He's actually a pretty solid card for EDH as well. Anything with Greater Good is probably in the market for this dude, as is Jarad. Hilariously, this guy is the opposite of what you want in Varolz since his cost starts high and gets low. He will also probably show up in eternal formats so there is that.
Hooded Assassin-
Ok, this card isn't going to be showing up in EDH for lots of reasons. It always has a shot in assassin tribal.
Soulflayer-
I've seen more buzz around this guy than Gurmag Angler, and they are like Treasure Cruise versus Dig Through Time. Sure this guy is certainly splashier and can do more overall more, but Angler is cheaper on actual mana spent, and naturally a point of power and toughness ahead. In EDH Soulflayer has a much better time of picking up abilities, but if you are playing a deck that can take advantage of those abilities you kind of want those cards in the graveyard. Angler can be anything, even if its more anything its better than having to eat your skittles or whathaveyou in Black. This will see a good amount of play, and it will be really good. Often. I'm just not sure if I want this or a solid lump of size for very cheap you get from Angler. The other thing to absorb here is that if you cheat this guy into play he won't have the opportunity to get any abilities. I can see him showing up in graveyard oriented decks that are for some reason light on reanimation.
Archfiend of Depravity-
5 mana 5/4 flyers with upside are generally good. This one's upside is that he hampers strategies that want to grow wide. At any table of four players usually there's going to be someone doing a token/creature strategy that wants to have lots and lots of dudes. This guy is a respectable body for a reasonable cost whose enchantment hurts opponents only. He's perfect in Kaalia or other prison oriented decks.
Also, the regular art is so much better than the alt art it hurts.
Palace Siege-
The Oversold Cemetery effect on this card is good, but wouldn't warrent a five mana price tag in EDH. The Polluted Bonds on the other hand is going to pay for itself in spades. Getting to cast Siphon Soul every upkeep is going to be pretty brutal. The obvious place for this card is in Oloro but it fits basically anywhere that you play Necropotence or other heavy life payment options. That it can switch between the two modes makes me want this in a B/W shell that eats lots of creatures, Teysa springs to mind.
Red:
Flamerush Rider-
Wow. Dash is a great mechanic that does a lot of very interesting things and has tons of room to grow. I am curious if they got into Fate Reforged and wanted to make more Raid cards and had just run out of ideas. Raid was a perfunctory mechanic but it had no tension to it. It essentially said, cast this card in your second main phase. There weren't any real trade offs aside from limited. Rush on the other hand is great. You can get the attack trigger NOW or have some pretty awesome effects later. It can trap you into needing to rush the creature over and over to keep getting the trigger. However, the ability in EDH to have global haste enablers makes cards with dash very dangerous since the all are going to have on attack triggers. Flamerush Rider is going to be played in lots of decks because the value is crazy high. One consequence of having multiple opponents is that usually someone is open to being attacked on the ground, and the trigger doesn't specify who the token is put into play attacking, letting you get tricky. Obviously having evasion for him would help but he should be able to do his thing most of the time. This guy is going to be really solid in Urabrask or Feldon. Paired with blue you can put him in decks that like Palinchron or other Dead-Eye Navigator targets. Dash also enables another axis of strategies, enters the battlefield effects. Something like Warstorm Surge is great with Dash in general, and with Flamerush in particular since he generates another trigger each turn he attacks. He is all the value.
Goblin Heelcutter-
This is going to be a type 2 card. The saving grace is goblin tribal decks, and even then its more for repeatable enters the battlefield effects.
Outpost Siege-
Now we're talking. This is totally worth four mana. This could have cost 3RR and still been played. Red doesn't have a density of card advantage cards, so everyone they print pushes us closer and closer being able to play mono-red value. Obviously the Dragon side is way more of a blow out than getting to play an extra card a turn. I just like that sometimes you have a top and no creatures and can just get to draw an extra card every turn. The Goblin Bombardment side is worded in such a way as to work with Dash and blinks, which is great. It also hits creatures, which is surprising. I shouldn't have to state how good this is in a deck like Marath but...this thing is really good in decks like Marath. This is a primer red card and fits all over the place.
Rageform-
This card is very very strange. It is ostensibly a four mana 2/2 double strike. The trick is that you can then turn the manifested card face up and straight up murder people if the creature was big enough. Its a risky card and probably won't see much if any play in EDH because of how many things have to go right for it. I award points for style though, and for templating this in such a way that I understood what it did in one reading.
Green:
Frontier Mastodon-
This is a 3 mana 3/2 that becomes a 3 mana 4/3 if you have ferocious. I like the idea that if you have ferocious and land this guy then you have two feroucious guys for other ferocious cards. That a lot of ferocious. Unfortunately, in EDH there are better deals.
Sandsteppe Mastodon-
Lots of Elephants in this set. This guy is a pretty good deal for seven mana. I just don't know where I would want this deal. Please comment if you can think of somewhere to put him.
Shamanistic Revelation-
Five mana sorceries that draw you cards don't usually inspire a lot of confidence since you'll need mana afterward to cast the cards unless you have a reliquary tower. Shamanistic Revelation I think has quite a few things that change that though. First, its green so having the mana afterward is certainly do-able between Cradle and bugs. The other effect has the potential to gain you enough life to survive to use the cards. The play pattern here seems to be that you spend your hand playing out mana bugs and whatever big dudes you have, then refill with this card and heal up from the first few turns of inaction. This feels like a green Sphinx's Revelation since you get cards and time to use them, and requires a lot of investment to make it worth it. This fits into any deck with the play pattern of Elves.
Temur War Shaman-
This is basically only good in decks heavy with morph/manifest. So basically nowhere in EDH. The only deck I can think of where I would play a decent amount of morph creatures and is green is Animar. And Animar doesn't need the effect. The alt art is probably better, but this is the only one that's close.
Whisperwood Elemental-
This is the manifest card I'm most interested in. Its ability to continually alter the top card of your deck works really well in conjuction with Sylvan Library in the absence of shuffles and provides a ton of wrath protection. That the face down creature aren't green is slightly annoying for effects like Regal Force, but getting through a large part of your deck is interesting in combination with graveyard recursion. Essentially manifest gets to draw you cards straight up in this situation. This probably goes in some G/B grindy attrition affair, something like Varolz or Jarad.
Multicolor:
Yasova Dragonclaw -
The first legend! I would hesitate to build this as deck in EDH, though Tiny Leaders is apparently a thing. The problem with it is the power restriction, and the timing restriction. And the mana cost. That's not to say that the card is bad. There are tons of utility creatures to take, use, and then feed to Gargadon. Its that it does cost you a significant amount. She does have trample and is very aggressive. If you're in the market for something attack oriented this is your gal. As a creature, Yasova requires 6 mana on your turn to take a creature with power 3 or less. Add in the color restriction and its going to take the alignment of the stars to have a place for Yasova.
Soulfire Grand Master-
This guy is really really cool. The
design is something that we have been waiting to see for quite some
time. The activated ability is expensive, so it can't be the point we
rely on. So the question is, are there Jeskai decks that are viable that
play large burn spells? I think the answer is a resounding yes.
Unfortunately, you can't rescue spells that you fetch with Sunforger,
but that's not to say the two are mutually exclusive. They both reward
R/W/U spell heavy decks. I think this guy would get played more than it
should be just because of how novel it is, but its restricted to Jeskai
colors which pretty definitely line up with its abilities.
Ethereal Ambush-
As an instant and two cards this might be ok. Again, the viability of manifest is entirely reliant on how well it interacts with library manipulation, and how close it is to "draw a card". This one feels like it has a chance since its an instant and thus lets you cast it and then untap and unmorph immediately. I wouldn't put it in everything, but I'd like to try it in something like Momir Vig or something of that nature.
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury-
I like this guy. As a general he's going to get Dashed out and put back into your hand frequently. That he triggers per dragon feels like a teaser for the next set, and it makes me feel like the unspoiled legendary dragons are also going to have an on-dragon trigger. He fits with tokens, haste, and aggression. Depending on how aggressive you want to be he can fit in Rakdos or Karrthus. On his own he works with B/Rs large number of cards designed to make the game end as fast as possible.
A good showing so far. This set looks like its trying to up the complexity level with some new, bizarre mechanics.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Clarity versus Complexity
I think a question that I have been wrestling with over the last few days is what is the audience for my game? Who do I want to be playing it? After reading New World Order by Maro, I was definitely thinking in those terms. That you should design for the lowest common denominator. That you should take pains not to alienate new players. Then I started playing Path of Exile. Path eschews all of the conventions that Maro was talking about. Its incredibly complex and makes basically no move to explain itself to a new player. Decisions are essentially permanent, and you can accidentally get your characters into a fail state. These two philosophies seem to be irreconcilable, but both games are thriving. Why is that? Is clarity not important?
Clarity is a goal of a game but I think that Path shows that games can have many routes to the same goal: fun. Path and Magic both have extraordinary "end game" complexity that is centered around Building. In Magic you build a deck, in Path you build a character. Magic tries to walk new players through this process by putting emphasis on limited first, then slowly graduating players to standard, modern, and the true eternal formats, where there are more cards than you can really know what to do with, and interaction is so dense that every decision matters. Path has the same insane density of interaction as an eternal format, but unlike Magic doesn't give you the experience of building in initial formats. Path begins with the equivalent of Modern. It makes the assumption that you have played games of its type before and doesn't bother you with introducing you to the basics of an action rpg. Magic, even though its been around for over twenty years and has a truly outrageous retention rate (seriously, the statistics say that once you start playing magic you just don't stop. Its more addicting than food.), is still trying to appeal to people who have never played a tcg before. Because of this, and because Magic only releases 1 product a semester, it takes a long time before an introductory player is skilled enough and has enough knowledge to play with the most powerful cards.
Is Magic's New World Order, its emphasis on clarity, its ponderous material game model, doing it more harm than good? Fuck no. Magic is growing, and has been growing, every year. They clearly have a good business model. Is their game as fun as it could be if they let commons have complex interactions? I would certainly enjoy Magic more if every set was the equivalent of Time Spiral. Am I the majority? Wizards has very clear reasons to think I am not.
Is Path, by assuming a base of knowledge, not explaining itself well to new players, having very obscure interactions, and punishing its players for mistakes, doing more harm than good? Fuck no. Path is growing perhaps more quickly than the small-ish New Zealand company can keep up with. While not very scienctific, Reddit is the game's largest community and has doubled in size in a year. I found the game difficult to pick up and was turned off, and it was only through some detailed help that I started to figure out what was important in the game. Am I in the majority? GGG clearly has clear reasons to think I am not.
So the question is, and its one that's come up on Mostly Walking, how much should you assume your audience knows? What barrier to entry is acceptable? These are not simple questions with a definitive answer. This is a core principle to the game you are making. Just like any logical process, the important thing is to identify what your assumptions are in the first place, and go from there.
Clarity is a goal of a game but I think that Path shows that games can have many routes to the same goal: fun. Path and Magic both have extraordinary "end game" complexity that is centered around Building. In Magic you build a deck, in Path you build a character. Magic tries to walk new players through this process by putting emphasis on limited first, then slowly graduating players to standard, modern, and the true eternal formats, where there are more cards than you can really know what to do with, and interaction is so dense that every decision matters. Path has the same insane density of interaction as an eternal format, but unlike Magic doesn't give you the experience of building in initial formats. Path begins with the equivalent of Modern. It makes the assumption that you have played games of its type before and doesn't bother you with introducing you to the basics of an action rpg. Magic, even though its been around for over twenty years and has a truly outrageous retention rate (seriously, the statistics say that once you start playing magic you just don't stop. Its more addicting than food.), is still trying to appeal to people who have never played a tcg before. Because of this, and because Magic only releases 1 product a semester, it takes a long time before an introductory player is skilled enough and has enough knowledge to play with the most powerful cards.
Is Magic's New World Order, its emphasis on clarity, its ponderous material game model, doing it more harm than good? Fuck no. Magic is growing, and has been growing, every year. They clearly have a good business model. Is their game as fun as it could be if they let commons have complex interactions? I would certainly enjoy Magic more if every set was the equivalent of Time Spiral. Am I the majority? Wizards has very clear reasons to think I am not.
Is Path, by assuming a base of knowledge, not explaining itself well to new players, having very obscure interactions, and punishing its players for mistakes, doing more harm than good? Fuck no. Path is growing perhaps more quickly than the small-ish New Zealand company can keep up with. While not very scienctific, Reddit is the game's largest community and has doubled in size in a year. I found the game difficult to pick up and was turned off, and it was only through some detailed help that I started to figure out what was important in the game. Am I in the majority? GGG clearly has clear reasons to think I am not.
So the question is, and its one that's come up on Mostly Walking, how much should you assume your audience knows? What barrier to entry is acceptable? These are not simple questions with a definitive answer. This is a core principle to the game you are making. Just like any logical process, the important thing is to identify what your assumptions are in the first place, and go from there.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Review of the Commander 2014 product.
White:
Angel of Dire Hour- This is unlikely to see much play. The non-bo with cheating and high mana cost combine to make this a very niche card. However, if it was doing something proactive that might be ok, but that you have to wait until your opponent does something to cast it is the last nail in the coffin. Passing with seven mana up is a huge tell. The only place I can think of in White/X where having that much mana up isn't odd would be Rasputin, and he doesn't need it.
Angelic Field Marshal - I generally like the Lieutenant mechanic and Vigilance is a pretty strong keyword to give to your whole army. The problem of course is that if you don't have your general, this card is awful. White/X decks do have plenty of options for Hexproof commanders though, so this might find a home in one of them.
Benevolent Offering - While not the strongest in the offering cycle, this certainly seems like a "fixed" version of the Tempest cycle. I like the offerings because you decide who gets what. As an instant this is a good way to rescue people, and there are plenty of decks where the congregate effect will give you a ton of life, and giving an opponent some life and some dudes isn't going to hurt you over much. Also, this is Sunforger-able
Comeuppance - A huge blow out. This can just demolish whole gameplans. Craterhoof had better be on notice. This is also Sunforger-able. I see this going in basically any white deck.
Containment Priest - This is the big one. This card was clearly designed to be a Rest in Peace style hoser. However, having Flash and attacking for two make it one of the strongest hate cards ever printed. This won't just be great in EDH, this was clear made with Eternal formats in mind as it stops a huge number of decks from functioning. In commander, you need to be espcially careful with building this into your deck. A lot of the ways people generate advantage is making things for free. I don't know where I'd put it, but pairing it with tutors seems like a must.That puts us in w/b, or w/g. Its possible some version of Ghave Stax would love this guy. This also fits into something like Rafiq where you are playing lots of Hatebears like Teeg and Spirit of the Labyrinth. Its more than likely going to make more of a splash in legacy.
Deploy to the Front - This can make a ton of dudes, but we don't really need more of these effects. The Rebound token maker, Increasing Vigilance, etc. If you feel you need more density for your Rhys, Marath, or Ghave creations this is for you, but odds are they could have made a different card instead and we wouldn't have lost anything.
Fell the Mighty - A pretty unique card. At 5 mana this is pretty affordable. A big downside is that it is a targeted spell so it can be fizzled. The upside is that your saproling army can easily survive the card and then take over the game. When you are playing with low power dudes getting roadblocked by green monsters or reanimated fatties is pretty common. This lets you get one better than them without costing you much of your board in the process.
Hallowed Spiritkeeper - My immediate thought was Karador. This guy has the potential to be really sought after. The tokens fly, which makes them way more useful as blockers than normal tokens. They are white for Teysa, and there can be a lot of them. In a deck like Vish Kal or most builds of Ghave having a guy that makes more guys when you eat him is supremely powerful. That he makes so MANY dudes makes him super strong, but even his normal use as Wrath insurance is totally fine. So Teysa, Ghave, Vish Kal, Karador.
Jazal Goldmane - 4 mana 4/4 First Strike are fine stats. First Strike in white or red is always a solid addition because of how equipment focused those colors are in EDH. The ability is expensive to activate. Mirror Entity essentially does this, but is cheaper on the front end and lets you dodge spell resolutions by poping for 0. This only really comes into its own if you can active it twice. If you can attack with 4-5 dudes and activate this 2 times then why haven't you already won the game? Overall a cool card but to play him at all you need to play him as a general and go BIG with your mana.
Nahiri, the Lithomancer - First of all, I hate you WOTC for not giving us a Serra card :(. Nahiri seems decidedly meh to me, especially as a commander. She does protect herself, but having the second half of Stoneforge means you have to find all of your equipment yourself. Going for her ult seems like a waste of time since you want to be playing lots of equipment already and would rather recover lost cards or play things for free. That said, I think there are plenty of homes for her. Jor Kadeen will love her. Voltron decks in general like these abilities, but W/R is notorius for needing to come out swinging and she helps you do that very easily, and provides some long term advantage over the rest of the game. I personally want to try her in Narset.
Blue:
Aether Gale - Sorcery speed is less than ideal but 6 is a lot of permanents for five mana. This would let you brick someones offense or defense, and it also lets you reuse comes into play effects. This will find a home in something that wants to go big on its mana, some kind of Cradle oriented deck, or something with tons of artifact mana. This could even combo with Sol Ring/Mana Crypt to get a huge refund on the cost. So, Teferi PW, Rasputin, Momir Vig.
Breaching Leviathan - This is not really worth 9 mana, and unfortunately the version you cheat is not worth the effort.
Domineering Will - At four mana this is going to be annoying to get people to walk into since blue mages with mana up make people play much more cautiously. That said you probably play it in any number of trick oriented decks since it is capable of so many shenanigans.
Dulcet Sirens - Morph has always been very meh outside of limited. If you are dedicated to morph already for whatever reason this is fine. I might put it in an ability focused deck like Merike Re Berette face up since the ability is pretty strong for manipulating combat.
Intellectual Offering - The strongest offering and one of the strongest cards in the set.You get to give one player cards and no mana, and another mana but no cards. Meanwhile you play this with mana dorks or artifacts and you will frequently find that his is free or even gains you mana. This is a combo oriented card that can easily make the difference between going off successfully or bricking. I'm playing this in Dralnu and would play it in Sharuum, Teferi, Merike, Edric, tons of places.
Reef Worm - A niffty little number. This is a serious food dude. Playing him with sacrifice outlets lets you generate huge amounts of value and end you up with a serious threat. This won't go in everything, but in decks like Sidisi, Momir Vig, basically anything that like Greater Good, its going to be a house.
Stitcher Geralf - At five mana and three to activate, this guy is a bit underwhelming. That his active can snag Eldrazi make him much better you get big tokens out of it. Its sad you lose the work you've made on their graveyard but that's eh. He seems destined to be paired with black for reanimation and the clause is a May so you can keep juicy targets in peoples graveyards and just take the beaters if you want to. I just wish he wasn't so expensive while simultaneously being fragile. The essential problem is that his pieces don't work well together as a single card. You need a) lots of mana, b) to care about mill beyond the trigger, c) large enough dudes to eat yourself, d) ways to make him speed up his effect. I just don't see it happening as a general and only something like Sidisi, Mimeoplasm, maybe Sedris, can use this effect if they want to.
Stormsurge Kraken - A very solid card. Hexproof 5/5s for 5 are worthy of consideration when playing voltron anyway. Then giving them upside in a style they already want to play is gravy. I see him slotting in decks like Geist, Narset, maybe Rafique. Ironically, you don't really want to give this guy evasion, you just want to make him bigger so you can keep drawing cards and abyssing your opponents.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage - This guy is great. As a general he's probably the best of the bunch, his -1 letting him get away with huge plays. His +1 is solid at digging through your deck. Its not actually drawing cards so he is anti-synergy with things like Cavern Skulker, but gets around Spirit of the Labrynth and friends. If you get to his ult and he doesn't die to it or gets replayed then you essentially win the game. Will be an allstar in 5 color walker concoctions. I do want to spend an extra minute on his -1 because a lot of people are understating how strong it is. There are lots of cards in EDH that produce multiple mana when tapped. From perennial favorites Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, to bigger numbers like Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo. In our lands we always have Ancient Tomb or Temple of the False God. In mono-blue we could easily cast Teferi -1 and cast kozilik or Ulamog. That isn't even counting the number of tricks he enables with tap abilities like Sticher Geralf, Arcanis, or Quicksilver Amulet. And unlike Tezzeret, he isn't limited to artifacts so he can easily give creatures pseudo-vigilance. He also starts with 5 loyalty, making it pretty easy to get off the -1 a few times before letting him die or starting to build up again. And all of this was just in mono-u! Imagine if you paired him with Green and got to play with Cradle, mana dorks, and fat green dudes. This guy is what a planeswalker should be for EDH. He goes in anything with big mana or tricks and can easily play as a general.
Well of Ideas - This is certainly a new idea for how to make Howling Mine playable. Obviously great in Nekusaur, but that dude didn't need help. The price tag is certainly steep. If you can absolutely play 3 or more cards a turn, a la some deck with Exploration or multiple removal spells, or Storm oriented deck, then this is actually pretty good. That you get so many more cards than any one opponent is why, and frequently you'll cast this, draw 2 cards immeditaly, then everyone else draws 1 and someone spends a card to kill it, making it a 3 for 3 on the table. That's a fine gamble when the payoff draws you 4 cards and untaps all your mana. Specific and kinda risky, but very good where its good.
Black:
Demon of Wailing Agonies - This lieutenant isn't as good as Blue's but is plenty solid. The key here is to get him in with Haste. Pairing him with Kaalia or Sedris has some real potential. Edicts aren't played enough in the format when there are tons of creatures that are difficult to kill. This guy has some logistical problems but the effect is very strong. Like the white one though, he is basically useless without your commander, putting you are risk of bricking with him.
Flesh Carver - Sacrifice engines are plentiful enough that just stuffing them into a deck without thinking it through isn't worthwhile anymore. This guy though is pretty great if you are eating 1/1. Since the effect doesn't care about the size of the dude, eating saprolings essentially doubles the size of your avalible power and toughness. This guy is pretty bad in mono-b. Paired with white, he's is pretty good. Vish loves that he is a double big dude. There are some solid white loops that he can enable as well with Karmic Guide. Vish does those loops a bit better for sure since Flesh Carver has an activation cost, but Carver is much easier to get into play. The real place for Carver though is paired with Green, eating Deranged Hermit and friends. I am likely to try him in Ghave since he turns a 1/1 into 2 1/1s. Its an expensive process, but his trigger makes him solid value for birthing pod, greater good or other effects.
Ghoulcaller Gisa - Solid. She can make a lot of zombies very easily. The problem is that she costs 5. Her active cost is only B so she's easy to use once you get there. She'd be great with Merike since she can always eat what Merike grabs, and that deck already runs thousand-year elixir. I would not try to build her on her own since she really wants to have a Cradle to turn all of her hard work into mana. And there are more interesting mono black generals to build. Also, she can always turn 1 zombie into 2 zombies, making her not need you to eat your plays to grow your army.
Infernal Offering - I spoke above about how criminally underplayed Edicts are. This is an edict that lets you trade up one dude, or retrigger comes into play effects. Splitting who you choose for this makes it really solid, and there is no targeting involved anywhere so its hard for opponents to figure out what your doing until its too late. This goes in basically any deck with black mana.
Malicious Affliction - The restrictions on this are double black and non-black creatures. This seems like something I'd be willing to try for 2 mana if I am sufficently in black to keep BB open on opposing turns. Getting morbid wouldn't be difficult at all. This seems like it would be amazing in Toshiro Umezawa.dec though it is a good rate just about anywhere. Not enough people just play single target removal spells.
Necromantic Selection - This is a great board wipe that lets you abuse etb triggers on the return. That it exiles itself is unfortunate, but if it didn't I could see this setting up loops really easily. Still, this will see plenty of play as printed. I can see a deck like Geth including this alongside Life's Finale, but this is not particularly groundbreaking. Its just a well exectued card.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath - Apart from the badass art and story, Mr. Nixilis is kind of lacking. I think he is probably the weakest of the walkers both as a general and as a walker. He is all about his ult, but the ult requires you to have creatures to eat. This makes him very conditional. Considering the amount of work that has to go into making him reach his ult he really has to be judged on his +2 and -2. +2 is minor lifedrain. If put in an Oloro deck he would be ok addition. The -2 is ok. If you are just trading off draining and making demons Ob is ok, which means the card overall is meh. Oloro is the only place I can think of for him.
Overseer of the Damned - This guy is the real deal. You can cheat him which makes him great in reanimator or Kaalia strategies. The part where he turns opposing deaths into blockers or otherwise food is great. He has a high price tag for normal use, but you really shouldn't bother paying retail. Anything that is an answer and an engine in one is going to be a hit. Look to put this anywhere you think you'd play Angel of Despair or Ashen Rider.
Raving Dead - randomness makes for terrible deckbuilding, put in your deck at your own risk.
Spoils of Blood - This seems like a good deal, but beware. This isn't just Kicker on your Damnation, you have to spend a card to make this dude and there are a lot of easier ways to make large creatures.
Wake the Dead - This is a supremly powerful card. You need a full yard and a lot of mana, but that there are no restrictions on the size of the creature comnig back you can abuse tons of etb effects. Bringing back FoF sphinx Rune Scarred Demon, Bogardan Hellkite, Terrastodon, etc. This fits in most builds of Mimeoplasm, Sidisi, Sedris, Sharuum, Jarad, basically anywhere with mana and graveyard.
Red:
Now for the red cards, but before I start on them I want to challenge an assurtion that people make all the time, which is that Red is the worst color in EDH. I suppose Red is the worst if you absolutely need to choose one, but its not by a large margine. White is on the same basic level of power as red. The only thing that lacks is mono-red, and that's because its not a passive color. Mono-red requires you to be proactive. Urabrask is my favorite mono-red general because he can just attack people to death and make enormous plays.Red is not the value color. EDH players as a whole tend to be more Timmy or Johnny or Vorthos. They appreciate huge creatures or insane value. Red is so often about effeniceny and maximizing resources, which is not the mode that people in EDH like to play. I do like the direction that they took for the red deck and it feels like it expands the depth of the color. For being the shatter color, red does like its artifacts. I think their reasoning is thar red is creative and artifacts are essentially in-game art for the red genius types, making up their half of Izzet.
Bitter Feud - This is a card you have to read through a couple times to understand, and in the end isn't worth the effort you put into it. Not for 5 mana anyway.
Daretti, Scrap Savant - A very solid card. The first line of text is the best. Getting significant velocity in red is precious. The second line of text is only slightly worse as getting to repeated trash for treasure a Sad Robot or something similar is tremendous value. This alone brings red into the space that most EDH players are looking to play in. The ult is obviously ridiculous, but you will probably never get there, even when combined with doubling season. I could see building this guy as a general, though he's probably still better in a R/X deck as a source of tremendous velocity and value. I wish I could play him in Sharuum :(
Dualcaster Mage - This guy is going to do tons of work. Being a creature means you can blink him, reanimate him, recast him, and generally squeeze the effect out again and again. Would have been cool at 2 mana though I can see why they decided against that.
Feldon of the Third Path - 10/10. This guy nails every category, flavor, mechanics, playability, and isn't some default good card either. He requires you to plan around him to maximise him, while still just being good enough in most decks. The activation cost stops him from being kiki-jiki 2.0, but thats fine. Another card in red that's straight up value. The fact that you sacrifice the token is also pretty sweet, combines well with wurmcoil and Jens. As a general you need to do the normal tricks for low health non-haste activatiors, like Merike, Arcanis, etc. He is mono-color and low cost though so getting him out there won't be too hard. Played in other decks he has the potential to be monsterous in green or black decks where there are some truely insane creatures that routinely populate your graveyard. Between him and Daretti, the red deck is worth buying on its own.
Impact Resonance - A neat trick that you can cast when other people attack each other. Also can be grabbed with Sunforger.
Incite Rebellion - Would have made a killer instant. As is, this will kill the Rhys player, and will hurt most people but you can do better for 6 mana at sorcery speed.
Scrap Mastery - The artifact living death, or Mass Trash. This obviously has few places it truely fits. Its worth noting that this will usually be Shatterstorm for everyone else, like living death was wrath for everyone else. Its also sacrifice so Darksteel Forge won't stop it. If you see people going for tons of artifact mana and you can easily incorporate Faithless Looting type effects then this will be a powerful play in your deck. Jhoira especially can use this with huge artifact monsters.
Tyrant's Familiar - This guy isn't my favorite lieutenant, but he's not far off. The ability will flat kill most
creatures, and haste makes it happen immediately. Worth the 7 mana if you have your general. If you don't have your general this guy is a lot more viable than w or b since he retains the haste. Obviously great in Karrthus or a red deck with piles of mana. Something of a non-bo with Kaalia with the on attack clause.
Volcanic Offering - Ho boy this is a spicy one. 5 Mana instant kill target guy blow up target Cradle might have been good enough to print on its own in red. Also making two other permanents that aren't your go away? Damn. 4 permanents for 5 mana is an exceptional rate. My 1 complaint is that you can't Sunforger for it :(. Put this in things and you will be happy for it.
Warmonger Hellkite - This is fine but not exceptional. Dragon tribal decks get a new toy I guess. Using him to pump other armies is a neat trick but not worth the cost.
Creeper Hulk - Trample is great and very underrated. This reminds me strongly of []. The cost of the ability is higher and the size is smaller, and it includes color on the activation. Trample is probably worth that trade off since you are in green and will have plenty of mana lying around.
Green:
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - This chick is totally fine, but as an amalgamation of various other effects. Her +2 is essentially the same as putting a forest into play tapped in terms of mana development, but of course creating food goes well with all sorts of effects. Her -2 makes her an answer to one of the most problematic permanents for green to deal with - Torpor Orb. So often green decks are packed to the gills with Woodfall Primus type creatures and no real naturalizes. Her ult combines with her +2 and natural green deckbuilding to draw you a lot of cards and you can get there pretty easily. I would like to build her as a commander. Now that we have seen all the PWs, I think I can rank them:
As a General -
Teferi
Freyalise
Daretti
Nahiri
Ob Nixilis
As a card -
Teferi
Daretti
Nahiri
Freyalise
Ob Nixilis
Nahiri wins out for the third spot because Freyalise is in a color that doesn't need more mana or answers from one of its 99, but having an all in one general is pretty solid. White needs the help to shortcut mana and making free dudes for your voltron deck is just solid, and it extends the life of your equipment.
Graveshifter - This is eh. The only green tribe people want to build is elves, and when you start including other colors this gets outpaced fast, and can give your opponents back things that they can plan around.
Lifeblood Hydra - This card is begging to be eaten by Disicple of Bolas. This guy needs a TON of mana so the fewer colors you play with it the better. It also doesn't fit into a deck as a reanimation target. Trample is a great keyword here. He's going to demand an answer, which makes the second half of the card much better. I can see him fitting into Jarad, Omnath, or some other big mana deck. It comes with Cradle so big ups.
Siege Behemoth - This guy is going to straight up murder a lot of people. Hexproof is insane to put on this guy. You still do general damage with his ability so this is like super trample for generals. Otherwise its a little worse than trample since if you don't kill your opponent you leave yourself open to counter attack but he makes a hell of a pairing with Hoof, and giving this guy haste is totally crazy. Putting him in some Naya creation like Uril as a way to shortcut blockers is pretty good.
Song of the Dryads - This card could see legacy play and is a legit green answer to problematic creatures, green's largest weakness. Put this in things with green mana that don't have lots of answers.
Sylvan Offering - This is by far the worst of the offerings as there are much better ways to make tokens.
Thunderfoot Baloth - 6 mana 5/5 trample is an ok back up mode but with your general this guy echos Siege Behemoth. I would say Siege Behemoth is better because of Hexproof but the +2/+2 to your team is really solid. This also doesn't need haste to do its thing. Depending on how much your general costs this might be worth it just as a cheatable overrun. Overall great in something like Hazazon or Rith.
Titania, Protector of Argoth - This chick is very stong as both just a creature and as a general. She absolutely demands to be paired with Crucible of Worlds. She is very likely to automatically come with a 5/3 since you can return fetchlands. There are plenty of other utility lands that sacrifice like Dustbowl, Wasteland, Strip mine, Centaur Garden. If you start lookings to other colors she picks up Cephalid Colliseum, Krosan Verge, and tons of other stuff. She also interacts with Devastating Dreams and Squandered Resources. A very good card all around.As a creature she fits in Azusa best, though basically anything green is going to get milage out of both of her triggers.
Wave of Vitriol - This is a crazy effect that works best if you have lots of basics and mana creatures. Will be a staple in mono-green decks though no deck can really avoid splashing themselves as no artifact, no enchantments, and no non-basics is a steep order. That said a Cradle based deck could do this decently. Be prepared for this to come out of your opponents decks from now on, and add some basics!
Wolfcaller's Howl - This is decidedly meh. It works but its not the most effcient at what it does.
Artifact and Land:
Arcane Lighthouse - This is about as niche as a land can get. It does its job well, but unless you are noticing that you can't deal with non-targetable dudes don't bother with this. Also, this can be a political card since you don't have to have the removal yourself.
Flamekin Village - Hall of the Bandit Lord and Salyer's Stronghold are both celebrated ultility lands and this is somewhere between them. Sure, your dude costs 2 more for haste instead of 3 life. It only gains haste and not vigilance or power but goes in mono-red. It enters tapped, but unlike the others, this generates colored mana which is a huge upgrade. This goes in most things that have red mana, assuming you want to attack or use abilities immediately I can see this going in Feldon, Kaalia, Kresh, Jor Kadeen.
Myriad Landscape - A land that becomes two land. Great with Titania or mana hungry decks. This is great because it turns a non-basic into 2 basics in case of non-basic hate.
Assault Suit - An interesting card. Expensive to get to, but has the option of politiking an opponent to death. Its a may so you can just use it get +2/+2 and can't be sacrificed.
Commander's Sphere - Not as effecient as Mind Stone, but baking in the sacrifice cost up front means you don't have give up two mana later. It also lets you eat it in response to board wipes. Taping for colored mana is really solid as most artifact mana taps for colorless.
Crown of Doom - This is a funsie thing that I think does a good job for the people that like that sort of thing.
Loreseeker's Stone - The idea here was solid but the execution leaves something to be desired. I wish it cost 0 then 1 more for each card in hand. At 6 to cast initially, a lower per active cost would have been really good. As is, I don't think there's anywhere I'd want to play this over Dreamstone Hedron.
Masterwork of Ingenuity - I don't really think I ever want to equipment so hard that I'd want this in addition to Scuplting Steel, which already does this. The only reason this could be ok is that equipment costs exist and this basically just adds one to equip costs. Its very marginal but if you play Nahiri the general you might want it.
Unstable Obelisk - Cute but its SO MUCH MANA. There are better colorless options realistically.
This is a very solid product altogether. Way more hits than misses.
Angel of Dire Hour- This is unlikely to see much play. The non-bo with cheating and high mana cost combine to make this a very niche card. However, if it was doing something proactive that might be ok, but that you have to wait until your opponent does something to cast it is the last nail in the coffin. Passing with seven mana up is a huge tell. The only place I can think of in White/X where having that much mana up isn't odd would be Rasputin, and he doesn't need it.
Angelic Field Marshal - I generally like the Lieutenant mechanic and Vigilance is a pretty strong keyword to give to your whole army. The problem of course is that if you don't have your general, this card is awful. White/X decks do have plenty of options for Hexproof commanders though, so this might find a home in one of them.
Benevolent Offering - While not the strongest in the offering cycle, this certainly seems like a "fixed" version of the Tempest cycle. I like the offerings because you decide who gets what. As an instant this is a good way to rescue people, and there are plenty of decks where the congregate effect will give you a ton of life, and giving an opponent some life and some dudes isn't going to hurt you over much. Also, this is Sunforger-able
Comeuppance - A huge blow out. This can just demolish whole gameplans. Craterhoof had better be on notice. This is also Sunforger-able. I see this going in basically any white deck.
Containment Priest - This is the big one. This card was clearly designed to be a Rest in Peace style hoser. However, having Flash and attacking for two make it one of the strongest hate cards ever printed. This won't just be great in EDH, this was clear made with Eternal formats in mind as it stops a huge number of decks from functioning. In commander, you need to be espcially careful with building this into your deck. A lot of the ways people generate advantage is making things for free. I don't know where I'd put it, but pairing it with tutors seems like a must.That puts us in w/b, or w/g. Its possible some version of Ghave Stax would love this guy. This also fits into something like Rafiq where you are playing lots of Hatebears like Teeg and Spirit of the Labyrinth. Its more than likely going to make more of a splash in legacy.
Deploy to the Front - This can make a ton of dudes, but we don't really need more of these effects. The Rebound token maker, Increasing Vigilance, etc. If you feel you need more density for your Rhys, Marath, or Ghave creations this is for you, but odds are they could have made a different card instead and we wouldn't have lost anything.
Fell the Mighty - A pretty unique card. At 5 mana this is pretty affordable. A big downside is that it is a targeted spell so it can be fizzled. The upside is that your saproling army can easily survive the card and then take over the game. When you are playing with low power dudes getting roadblocked by green monsters or reanimated fatties is pretty common. This lets you get one better than them without costing you much of your board in the process.
Hallowed Spiritkeeper - My immediate thought was Karador. This guy has the potential to be really sought after. The tokens fly, which makes them way more useful as blockers than normal tokens. They are white for Teysa, and there can be a lot of them. In a deck like Vish Kal or most builds of Ghave having a guy that makes more guys when you eat him is supremely powerful. That he makes so MANY dudes makes him super strong, but even his normal use as Wrath insurance is totally fine. So Teysa, Ghave, Vish Kal, Karador.
Jazal Goldmane - 4 mana 4/4 First Strike are fine stats. First Strike in white or red is always a solid addition because of how equipment focused those colors are in EDH. The ability is expensive to activate. Mirror Entity essentially does this, but is cheaper on the front end and lets you dodge spell resolutions by poping for 0. This only really comes into its own if you can active it twice. If you can attack with 4-5 dudes and activate this 2 times then why haven't you already won the game? Overall a cool card but to play him at all you need to play him as a general and go BIG with your mana.
Nahiri, the Lithomancer - First of all, I hate you WOTC for not giving us a Serra card :(. Nahiri seems decidedly meh to me, especially as a commander. She does protect herself, but having the second half of Stoneforge means you have to find all of your equipment yourself. Going for her ult seems like a waste of time since you want to be playing lots of equipment already and would rather recover lost cards or play things for free. That said, I think there are plenty of homes for her. Jor Kadeen will love her. Voltron decks in general like these abilities, but W/R is notorius for needing to come out swinging and she helps you do that very easily, and provides some long term advantage over the rest of the game. I personally want to try her in Narset.
Blue:
Aether Gale - Sorcery speed is less than ideal but 6 is a lot of permanents for five mana. This would let you brick someones offense or defense, and it also lets you reuse comes into play effects. This will find a home in something that wants to go big on its mana, some kind of Cradle oriented deck, or something with tons of artifact mana. This could even combo with Sol Ring/Mana Crypt to get a huge refund on the cost. So, Teferi PW, Rasputin, Momir Vig.
Breaching Leviathan - This is not really worth 9 mana, and unfortunately the version you cheat is not worth the effort.
Domineering Will - At four mana this is going to be annoying to get people to walk into since blue mages with mana up make people play much more cautiously. That said you probably play it in any number of trick oriented decks since it is capable of so many shenanigans.
Dulcet Sirens - Morph has always been very meh outside of limited. If you are dedicated to morph already for whatever reason this is fine. I might put it in an ability focused deck like Merike Re Berette face up since the ability is pretty strong for manipulating combat.
Intellectual Offering - The strongest offering and one of the strongest cards in the set.You get to give one player cards and no mana, and another mana but no cards. Meanwhile you play this with mana dorks or artifacts and you will frequently find that his is free or even gains you mana. This is a combo oriented card that can easily make the difference between going off successfully or bricking. I'm playing this in Dralnu and would play it in Sharuum, Teferi, Merike, Edric, tons of places.
Reef Worm - A niffty little number. This is a serious food dude. Playing him with sacrifice outlets lets you generate huge amounts of value and end you up with a serious threat. This won't go in everything, but in decks like Sidisi, Momir Vig, basically anything that like Greater Good, its going to be a house.
Stitcher Geralf - At five mana and three to activate, this guy is a bit underwhelming. That his active can snag Eldrazi make him much better you get big tokens out of it. Its sad you lose the work you've made on their graveyard but that's eh. He seems destined to be paired with black for reanimation and the clause is a May so you can keep juicy targets in peoples graveyards and just take the beaters if you want to. I just wish he wasn't so expensive while simultaneously being fragile. The essential problem is that his pieces don't work well together as a single card. You need a) lots of mana, b) to care about mill beyond the trigger, c) large enough dudes to eat yourself, d) ways to make him speed up his effect. I just don't see it happening as a general and only something like Sidisi, Mimeoplasm, maybe Sedris, can use this effect if they want to.
Stormsurge Kraken - A very solid card. Hexproof 5/5s for 5 are worthy of consideration when playing voltron anyway. Then giving them upside in a style they already want to play is gravy. I see him slotting in decks like Geist, Narset, maybe Rafique. Ironically, you don't really want to give this guy evasion, you just want to make him bigger so you can keep drawing cards and abyssing your opponents.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage - This guy is great. As a general he's probably the best of the bunch, his -1 letting him get away with huge plays. His +1 is solid at digging through your deck. Its not actually drawing cards so he is anti-synergy with things like Cavern Skulker, but gets around Spirit of the Labrynth and friends. If you get to his ult and he doesn't die to it or gets replayed then you essentially win the game. Will be an allstar in 5 color walker concoctions. I do want to spend an extra minute on his -1 because a lot of people are understating how strong it is. There are lots of cards in EDH that produce multiple mana when tapped. From perennial favorites Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, to bigger numbers like Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo. In our lands we always have Ancient Tomb or Temple of the False God. In mono-blue we could easily cast Teferi -1 and cast kozilik or Ulamog. That isn't even counting the number of tricks he enables with tap abilities like Sticher Geralf, Arcanis, or Quicksilver Amulet. And unlike Tezzeret, he isn't limited to artifacts so he can easily give creatures pseudo-vigilance. He also starts with 5 loyalty, making it pretty easy to get off the -1 a few times before letting him die or starting to build up again. And all of this was just in mono-u! Imagine if you paired him with Green and got to play with Cradle, mana dorks, and fat green dudes. This guy is what a planeswalker should be for EDH. He goes in anything with big mana or tricks and can easily play as a general.
Well of Ideas - This is certainly a new idea for how to make Howling Mine playable. Obviously great in Nekusaur, but that dude didn't need help. The price tag is certainly steep. If you can absolutely play 3 or more cards a turn, a la some deck with Exploration or multiple removal spells, or Storm oriented deck, then this is actually pretty good. That you get so many more cards than any one opponent is why, and frequently you'll cast this, draw 2 cards immeditaly, then everyone else draws 1 and someone spends a card to kill it, making it a 3 for 3 on the table. That's a fine gamble when the payoff draws you 4 cards and untaps all your mana. Specific and kinda risky, but very good where its good.
Black:
Demon of Wailing Agonies - This lieutenant isn't as good as Blue's but is plenty solid. The key here is to get him in with Haste. Pairing him with Kaalia or Sedris has some real potential. Edicts aren't played enough in the format when there are tons of creatures that are difficult to kill. This guy has some logistical problems but the effect is very strong. Like the white one though, he is basically useless without your commander, putting you are risk of bricking with him.
Flesh Carver - Sacrifice engines are plentiful enough that just stuffing them into a deck without thinking it through isn't worthwhile anymore. This guy though is pretty great if you are eating 1/1. Since the effect doesn't care about the size of the dude, eating saprolings essentially doubles the size of your avalible power and toughness. This guy is pretty bad in mono-b. Paired with white, he's is pretty good. Vish loves that he is a double big dude. There are some solid white loops that he can enable as well with Karmic Guide. Vish does those loops a bit better for sure since Flesh Carver has an activation cost, but Carver is much easier to get into play. The real place for Carver though is paired with Green, eating Deranged Hermit and friends. I am likely to try him in Ghave since he turns a 1/1 into 2 1/1s. Its an expensive process, but his trigger makes him solid value for birthing pod, greater good or other effects.
Ghoulcaller Gisa - Solid. She can make a lot of zombies very easily. The problem is that she costs 5. Her active cost is only B so she's easy to use once you get there. She'd be great with Merike since she can always eat what Merike grabs, and that deck already runs thousand-year elixir. I would not try to build her on her own since she really wants to have a Cradle to turn all of her hard work into mana. And there are more interesting mono black generals to build. Also, she can always turn 1 zombie into 2 zombies, making her not need you to eat your plays to grow your army.
Infernal Offering - I spoke above about how criminally underplayed Edicts are. This is an edict that lets you trade up one dude, or retrigger comes into play effects. Splitting who you choose for this makes it really solid, and there is no targeting involved anywhere so its hard for opponents to figure out what your doing until its too late. This goes in basically any deck with black mana.
Malicious Affliction - The restrictions on this are double black and non-black creatures. This seems like something I'd be willing to try for 2 mana if I am sufficently in black to keep BB open on opposing turns. Getting morbid wouldn't be difficult at all. This seems like it would be amazing in Toshiro Umezawa.dec though it is a good rate just about anywhere. Not enough people just play single target removal spells.
Necromantic Selection - This is a great board wipe that lets you abuse etb triggers on the return. That it exiles itself is unfortunate, but if it didn't I could see this setting up loops really easily. Still, this will see plenty of play as printed. I can see a deck like Geth including this alongside Life's Finale, but this is not particularly groundbreaking. Its just a well exectued card.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath - Apart from the badass art and story, Mr. Nixilis is kind of lacking. I think he is probably the weakest of the walkers both as a general and as a walker. He is all about his ult, but the ult requires you to have creatures to eat. This makes him very conditional. Considering the amount of work that has to go into making him reach his ult he really has to be judged on his +2 and -2. +2 is minor lifedrain. If put in an Oloro deck he would be ok addition. The -2 is ok. If you are just trading off draining and making demons Ob is ok, which means the card overall is meh. Oloro is the only place I can think of for him.
Overseer of the Damned - This guy is the real deal. You can cheat him which makes him great in reanimator or Kaalia strategies. The part where he turns opposing deaths into blockers or otherwise food is great. He has a high price tag for normal use, but you really shouldn't bother paying retail. Anything that is an answer and an engine in one is going to be a hit. Look to put this anywhere you think you'd play Angel of Despair or Ashen Rider.
Raving Dead - randomness makes for terrible deckbuilding, put in your deck at your own risk.
Spoils of Blood - This seems like a good deal, but beware. This isn't just Kicker on your Damnation, you have to spend a card to make this dude and there are a lot of easier ways to make large creatures.
Wake the Dead - This is a supremly powerful card. You need a full yard and a lot of mana, but that there are no restrictions on the size of the creature comnig back you can abuse tons of etb effects. Bringing back FoF sphinx Rune Scarred Demon, Bogardan Hellkite, Terrastodon, etc. This fits in most builds of Mimeoplasm, Sidisi, Sedris, Sharuum, Jarad, basically anywhere with mana and graveyard.
Red:
Now for the red cards, but before I start on them I want to challenge an assurtion that people make all the time, which is that Red is the worst color in EDH. I suppose Red is the worst if you absolutely need to choose one, but its not by a large margine. White is on the same basic level of power as red. The only thing that lacks is mono-red, and that's because its not a passive color. Mono-red requires you to be proactive. Urabrask is my favorite mono-red general because he can just attack people to death and make enormous plays.Red is not the value color. EDH players as a whole tend to be more Timmy or Johnny or Vorthos. They appreciate huge creatures or insane value. Red is so often about effeniceny and maximizing resources, which is not the mode that people in EDH like to play. I do like the direction that they took for the red deck and it feels like it expands the depth of the color. For being the shatter color, red does like its artifacts. I think their reasoning is thar red is creative and artifacts are essentially in-game art for the red genius types, making up their half of Izzet.
Bitter Feud - This is a card you have to read through a couple times to understand, and in the end isn't worth the effort you put into it. Not for 5 mana anyway.
Daretti, Scrap Savant - A very solid card. The first line of text is the best. Getting significant velocity in red is precious. The second line of text is only slightly worse as getting to repeated trash for treasure a Sad Robot or something similar is tremendous value. This alone brings red into the space that most EDH players are looking to play in. The ult is obviously ridiculous, but you will probably never get there, even when combined with doubling season. I could see building this guy as a general, though he's probably still better in a R/X deck as a source of tremendous velocity and value. I wish I could play him in Sharuum :(
Dualcaster Mage - This guy is going to do tons of work. Being a creature means you can blink him, reanimate him, recast him, and generally squeeze the effect out again and again. Would have been cool at 2 mana though I can see why they decided against that.
Feldon of the Third Path - 10/10. This guy nails every category, flavor, mechanics, playability, and isn't some default good card either. He requires you to plan around him to maximise him, while still just being good enough in most decks. The activation cost stops him from being kiki-jiki 2.0, but thats fine. Another card in red that's straight up value. The fact that you sacrifice the token is also pretty sweet, combines well with wurmcoil and Jens. As a general you need to do the normal tricks for low health non-haste activatiors, like Merike, Arcanis, etc. He is mono-color and low cost though so getting him out there won't be too hard. Played in other decks he has the potential to be monsterous in green or black decks where there are some truely insane creatures that routinely populate your graveyard. Between him and Daretti, the red deck is worth buying on its own.
Impact Resonance - A neat trick that you can cast when other people attack each other. Also can be grabbed with Sunforger.
Incite Rebellion - Would have made a killer instant. As is, this will kill the Rhys player, and will hurt most people but you can do better for 6 mana at sorcery speed.
Scrap Mastery - The artifact living death, or Mass Trash. This obviously has few places it truely fits. Its worth noting that this will usually be Shatterstorm for everyone else, like living death was wrath for everyone else. Its also sacrifice so Darksteel Forge won't stop it. If you see people going for tons of artifact mana and you can easily incorporate Faithless Looting type effects then this will be a powerful play in your deck. Jhoira especially can use this with huge artifact monsters.
Tyrant's Familiar - This guy isn't my favorite lieutenant, but he's not far off. The ability will flat kill most
creatures, and haste makes it happen immediately. Worth the 7 mana if you have your general. If you don't have your general this guy is a lot more viable than w or b since he retains the haste. Obviously great in Karrthus or a red deck with piles of mana. Something of a non-bo with Kaalia with the on attack clause.
Volcanic Offering - Ho boy this is a spicy one. 5 Mana instant kill target guy blow up target Cradle might have been good enough to print on its own in red. Also making two other permanents that aren't your go away? Damn. 4 permanents for 5 mana is an exceptional rate. My 1 complaint is that you can't Sunforger for it :(. Put this in things and you will be happy for it.
Warmonger Hellkite - This is fine but not exceptional. Dragon tribal decks get a new toy I guess. Using him to pump other armies is a neat trick but not worth the cost.
Creeper Hulk - Trample is great and very underrated. This reminds me strongly of []. The cost of the ability is higher and the size is smaller, and it includes color on the activation. Trample is probably worth that trade off since you are in green and will have plenty of mana lying around.
Green:
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - This chick is totally fine, but as an amalgamation of various other effects. Her +2 is essentially the same as putting a forest into play tapped in terms of mana development, but of course creating food goes well with all sorts of effects. Her -2 makes her an answer to one of the most problematic permanents for green to deal with - Torpor Orb. So often green decks are packed to the gills with Woodfall Primus type creatures and no real naturalizes. Her ult combines with her +2 and natural green deckbuilding to draw you a lot of cards and you can get there pretty easily. I would like to build her as a commander. Now that we have seen all the PWs, I think I can rank them:
As a General -
Teferi
Freyalise
Daretti
Nahiri
Ob Nixilis
As a card -
Teferi
Daretti
Nahiri
Freyalise
Ob Nixilis
Nahiri wins out for the third spot because Freyalise is in a color that doesn't need more mana or answers from one of its 99, but having an all in one general is pretty solid. White needs the help to shortcut mana and making free dudes for your voltron deck is just solid, and it extends the life of your equipment.
Graveshifter - This is eh. The only green tribe people want to build is elves, and when you start including other colors this gets outpaced fast, and can give your opponents back things that they can plan around.
Lifeblood Hydra - This card is begging to be eaten by Disicple of Bolas. This guy needs a TON of mana so the fewer colors you play with it the better. It also doesn't fit into a deck as a reanimation target. Trample is a great keyword here. He's going to demand an answer, which makes the second half of the card much better. I can see him fitting into Jarad, Omnath, or some other big mana deck. It comes with Cradle so big ups.
Siege Behemoth - This guy is going to straight up murder a lot of people. Hexproof is insane to put on this guy. You still do general damage with his ability so this is like super trample for generals. Otherwise its a little worse than trample since if you don't kill your opponent you leave yourself open to counter attack but he makes a hell of a pairing with Hoof, and giving this guy haste is totally crazy. Putting him in some Naya creation like Uril as a way to shortcut blockers is pretty good.
Song of the Dryads - This card could see legacy play and is a legit green answer to problematic creatures, green's largest weakness. Put this in things with green mana that don't have lots of answers.
Sylvan Offering - This is by far the worst of the offerings as there are much better ways to make tokens.
Thunderfoot Baloth - 6 mana 5/5 trample is an ok back up mode but with your general this guy echos Siege Behemoth. I would say Siege Behemoth is better because of Hexproof but the +2/+2 to your team is really solid. This also doesn't need haste to do its thing. Depending on how much your general costs this might be worth it just as a cheatable overrun. Overall great in something like Hazazon or Rith.
Titania, Protector of Argoth - This chick is very stong as both just a creature and as a general. She absolutely demands to be paired with Crucible of Worlds. She is very likely to automatically come with a 5/3 since you can return fetchlands. There are plenty of other utility lands that sacrifice like Dustbowl, Wasteland, Strip mine, Centaur Garden. If you start lookings to other colors she picks up Cephalid Colliseum, Krosan Verge, and tons of other stuff. She also interacts with Devastating Dreams and Squandered Resources. A very good card all around.As a creature she fits in Azusa best, though basically anything green is going to get milage out of both of her triggers.
Wave of Vitriol - This is a crazy effect that works best if you have lots of basics and mana creatures. Will be a staple in mono-green decks though no deck can really avoid splashing themselves as no artifact, no enchantments, and no non-basics is a steep order. That said a Cradle based deck could do this decently. Be prepared for this to come out of your opponents decks from now on, and add some basics!
Wolfcaller's Howl - This is decidedly meh. It works but its not the most effcient at what it does.
Artifact and Land:
Arcane Lighthouse - This is about as niche as a land can get. It does its job well, but unless you are noticing that you can't deal with non-targetable dudes don't bother with this. Also, this can be a political card since you don't have to have the removal yourself.
Flamekin Village - Hall of the Bandit Lord and Salyer's Stronghold are both celebrated ultility lands and this is somewhere between them. Sure, your dude costs 2 more for haste instead of 3 life. It only gains haste and not vigilance or power but goes in mono-red. It enters tapped, but unlike the others, this generates colored mana which is a huge upgrade. This goes in most things that have red mana, assuming you want to attack or use abilities immediately I can see this going in Feldon, Kaalia, Kresh, Jor Kadeen.
Myriad Landscape - A land that becomes two land. Great with Titania or mana hungry decks. This is great because it turns a non-basic into 2 basics in case of non-basic hate.
Assault Suit - An interesting card. Expensive to get to, but has the option of politiking an opponent to death. Its a may so you can just use it get +2/+2 and can't be sacrificed.
Commander's Sphere - Not as effecient as Mind Stone, but baking in the sacrifice cost up front means you don't have give up two mana later. It also lets you eat it in response to board wipes. Taping for colored mana is really solid as most artifact mana taps for colorless.
Crown of Doom - This is a funsie thing that I think does a good job for the people that like that sort of thing.
Loreseeker's Stone - The idea here was solid but the execution leaves something to be desired. I wish it cost 0 then 1 more for each card in hand. At 6 to cast initially, a lower per active cost would have been really good. As is, I don't think there's anywhere I'd want to play this over Dreamstone Hedron.
Masterwork of Ingenuity - I don't really think I ever want to equipment so hard that I'd want this in addition to Scuplting Steel, which already does this. The only reason this could be ok is that equipment costs exist and this basically just adds one to equip costs. Its very marginal but if you play Nahiri the general you might want it.
Unstable Obelisk - Cute but its SO MUCH MANA. There are better colorless options realistically.
This is a very solid product altogether. Way more hits than misses.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
The Spirit of Dread
I recently started playing the new MOBA Dawngate. There are many aspects of Dawngate that I enjoy over the other titles in the MOBA genre. I have decided to design a couple of shapers. First is the Spirit of Dread. This is a top-down design, which means that I am trying to start with the flavor and create a kit to fit, rather than starting with a mechanic and building bottom up. So, what does it mean to dread? Merriam-Webster defines dread as: to fear greatly, to regard with awe. Also, to feel extreme reluctance to meet or face; to be apprehensive or fearful. Most importantly it is defined as a person or thing that causes fear. But how is dread used as a word in the modern day? What images come to mind when you hear the word dread? For me, the first thing I think of is Judge Dredd. Dredd is an implacable fighter. He is seemingly invincible and works his way through hundreds of crimes, ceaselessly moving toward his goal. A quick search through various other media corroborates this as the basic modern idea of something dreadful. Dread is the feeling we get when we fear the inevitable. It has actually somewhat merged with the idea of being doomed. The specific imagery of a heavily armored, unstoppable force already has strong associations with the word dread ever since the Royal Navy named a battleship the Dreadnaught. This left a strong enough impression that dreadnaught became a class of ship and has since spread to media, such as the Space Marine’s interred brothers in Warhammer 40k. Now the term Dreadnaught obviously means that it doesn’t afraid of anything, but they also inspired fear all their own. This is leading me down the path of having Dawngate’s first armor bound character. Now in fantasy armor tend to equate to knights. Dawngate feels like a poor place to have knights proper. The aesthetic of the game is clearly more Eastern influenced, thought there are some characters that wear plate and mail. The point is that he should be like Ser Gregor Clegane, enormous and inexorable. The specifics of the art direction and the character himself will come later. Now that we have some idea of the concept, what is the execution? Ideas are useless on their own, its what you do with them. So we have an enormous unstoppable force. It would be poor to make him a ranged character or a mage. We want him to be visceral and full of action. This pushes us to make him melee. A character wearing as much armor as the Spirit of Dread would naturally lend himself to being a tank. This doesn’t feel overly compelling on its own. Making a bland “slow tanky dude” is not especially interesting. Voluc already does the armored character thing. What can we do to differentiate our shaper? Well what specifically does Voluc do? He has a singular slow, and does a lot of damage. He is also a drain tank, stealing life from those around him to make himself live. He does nothing to protect his allies other than to force them to attack him. He, like all non-assassin melee, is susceptible to kiting. Who else in Dawngate fulfills a tanky role? Raina, Flinn, Desecrator, Khagen, and Kel are true tanks. There are many bruisers as well, including Voluc. What is the difference between a bruiser and a tank? Bruisers are in-between tanks and assassins. Assassins tend to have little to no cc, but lots of burst damage and mobility. Tanks are the opposite. Tanks have several ccs, and tend to have lowered mobility. In order for a tank to function though, they have to still be threatening, and as such usually do damage in a way that ramps up over time, or is flat but very consistent. Tanks also tend to be the primary initiators in a composition, where Assassins like looking for solo targets. Take Khagen for example. The way his Spirit Sands mechanic works makes him a larger threat the longer the fight goes on. Raina is an example of the other type of tank, dealing ok damage while protecting her carry. While not a high amount of damage, just being survivable ensures that over the course of an engagement she will do significant damage to the enemy. Bruisers fall somewhere on this spectrum. Basko is closer to an assassin than a tank since all of his abilities want to GO IN. Marah feels more closer to a tank. She gets beefy and uses her cc to lock down targets that are trying to penetrate your teams front line. To differentiate our new shaper, where should we put him on the spectrum? Well, being on the heavy end of a tank feels most correct. Your enemies should want to run away from Dread. Dread should be something you are scared of. How do we accomplish this? There are a number of ways. First though, it is important to have a Hook. There should be something that makes people say, “Oh that’s cool.” Right up front, that will be the art and the style. Before people really see abilities or get a feel for how a shaper plays, they are going to see the art. Mechanically though, there also has to be a Hook. Tess’ W is a Hook. It is something that is uniquely hers. The Hook is the skill that you build around. To use an example from another MOBA, Braum’s shield is definitely his Hook. What mechanic can we make our Dread shaper have? Well, my first thought is that dread is specifically something that people are afraid to face. I will start from his passive. All the names are working and will be machined into proper titles later. “Aura of Fear” – Pure Shaper. Enemies that face Dread have their armor and magic resist reduced by X-Y. Plug in numbers for now are 5 + 1/level. At 20 this would be a reduction of 25. These numbers are entirely work around, just stating simple clean numbers for the sake of discussion. More important is the feel of the skill. This gives us a solid starting place and a great hook. The ability has to be strong enough to matter or people will just stand and fight anyway. The range of the passive is also critical. Too low an aura range and he won’t be effective, too large and and pressure on the backline will be overwhelming. Right now we’ll call it 800 range. This is a decent middling distance. This passive gives us several knobs to tune and a clear but subtle objective the moment Dread is in a game. Dread wants to fight people that are facing him. The enemies don’t want to face Dread. The subtleties that underlie this basic premise are huge. Opposing divers want to slip past him to hit the backline and drop his passive. This forces Dread to try and back up to get in front of the divers, giving ground to the enemy. It also means that he would have excellent dueling potential, since standing and fighting him would put you at a disadvantage. Since enemies don’t want to be facing Dread, he is going to be pursuing. This gives us opportunity to build weakness and strength in the shaper. If he has too long a range or too fast a speed he would be too strong in a 1v1 setting. So building the kit we want to be mindful that he doesn’t get overlong a reach. In short, we don’t want him to be able to manipulate The Gap too often. Mages and ranged should be strong toward him, but other melee should have a very hard time fighting Dread. Flavor-wise this works out perfectly. Melee have no choice but to fight their fear head-on while ranged characters try to stay out of its reach. Obviously, since this is the core mechanic that the shaper revolves around, it should be what he is trying to manipulate in gameplay. Successful Dreads should be trying to keep people looking at them as much as possible. The question is why wouldn’t people just eat the debuff and fight him? What does he do that’s threatening enough to get the enemy to run away? Specifically, why don’t people want to be inside the range of his passive? Well, some sort of ability that keeps you next to him would become scary fast. If him getting next to you kept you next to him then running away would be difficult. Perma-slows are not good gameplay though. We don’t want to shut off options, we just want to constrict them. This leads to E: Wave of Fear – Flat 2 second cooldown, reduces movment speed by 10/20/30/40/50% for 1 second. Range 500 yards, PBAoE. I set the range there so the ability just barely doesn’t catch auto-attackers as they attack from range. If you can get them in range as they pause to attack you are in business, but making it too easy would defeat the purpose of the shaper. Shapers clearly do have a lot of open ended applications. Ashabel Hunter is a thing. Basko Tact is a thing. That said, we definitely want to tailor our shaper to have a role that suits him, much how Flinn’s W is clearly suited to the Hunter role. I propose that we add damage to his E, not significant in one cast, but eating multiple casts adds up quickly. For now, 20/40/60/80/100 + 1/2/3/4/5% of Max health magic damage. I don’t know which part of this ability should be scalar with power. Regardless, we now have an ability that makes people not want to get caught in it. Eating one E will likely lead to eating more Es, which add up fast if the ability is ranked first. Now that we have enemy shapers trying to stand in the sweet spot outside of the range of Wave of Fear, what element of play/counter play can we add that can shake up this dynamic of range? We don’t want to make it too easy one way or the other. 2 things come to mind, let Dread close distance at normal speed, but unhindered by cc, and give him a skillshot that has cc attached to it. Skill shots normally go on Q, so Q: Dread Stare – Skillshot nuke. deals 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.4) magic damage to the target and causes a 0.75 second fear. 13/12/11/10/9 second cooldown. This is the skill that makes Dread non-binary and as such will require the most tuning. If Dread gets on someone he is by design difficult to shake. This is the ability in his core kit that lets him close distance. If its too reliable than he is too good. If you can’t ever land q then Dread is awful. Luckily with skillshots, there are tons of knobs to turn. Missile speed, missile width, as well as cooldown, whether it passes through minions, etc. Now we come to the last two abilities, his W and his ultimate. I know what I want the abilities to simulate, I am just unsure which should go where. As such we will speak in abstract and divine. I had the idea above for Dread to be able to walk through anything, but at normal speed. The other idea is to force the opposition to face you. These take the form of a CC dispel and a taunt respectively. If the cc dispel is on his W it should look like this: Inexorable, W – Remove all non-suppression CC and gain 30% tenacity for 5 seconds. 30/25/20/15/10 second cooldown. If the CC immunity is his ultimate then it should look more like the: Inexorable R – Break all CC and become immune to CC for 5/6/7 seconds. While Inexorable is active, Dread regenerates 5% of his maximum health per second. 180/150/120 second cooldown. Both abilities are strong and CC is a very touchy subject to monkey with. The other ability would then be either: Face your Fear, W – Taunt target shaper to hit you for 0.5 – 1.5 seconds. 10 second cooldown at all ranks. Or, Face your Fear, R – Dread Taunts all enemies within 800 range for 1/2/3 seconds. 160/140/120 second cooldown. These two skills in concert work to get the enemy to deal with wither your passive or your Wave of Fear. A note on the Taunt, even in its ultimate version it does not prevent you from taking other actions. Either kit encapsulates the feeling of Dread. You do not want to see this guy charging at you.
Edited some numbers on second look, so the two kits as of now are:
Passive – Aura of Fear: Reduce the resistances of enemy units that are facing Dread by 5+ 1 per level.
Q – Dread Stare: Dread fires a blast in a line. The first enemy hit takes 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.4) magic damage and is feared for 0.75 seconds. 13/12/11/10/9 second cooldown.
W - Remove all non-suppression CC and gain 30% tenacity for 5 seconds. 30/27/24/21/18 second cooldown.
E- Wave of Terror: Dread unleashes a wave of energy, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.1) + 1/2/3/4/5% of the enemies maximum health as magic damage. The wave slows enemies by 10/20/30/40/50% for 0.5 seconds. 2 second cooldown.
R – Face Your Fear : Dread Taunts all enemies within 800 range for 1/2/3 seconds. 160/140/120 second cooldown.
Or,
Passive – Aura of Fear: Reduce the resistances of enemy units that are facing Dread by 5+ 1 per level.
Q – Dread Stare: Dread fires a blast in a line. The first enemy hit takes 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.4) magic damage and is feared for 0.75 seconds. 13/12/11/10/9 second cooldown.
W – Face your Fear, W – Taunt target shaper to hit you for 0.5 – 1.5 seconds. 10 second cooldown at all ranks.
E- Wave of Terror: Dread unleashes a wave of energy, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.1) + 1/2/3/4/5% of the enemies maximum health as magic damage. The wave slows enemies by 10/20/30/40/50% for 0.5 seconds. 2 second cooldown.
R – Inexorable: Break all CC and become immune to CC for 5/6/7 seconds. While Inexorable is active, Dread regenerates 5% of his maximum health per second. 180/150/120 second cooldown.
Both kits would require massive tuning, and the W/R flipflop is all about which moment feels bigger, taunting multiple people into bad fights or breaking free of the opponents CC and getting to just run at them full tilt. Essentially, is the rest of the kit more Olaf or more Galio.
Now that we have mechanics that we want the shaper to be working with, it comes time to set his base stats and his stat ratios. The base health of all tanks is identical at 530 + 78/level. The highest base health in the game is Renzo at 540 + 83/level, followed closely by Freia at 540 + 80/level. We definitely want Dread to be beefy, but we also want him to work for it. 520 + 75/level seems like a decent compromise. In general, having some lower base stats seems like a good point of balance for his late game being difficult to deal with. Specifially though, his scaling with haste needs to be lower than normal. His cooldowns are all very powerful, and movement speed should be a premium stat. One of the largest deliniations between bruisers and tanks is the attack power ratio. Bruisers get 1:1 where tanks get 0.8:1. I would argue that Dread is a case where if he gets to you he should hit like a train, and that he should get a 1:1 ratio.
Roles:
With this set of abilities, Dread would make a great Hunter. His E lets him smash jungle camps. His ganks would be predicated on his ability to land his skillshot and co-ordinate with his teammates. The kit that has his Taunt as his R would be better suited to a fast clear to 6 to get double cc, whereas the other kit would have him looking to get onto a lane as soon as he has all three basic abilities. either Kit would play decently as Tact or Glad, though having Inexorable as his ult and a single target taunt lends him to being a Tact more easily. Having an AoE taunt would require quite some padding to withstand the damage, so getting a Gladiator’s income will help him. Changes to Predator might help him be successful there, but probably not.
Lore and art:
Now that we have a mechanical and theoretical understanding of the character, its time to have him set in a location, give him a history, a name, a story.
Lore:
Counted among the North’s armies are a widely feared vanguard. The Hands of Winter are chosen in early adolescence for their size. They are “recruited” from orphanages. As wards of the state, they are suitable for military service. The training is harsh and many candidates are dropped either from the military, into a lesser unit, or an early grave. Grond was such orphan once. After three decades of combat he was named First Hand. His presence alone, all seven feet of towering muscle and armor. It was said that Death himself would lose to The Hands of Winter. This was put to the test when nations began to clash over control of the Dawngate, and the Hands of Winter were thrust into an engagement with the barbarian hordes of the East. After hours of fighting, all of his company lay dead. Grond prayed to make his last stand. To leave his enemy in fear. He bonded with the Spirit of Dread in that moment. His features twisted and he became something wholly inhuman. The sight of him drove the barbarians back but he chased them down, rolling through their ranks as a wave of death and sorrow.
Art:
Below are some pieces that capture the feel of the character.
All of these images are of a warrior to be feared as one fears death itself. For art direction, A tall armor bound character carrying a menacing weapon and huge tower shield, face obscured by hood, the tatters of a cloak or robes about his shoulders. He looks almost mechanical in his movements. We should get the sense that he is not quite human anymore. The armor is worked into devices of death, and his particle effects are spectral. Remember he is the Spirit of Dread, Grond the Relentless.
Edited some numbers on second look, so the two kits as of now are:
Passive – Aura of Fear: Reduce the resistances of enemy units that are facing Dread by 5+ 1 per level.
Q – Dread Stare: Dread fires a blast in a line. The first enemy hit takes 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.4) magic damage and is feared for 0.75 seconds. 13/12/11/10/9 second cooldown.
W - Remove all non-suppression CC and gain 30% tenacity for 5 seconds. 30/27/24/21/18 second cooldown.
E- Wave of Terror: Dread unleashes a wave of energy, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.1) + 1/2/3/4/5% of the enemies maximum health as magic damage. The wave slows enemies by 10/20/30/40/50% for 0.5 seconds. 2 second cooldown.
R – Face Your Fear : Dread Taunts all enemies within 800 range for 1/2/3 seconds. 160/140/120 second cooldown.
Or,
Passive – Aura of Fear: Reduce the resistances of enemy units that are facing Dread by 5+ 1 per level.
Q – Dread Stare: Dread fires a blast in a line. The first enemy hit takes 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.4) magic damage and is feared for 0.75 seconds. 13/12/11/10/9 second cooldown.
W – Face your Fear, W – Taunt target shaper to hit you for 0.5 – 1.5 seconds. 10 second cooldown at all ranks.
E- Wave of Terror: Dread unleashes a wave of energy, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.1) + 1/2/3/4/5% of the enemies maximum health as magic damage. The wave slows enemies by 10/20/30/40/50% for 0.5 seconds. 2 second cooldown.
R – Inexorable: Break all CC and become immune to CC for 5/6/7 seconds. While Inexorable is active, Dread regenerates 5% of his maximum health per second. 180/150/120 second cooldown.
Both kits would require massive tuning, and the W/R flipflop is all about which moment feels bigger, taunting multiple people into bad fights or breaking free of the opponents CC and getting to just run at them full tilt. Essentially, is the rest of the kit more Olaf or more Galio.
Now that we have mechanics that we want the shaper to be working with, it comes time to set his base stats and his stat ratios. The base health of all tanks is identical at 530 + 78/level. The highest base health in the game is Renzo at 540 + 83/level, followed closely by Freia at 540 + 80/level. We definitely want Dread to be beefy, but we also want him to work for it. 520 + 75/level seems like a decent compromise. In general, having some lower base stats seems like a good point of balance for his late game being difficult to deal with. Specifially though, his scaling with haste needs to be lower than normal. His cooldowns are all very powerful, and movement speed should be a premium stat. One of the largest deliniations between bruisers and tanks is the attack power ratio. Bruisers get 1:1 where tanks get 0.8:1. I would argue that Dread is a case where if he gets to you he should hit like a train, and that he should get a 1:1 ratio.
Roles:
With this set of abilities, Dread would make a great Hunter. His E lets him smash jungle camps. His ganks would be predicated on his ability to land his skillshot and co-ordinate with his teammates. The kit that has his Taunt as his R would be better suited to a fast clear to 6 to get double cc, whereas the other kit would have him looking to get onto a lane as soon as he has all three basic abilities. either Kit would play decently as Tact or Glad, though having Inexorable as his ult and a single target taunt lends him to being a Tact more easily. Having an AoE taunt would require quite some padding to withstand the damage, so getting a Gladiator’s income will help him. Changes to Predator might help him be successful there, but probably not.
Lore and art:
Now that we have a mechanical and theoretical understanding of the character, its time to have him set in a location, give him a history, a name, a story.
Lore:
Counted among the North’s armies are a widely feared vanguard. The Hands of Winter are chosen in early adolescence for their size. They are “recruited” from orphanages. As wards of the state, they are suitable for military service. The training is harsh and many candidates are dropped either from the military, into a lesser unit, or an early grave. Grond was such orphan once. After three decades of combat he was named First Hand. His presence alone, all seven feet of towering muscle and armor. It was said that Death himself would lose to The Hands of Winter. This was put to the test when nations began to clash over control of the Dawngate, and the Hands of Winter were thrust into an engagement with the barbarian hordes of the East. After hours of fighting, all of his company lay dead. Grond prayed to make his last stand. To leave his enemy in fear. He bonded with the Spirit of Dread in that moment. His features twisted and he became something wholly inhuman. The sight of him drove the barbarians back but he chased them down, rolling through their ranks as a wave of death and sorrow.
Art:
Below are some pieces that capture the feel of the character.
All of these images are of a warrior to be feared as one fears death itself. For art direction, A tall armor bound character carrying a menacing weapon and huge tower shield, face obscured by hood, the tatters of a cloak or robes about his shoulders. He looks almost mechanical in his movements. We should get the sense that he is not quite human anymore. The armor is worked into devices of death, and his particle effects are spectral. Remember he is the Spirit of Dread, Grond the Relentless.
The Gap
Often in games you will hear references to the gap. Most frequently in relation to gapclosers as moves that specific characters receive. However, no one ever explicitly states what the gap is. The working definition I have made for the gap is, When one player can attack another without the possibility of reprisal. Generally we see this as a form of range advantage. The first place I came across the term was in the MMO-RPG World of Warcraft. It was used when talking about the interplay between ranged and melee characters.
This is the gap. The ranged character can hit the melee character without fear of being hit in return. This principle crosses several genres though. It is not confined to MMOs. It also makes it presence known in MOBAs, RTS, Fighting games, and even Chess. This idea is at the center of many of these genres and has many names. Range, gapclosers, escapes, and so on all belong to the same principle. Some concrete examples are in order. I will be going through quite a few so that people unfamiliar with various genres of games can still follow along.
MOBAs/MMOs:
These two get lumped together since their gameplay is so similar. To pull away the complexity, imagine there is a character with a ranged attack and a character with a melee attack. All other factors being equal, the ranged character can attack and move and be dealing damage to the melee character without taking damage in return. This move is referred to as kiting. This is the work of the Gap. The ranged character never has to do anything additional and will win the fight. He/She can just keep taking shots at the melee character without being afraid of taking incoming damage. For more concrete examples, picture Ashe versus Udyr, or a Frost Mage versus a Warrior. These match-ups show a clear weakness for the melee to get on top of their opponent to do damage provided no external forces exist. More telling is Caitlyn’s dominance during the early game. Just having 100 range on other ad carries allowed her to be a prominent force in the professional scene for quite some time as getting the odd autoattack in without reprisal would eventually force the other adc to go back to base.
Fighting Games:
A major delineation of characters in fighting games is Fireball vs non-Fireball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSDYCfHdVwA
In the video, we see that Ryu is able to attack from virtually anywhere on screen and keep Zangief at bay. Zangief has to overcome the Gap in order to attack Ryu. Each matchup has its own Gap. Fighting games have the Gap more than other examples since unlike MMOs, MOBAs, or RTS games there are no external factors that alter the dynamic.
RTS:
In real time strategy games, range is a critical component to a unit’s strength. So many decisions have to account for range. I’ll speak in depth here about Protoss units since I think they have many examples. The Zealot is a fine unit that drops off as the games goes on, not because their damage is poor, but because they just die before they can close the Gap to deal damage. They have an upgrade that lets them Charge up to units and they become a significant threat again. The Stalker has decent damage but its claim to fame in the early game is its range and speed. These attributes let the Stalker have significant control. Stalkers have an upgrade called Blink that allows them to instantly teleport a short distance. This enhances the attributes of the Stalker by ensuring that they can close the Gap on targets of opportunity or flee from bad situations, opening a Gap from the danger. The Sentry has a basic ability called Forcefield, which creates barriers, either allowing friendlies to escape or trapping enemy units. The Colossus is a pillar of Protoss strategy, and when does it become the crazy death machine? When its range goes from 6 to 9. This means that the Gap the enemy has to overcome to attack it on the ground is enormous, and more importantly, they have to go through all your other units. These are just some simple ones. Think of the various patches in SC2′s history. What did they do early in Wings of Liberty’s lifetime when Zerg were struggling? They buffed Roach range by 1. That meant Roaches made a better concave and couldn’t be kited as easily. They could also hit Photon Cannons from behind building walls. RTS games lean on the Gap to make the units interact in interesting ways.
These are just some simple examples. The Gap exists across the board. But why bother to define it? Can’t we just be happy with the various terminologies that these games have for the Gap and be satisfied? Two reasons jump to mind. First is the idea of Asymmetry. Asymmetry has some broad meanings and some very specific ones. I’m going to argue in favor of asymmetric multi-player games. Asymmetric balance is incredibly difficult to pull off. Starcraft: Brood War was a phenomenon. It had three separate races that all managed to be unique and well balanced. Asymmetry is valuable because if executed properly it adds to the dynamism of the game, specifically as a way to capture your initial audience. The Gap is inherent asymmetry. It exists to confer a starting advantage to different pieces, leading to areas where some pieces are strong and other times weak. In whatever game you are playing, having room to explore and having games play out differently each time keeps people playing. Having your various pieces be strong in different situations gives lots of room to explore. League of Legends and other highly competitive games grow naturally from their fan base. The larger the number of people playing the game, the larger the scene around the game becomes. While asymmetry is not necessary for a good game, or for replay value, it adds a dynamic that symmetrical games can’t hope to have. The initial value of asymmetry is the “hook” that it provides. Letting players experience different match ups help them feel out limitations and strengths naturally.
Symmetrical games tend to feel like Rock, Paper, Scissors to beginners When everyone has access to the same options they feel how far behind the curve they are when they are starting out. This is problem tends to shrink as a player progresses, and even in symmetrical games the emergent asymmetry of the positions are usually the result of attempting to set up an artificial gap. Take a Terran mirror match in Starcraft. This is a symmetrical match up since both players start with the same resources and available strategies. However, as the game progresses, one player goes for Medivacs and another goes for bio backed up by tanks. This emergent asymmetry is a result of the players each trying to get into a position were they have a Gap over their opponent. The dropping player is trying to use his mobile force to stay away from reprisal, hitting in places and leaving before his opponent’s stronger force can react. The Tanking player is trying to set up positions where his tanks can do maximum damage without fear of his opponent being able to get to the tanks due to their massive range and damage.
However, the big reason to discuss the Gap in broad terms is because of how many decisions designers have to make surrounding it. Things that are almost invisible nowadays. Should a ranged character and a melee character do the same amount of damage with their autoattack? How fast should the characters move? Does turning happen instantly or is their some delay? How fast should attacks be? All of these decisions are predicated on the Gap. We expect melee characters to do more damage because they have to first close distance to do damage. We expect melee characters to have higher movement speed so they aren’t as easy to kite. Turing speed is an important aspect or many games because it reduces the effectiveness of kiting. Ghostcrawler and Morello have both talked about the “Arms race” between ranged and melee characters and this is exactly why. Finding a balance point for the Gap is difficult.
All of what I’ve presented should be fairly self-evident. Its just a formalization of a concept that’s been rattling around in the head anyone who plays games. The next bit is different. What is Crowd Control? It is a way to stop an opponent from taking action. The Gap as I defined it is when one player can attack another without the possibility of reprisal. Being stunned or otherwise controlled is an incarnation of the Gap. This is why crowd control is so powerful and difficult to balance. For melee characters it can even function as a traditional gapcloser and let them get right up on their opponent. This is part of what makes crowd control abilities so sought out. If you are behind a stun or root can let you have a moment when your opponent’s advantage is meaningless. CC gives you the option of coming back in situations where you are behind. It also lets you pick off people that are out of position.
The Gap is a core part of modern game design, but how far back does it go? How long have we been playing around the Gap? Well, the Gap is why basketball players tend to be the tallest around. That extra bit of height gives the taller player a zone where he can control the ball and not have the enemy be able to interfere. American Football is all about creating a Gap for wither your Quarterback or your Running Back. You have blockers and attackers. Chess is about setting up inequalities, spaces where you can attack and not suffer reprisals. The Gap can be seen at work in games throughout history.
One of the keys to understanding design is understanding the Gap. Looking for areas where the Gap is too large or too small. Seeing the space as an area alive with advantage and disadvantage.
Lef
This is the gap. The ranged character can hit the melee character without fear of being hit in return. This principle crosses several genres though. It is not confined to MMOs. It also makes it presence known in MOBAs, RTS, Fighting games, and even Chess. This idea is at the center of many of these genres and has many names. Range, gapclosers, escapes, and so on all belong to the same principle. Some concrete examples are in order. I will be going through quite a few so that people unfamiliar with various genres of games can still follow along.
MOBAs/MMOs:
These two get lumped together since their gameplay is so similar. To pull away the complexity, imagine there is a character with a ranged attack and a character with a melee attack. All other factors being equal, the ranged character can attack and move and be dealing damage to the melee character without taking damage in return. This move is referred to as kiting. This is the work of the Gap. The ranged character never has to do anything additional and will win the fight. He/She can just keep taking shots at the melee character without being afraid of taking incoming damage. For more concrete examples, picture Ashe versus Udyr, or a Frost Mage versus a Warrior. These match-ups show a clear weakness for the melee to get on top of their opponent to do damage provided no external forces exist. More telling is Caitlyn’s dominance during the early game. Just having 100 range on other ad carries allowed her to be a prominent force in the professional scene for quite some time as getting the odd autoattack in without reprisal would eventually force the other adc to go back to base.
Fighting Games:
A major delineation of characters in fighting games is Fireball vs non-Fireball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSDYCfHdVwA
In the video, we see that Ryu is able to attack from virtually anywhere on screen and keep Zangief at bay. Zangief has to overcome the Gap in order to attack Ryu. Each matchup has its own Gap. Fighting games have the Gap more than other examples since unlike MMOs, MOBAs, or RTS games there are no external factors that alter the dynamic.
RTS:
In real time strategy games, range is a critical component to a unit’s strength. So many decisions have to account for range. I’ll speak in depth here about Protoss units since I think they have many examples. The Zealot is a fine unit that drops off as the games goes on, not because their damage is poor, but because they just die before they can close the Gap to deal damage. They have an upgrade that lets them Charge up to units and they become a significant threat again. The Stalker has decent damage but its claim to fame in the early game is its range and speed. These attributes let the Stalker have significant control. Stalkers have an upgrade called Blink that allows them to instantly teleport a short distance. This enhances the attributes of the Stalker by ensuring that they can close the Gap on targets of opportunity or flee from bad situations, opening a Gap from the danger. The Sentry has a basic ability called Forcefield, which creates barriers, either allowing friendlies to escape or trapping enemy units. The Colossus is a pillar of Protoss strategy, and when does it become the crazy death machine? When its range goes from 6 to 9. This means that the Gap the enemy has to overcome to attack it on the ground is enormous, and more importantly, they have to go through all your other units. These are just some simple ones. Think of the various patches in SC2′s history. What did they do early in Wings of Liberty’s lifetime when Zerg were struggling? They buffed Roach range by 1. That meant Roaches made a better concave and couldn’t be kited as easily. They could also hit Photon Cannons from behind building walls. RTS games lean on the Gap to make the units interact in interesting ways.
These are just some simple examples. The Gap exists across the board. But why bother to define it? Can’t we just be happy with the various terminologies that these games have for the Gap and be satisfied? Two reasons jump to mind. First is the idea of Asymmetry. Asymmetry has some broad meanings and some very specific ones. I’m going to argue in favor of asymmetric multi-player games. Asymmetric balance is incredibly difficult to pull off. Starcraft: Brood War was a phenomenon. It had three separate races that all managed to be unique and well balanced. Asymmetry is valuable because if executed properly it adds to the dynamism of the game, specifically as a way to capture your initial audience. The Gap is inherent asymmetry. It exists to confer a starting advantage to different pieces, leading to areas where some pieces are strong and other times weak. In whatever game you are playing, having room to explore and having games play out differently each time keeps people playing. Having your various pieces be strong in different situations gives lots of room to explore. League of Legends and other highly competitive games grow naturally from their fan base. The larger the number of people playing the game, the larger the scene around the game becomes. While asymmetry is not necessary for a good game, or for replay value, it adds a dynamic that symmetrical games can’t hope to have. The initial value of asymmetry is the “hook” that it provides. Letting players experience different match ups help them feel out limitations and strengths naturally.
Symmetrical games tend to feel like Rock, Paper, Scissors to beginners When everyone has access to the same options they feel how far behind the curve they are when they are starting out. This is problem tends to shrink as a player progresses, and even in symmetrical games the emergent asymmetry of the positions are usually the result of attempting to set up an artificial gap. Take a Terran mirror match in Starcraft. This is a symmetrical match up since both players start with the same resources and available strategies. However, as the game progresses, one player goes for Medivacs and another goes for bio backed up by tanks. This emergent asymmetry is a result of the players each trying to get into a position were they have a Gap over their opponent. The dropping player is trying to use his mobile force to stay away from reprisal, hitting in places and leaving before his opponent’s stronger force can react. The Tanking player is trying to set up positions where his tanks can do maximum damage without fear of his opponent being able to get to the tanks due to their massive range and damage.
However, the big reason to discuss the Gap in broad terms is because of how many decisions designers have to make surrounding it. Things that are almost invisible nowadays. Should a ranged character and a melee character do the same amount of damage with their autoattack? How fast should the characters move? Does turning happen instantly or is their some delay? How fast should attacks be? All of these decisions are predicated on the Gap. We expect melee characters to do more damage because they have to first close distance to do damage. We expect melee characters to have higher movement speed so they aren’t as easy to kite. Turing speed is an important aspect or many games because it reduces the effectiveness of kiting. Ghostcrawler and Morello have both talked about the “Arms race” between ranged and melee characters and this is exactly why. Finding a balance point for the Gap is difficult.
All of what I’ve presented should be fairly self-evident. Its just a formalization of a concept that’s been rattling around in the head anyone who plays games. The next bit is different. What is Crowd Control? It is a way to stop an opponent from taking action. The Gap as I defined it is when one player can attack another without the possibility of reprisal. Being stunned or otherwise controlled is an incarnation of the Gap. This is why crowd control is so powerful and difficult to balance. For melee characters it can even function as a traditional gapcloser and let them get right up on their opponent. This is part of what makes crowd control abilities so sought out. If you are behind a stun or root can let you have a moment when your opponent’s advantage is meaningless. CC gives you the option of coming back in situations where you are behind. It also lets you pick off people that are out of position.
The Gap is a core part of modern game design, but how far back does it go? How long have we been playing around the Gap? Well, the Gap is why basketball players tend to be the tallest around. That extra bit of height gives the taller player a zone where he can control the ball and not have the enemy be able to interfere. American Football is all about creating a Gap for wither your Quarterback or your Running Back. You have blockers and attackers. Chess is about setting up inequalities, spaces where you can attack and not suffer reprisals. The Gap can be seen at work in games throughout history.
One of the keys to understanding design is understanding the Gap. Looking for areas where the Gap is too large or too small. Seeing the space as an area alive with advantage and disadvantage.
Lef
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