The Mechanic That "Fixed" Magic's Most Broken Cards
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2024
- An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss the Suspend mechanic and how it sought to fix Magic's most broken cards only to create a new way to break them.
Hosts:
Forrest Imel forrestimel.com/
Gavin Valentine www.gavinvalentinedesign.com/
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Thumbnail Artwork: Aeon Chronicler by Dan Dos Santos - เกม
Plot and foretell bug me because they have the wrong names. Foretell is supposed to be a prophecy something known to come to pass… Plot is sneaky plans and schemes… ForeTELL is face down, Plot is face up
Plot is supposed to be the villain doing his villain speech in front of the protag in the movie. "HAHA LOOK WHAT I'M GONNA DO NOW AND THEN OTHER THINGS HAHA" but if the protag is lucky the villain fails before the plans come to pass. Foretell is a prophecy that is vague and interpretable. It's face down because you know "something" is coming but you don't know what exactly. In limited there was a fairly limited number of foretell cards so one could reasonably predict what this can be and try to play around it, but it's almost never a certainty - just like characters in myths trying to act against prophecies and failing or succeeding (= outsmarting gods), both viable themes in the Norse myth.
This is what I've been saying!
This is so true and pisses me off every time I read those keywords. Especially without the reminder text. They are totally backwards!
Remember, almost everything that is good in magic is counterintuitive.
Which is why the company embracing commander has ruined the
Format
@@isambo400 blaming edh for powercreep unrelated to edh is dumb and cringe
Yawn get a real opinion @@isambo400
this is inevitable in a game in which the devs try to balance things with downsides, some of the most powerful cards will be the ones where the downside isnt as bad as they though
@@sablesaltit reminds me of commentators complaining that t/20 was ruining cricket.
Most suspend cards have a normal mana cost. Only a handful of them don’t, they’re just over-represented because the interaction with cascade makes those suspend cards stronger. The suspend mechanic itself is actually pretty weak, because it gets worse as the game goes longer, and because your opponent sees the suspended spell coming and has several turns to prepare for it. So, the only suspend spells that really see competitive play are the ones you can cheat in without having to actually suspend.
Agreed. When Modern was a smaller format, you'd see cards like Search for Tomorrow. You'll still see cards like Riftwing Cloudskate in Cubes or Commander decks. The way Suspend works on most Suspend cards is a lot like kicker where there's a trade-off between mana cost and use early or late. Suspend just plays with the timing a bit more, in that you'll be paying for the effect ahead of receiving the effect.
Rift Bolt has seen a bunch of competitive play.
Yeah, I wish they had made them all with normal costs and just made them prohibitively expensive (like 8 or 9 mana draw 3 cards or something like that). Would have fixed the cascade/0 mana value issue, but also would have made the suspend cards okay-ish to draw super late (like, still pretty terrible, but better haha)
Yep, I remember before Alara block, the suspend mechanic was interesting but those spells weren't nearly as highly valued.
Plot seems like it was designed to go with the "when you cast your second spell" effects which is why it doesn't need to have Haste.
The fact that it is always a 1 turn delay means that the build up is less.
I think suspend haste was because the effect to took long to happen.
being able to hold a plot in your pocket, red having plot haste granters, effects on plotting. and so on means that plot doesn't need haste built in to feel good to use.
There were also two mechanics which were sudo-reverse suspend mechanic :) Vanishing, and Fading. It made You remove counters from permanent until it finally went to graveyard.
Echo is basically Vanishing 1 with an upside
@@zym6687 Hmm...Almost true, but: You can Proliferate the Time Counters, and you cannot do this with Echo. :)
there's also cumulative upkeep which is similar
Magic is actually shifting away from designing things you need to remember. Many new cards are triggering at the end of your turn instead or at the beginning of your precombat main phase (which is a mouthful).
Another one I’ve been seeing is power creeping the design of triggers to happen at the beginning of combat. Effectively giving you immediate benefit of the card after you play it on the same turn.
Back in the day, you would have to wait till your next turn upkeep to get the effect. This was done to give the opposing player a chance to respond to your play. But today MTG feels that you should pack instant speed interaction to do that now. Or just get the new cards that can be cast for free from hand with alternate costs.
Ultimately it’s speeding the game up and giving instant gratification. The depth of play is still there but we are edging real close to yugioh problems in some play patterns being so fast.
To some credit, playing a card precombat limits what you are holding for combat tricks, giving your opponent an easier time appraising the game state.
It's kind of like Addendum, in a way.
For sure. The feel of the game has changed significantly as its original systems are subverted. My gut tells me this is in service of game length targets for mobile.
Upkeep triggers make the ability to flash stuff in much stronger, because you don't even have to wait for a turn cycle to get value.
I think we do see more ETB/attack triggers, because they generate some advantage if you do it once, but require you attempt to end the game if you want to get more advantage.
Time spiral block was one of my favorite when I was younger and a huge reason I played MTG for so long. Suspend, Colorshifted cards like Damnation, Tarmogoyf, They really set the stage for what I think of when I think of the modern format, even if the Modern Horizons sets has changed pretty much everything I loved about modern.
Tombstalker, Teferi, the pacts. It was an amazing block and the novels weren't dogshit (still not the best but AAA tier compared to current writing)
Not being able to cast some of the suspend cards normally is so cool in concept, but it comes with so many issues. I'd love a middle ground between Plot and Suspend where I can choose when to cast after the last counter comes off, on top of always being able to cast normally (even as an overcosted effect).
They did an amazing job with Jhoira, Aeon Chronicler and Errant Ephemeron-like creatures, though.
What is really interesting to me is the play between turns and mana spent. The suspend cards feel like they would be balanced if you added their suspend value to their suspend cost(ancestral recall isn't broken at 4U, and neither is black lotus at 3). In addition, another card game I play called night in the woods has a mechanic where you choose a number of turns to wait before you get an effect, and the effect gets better the more turns you wait.
So what I think might be cool is a mechanic where you can pay less generic mana for a card in exchange for waiting that many turns. So you can recreate these suspend cards, like: 4U draw three cards, timetwist(or whatever the mechanic is), and you can go from that to Suspend 4: U. So it always comes out turn 5, but just with more warning.
imo if you don't want people to do something, you can just put a prohibitive cost on it, like lotus bloom for 4 or 5, that's more interesting because it sometimes allows for creative workarounds without going "you can't do that cause I said so." it's "you don't want to do that cause it's bad."
@@AndrewS-vu4ji you could just make it "you can exile this card from your hand, if it is in exile at your upkeep add a counter on it, it costs 1 less per counter." though both versions prevent color shenanigans, like a ubwgr card with a fortell cost of 5 generic or something.
This is such a good channel. I am so delighted to have found people who share as much designer DNA with me as you guys.
"Oh players can forget about this mechanic, hence it is bad!"
Sas that to a 20 year MtG Veteran sometimes tapping their creature with vigilance as it attacks...
This conversation around suspend/plot and haste fundamentally misunderstands the utility of Plot - the point is not to have to wait for a payoff, the point is that it lets you play on-curve and punish control decks. The creature not having haste is the tax you pay for being able to hold up a creature in exile and dodge both hand-hate and wipes.
It's also a way to overwhelm midrange decks that love holding up early removal, making it so they need to choose between adding to the board or holding up their removal turn after turn, risking wasting their mana. It's also a sneaky way to introduce player to player interaction, not traditional interaction like 1 for 1 removal or hand hate, but like a game of chicken, where the plotter is risking showing their game plan, with a potentially huge turn to swing the game in their favor. I really like plot, and I hope it comes back in the near future.
How many plot cards are actually designed like that though?
@@Ninjamanhammer Any card with a plot cost of 4 or less I would say. Anything more than 4 gets really clunky, and even 4 is pushing it. 2-3 is the sweet spot, with 1 needing to be very carefully designed. There are good playable 4 cost plot cards in draft, not as many for constructed. I think it's a great mechanic.
@@CanadianBaconPwnage They're still mostly designed around getting more value when you plot them, right?
@@Ninjamanhammer Sure, but that doesn't mean they weren't designed to work as @andrewseaman9913 explained as well. Also, some of the cards, like Slickshot Showoff, perfectly exemplify Andrew's point: it has no additional value for plotting. There's also the 3/3 green creature thats costs 2G that lets you draw a card if you control a 4 power creature, and it has no additional value for plotting, and doesn't have haste. The plotting is just there for set up, and it's an excellent limited card.
Theros already has a system for fortunetelling, in the form of scrying. They had so many cards that cost extra to scry and even Keranos, God of Storms leads the scry mechanic by directing which effect you get from Keranos (extra draw or 3 damage). It's possible that Foretell could come to Theros, but I like the separation on mechanics between planes like how Adventures are from DND and Eldraine (a mix of Foretell and split cards), Amonket and Aftermath (mix of split cards and Flashback).
The storm scale is only for standard legal sets (hence why they've printed more cards with storm in supplemental sets)
Suspend is a really fun mechanic and I do enjoy seeing different iterations that try to fix it. Suspend itself has had many variations itself though. This includes a cycle that did something when a counter was removed and a cycle that cast itself and was resuspended immediately after. I do think Foretell and Plot should be reversed a little, as others have mentioned. It's a flavor fail to have plotting be face up... And foretelling face down seems wrong as well. Great coverage of the topic
2 or 3 turns on Rift Bolt? Try 1 turn, bro.
My bestie used to play a lil magic with us when out playgroup was big, but when the Dr Who decks came out he bought them all n got really into the game n has updated the suspend deck to have the jeskai coloured resuspend spells from Time Spiral. He basically soft locks us with Chromatic Escape n the activated ability of The Tenth Doctor, n once he gets Inspiring Refrain out n someone has 7 cards in hand, he goes infinite with time travel n if someone has 8 cards in hand then he also goes infinite on red mana
I wonder if a solution to the 0 mana value problem is to just slap an overcosted mana cost onto the cards, for example, making Ancestral Vision a 6 or 7 mana card. While it would ruin the flavour of the card, I'm sure that this sort of jank would probably work to "fix" the weird interaction that cascade/discover have with the suspend free spells.
Or just add a line saying "{CARDNAME} can't be cast unless it was suspended."
drawing three cards is five mana though
Here’s my take on a Suspend like keyword.
“Keyword” (X): you may reduce this cards mana cost by (X) any number of times. If you reduce this cards mana cost in this way, exile it with a number of “counter” equal to the number of times you reduced this cards mana cost in that way. At the beginning of each of your upkeeps remove 1 “counter” from this card. On the turn you remove the last “counter” from this card you may cast it from exile without paying its mana cost.
This honestly has one of the same issues that makes wizards struggle to balance suspend. Turns have an exponential cost and anything above 3 is incredibly slow.
What do you think about an ability where you add counters instead while it's in exile, you may cast it on your upkeep, and when you cast the card you get a kickerX like ability?
Not only was suspend was brought back for the Dr Who set but "Time Travel" was also invented as a mechanic to interact with it.
That whole set was.... interesting. A "universes beyond" set which in theory is supposed to be an introductory product for new players to get into the game, and yet those decks have some of the most complex interactions I've ever seen in a precon. I feel like I've earned a doctorate every time I get a win out of Paradox Power. (pun intended)
Great point. I feel like the pre-cons are a confusing product. As you mentioned, they are very complex as an introductory product, but also need to attract an enfranchised player. I wonder what WOTC is thinking as far as new player acquisition. I guess they think arena and/or friends that already play will fill in the gaps?
@@distractionmakers Which is extra ironic because last I heard, UB products weren't in arena for copyright reasons. So that leaves ONLY other friends who play magic.
@@simplegarak Yes, they are not in arena
Thanks, @danielmarhuenda. It has been awhile since I played Arena but I didn't recall earlier UB in it.
I haven't finished watching the video yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you point out the existence of Cascading makes these Suspend cards from a downside into an upside.
But imo, turning downsides into upsides (via relatively intuitive rules) is what makes Magic unique and interesting to me. The Pacts have a downside, but Hive Mind makes them an upside. Fleshbag Marauder forcing *you* to sac a creature is a downside for an edict effect, unless you pack your deck with death triggers/Grave Pact-esque effects. Hell, I'm sure the first guy to realize "The fact that Wrath of God kills my creatures doesn't matter if I don't play any creatures" was having a good time.
Using deckbuilding and gameplay to not just nullify the downside, but flip them on their head, is a core tenet of magic. So I think the Suspend cards were a resounding success; they reimplemented "nerfed" versions of iconic classics, but clever players managed to invert those downsides a few years later.
I would agree with you in most cases. However, I think the interaction with cascade is particularly powerful because not only does it subvert suspend it also ensures you get exactly the card you’ve built your deck to combo into. When an interaction has led to a banning that’s when I question it.
I have bought the doctor who suspend deck. So many things on suspend. It was hard for both me and opponents what was on board.
In competitive magic you don't see that. It is really unusual to have more than 2 stuff on suspend unless you have drawn terribly.
I love time spiral. I started playing magic between cold snap and time spiral when that originally came out. I continue to buy time spiral remastered so that I can get some suspend cards to throw into all of the decks that I make just to make them fun. It's such a fantastic use of I want something busted but I might want to pause on when I deliver that busted nonsense. I promise anyone that has the coin to pick up an entire box of time spiral remastered to draft with their friends they will have an absolute blast. For all the fanfare that people have for the tarkir block this is absolutely just as much fun if not more fun.
Are there any suspend cards in Arena? Never seen one, now that you've mentioned it..
But it is the same situation with "Adventures". Physically, placed on top of an "adventure" token card.. but in Arena, they remain on exile besides your Hand, much like Plotted cards.
Good point… I was thinking about Magic online haha.
Yeah actually MOST suspend cards have a regular value you can pay to play them normally. Doing a quick check, out of 70 total cards with suspend, only 14 have no mana cost. The rest all have normal prices you can pay to get their effects right away.
They even made "The Face of Boe" in the Dr Who set which is kind of a "suspend" commander, allowing you to insta play any suspend card for its suspend cost.
I went and did a more thorough search, expecting to find that all of those cards were printed after Time Spiral, but even in that set, the majority of suspend cards had normal casting costs.
I want them to bring back cumulative upkeep and maybe give me inverted suspend, ie spell gets stronger the longer its in exile.
I don't like suspend as a mechanic because I'm an inpatient person lol. I want my stuff NOW. 😅
Foretell. Plot. Bet you don’t like those either 😂
@@draftmagicagain1000 yeah... 😆
Why not just make it so that suspend-only cards are given "uncastable" so they can only be played as intended but not off of cascade? Does some other part of the rules break if you do this?
Hmm well, at a glance, I think the issue would be with how they interact with the stack. The mechanic is already pretty heavy in terms of complexity and then you’d be adding another complication of how they are cast without being cast. At the time this was much more rare as we have a lot more cards that are “cast” through an ability like the kamigawa lands and evoke elementals now.
@@distractionmakers just use yugiho's "can't be cast other than by using suspend" or the line that is on a few magic cards "if this spell is cast other than by removing a time counter, counter it"
they could make it a mana cost thing like [mechanic] in the mana cost with the implicit rule of counter if the mechanic isn't used to cast it.
Its me, im the somebody who loves doctor who, I've already headcannoned obeka as a companion
Someone lse said this, but: Fortell and Plot, as mechanics, should have thier names swapped.
Removing a counter from suspend cards is not a may. If you forget, you must go back and remove the counters. This is part of maintaining board state and all players forfeit the game if the game state isn’t maintained.
I think the video is missing a part , you forgot to explain why it makes commander bad
Oh right. You have to wait 3 times longer for your suspend spell to resolve. 😆
I like suspend as a way to make great cards fair, but they went way to far on the number of counters, so most of the cards are unplayable unless you have a way to cast them for "free". Cascade isn't free. You are just paying ~3 mana for a random effect upfront.
I love suspend, but hate UB :(
If someone laughed at me and said I can't do my suspend triggers in a casual game of magic, they wouldn't find the body. Don't be that asshole.
I asked my Commander group about the various “exile zones” in one’s board state when Plot was revealed, and whether they were all the same exile. Some cards care about exile, so I wondered if each is in a different place between it, Foretell, Suspend, and regular exile. And I like to use the zone tokens but you don’t have to, so it becomes tougher for an opponent to tell what’s going on.
All exile is the same exile, either face up or down. So I think an eldrazi that takes opponent cards from exile and puts into graveyard could intercept a suspend. But I don't actually know that, it just seems the most straightforward and fair to me
And in case anyone has a mirror match with a suspend if you have a deck with proliferate. you can proliferate the suspend counters which would be an absolute headache. At the same time they are just counters so there are ways to remove counters.
No you cannot, suspended cards are in exile and are not permanents, and as per proliferate's description:
You choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then give each another counter of a kind already there
@@user-ir1rs7jq6u Correct. You can proliferate time counters on permanents with vanishing (or that accrue them in other ways), though.
@@user-ir1rs7jq6u I stand corrected as we might have been doing it wrong for a while lol
Suspend is not a "may" ability. You can't "forget" to do suspend and "miss" removing a counter.