Design Trends We LOVE | EDHRECast 310 

A subtle design change I've been appreciating is that a lot of cards that create treasure tokens have them coming in tapped so that you can't immediately take advantage of them.

14:38 as someone who enjoys building mono color decks, I love seeing more color pips in a casting cost. Nykthos goes ham with them and you get effects that are so uniquely that color. One of my favorites is Cavalier of Flame in my Neheb the Eternal deck

I would like to sum up this episode as, "We like cards that take Magic in a simpler, more traditional direction." Sorcery speed, encourages combat, triggers once per turn, slower mana rocks, bigger commanders, mono-colored decks... it just sounds like you want to play more casual, less pushed MTG, and I couldn't agree more.

One thing I've seen that I'm not sure is a trend but I like anyway is lower CMC commanders being restrictive in the colours needed to cast them. We've had a lot of 3CMC legends lately that are just one of each Mardu colour to cast, or one of each Naya, etc. It means you can't just plop down a Sol Ring on turn 1 and guarantee a turn 2 commander.

I appreciate sorcery speed being a way to control a powerful ability we would otherwise never see printed on a card. I personally don't think playing at sorcery speed creates more interesting decisions compared to playing at instant speed, I think the exact opposite, but I still enjoy playing with cards designed this way.

I really like them doing more of “combat damage to a player” text, it rewards attacking and spreading damage around so games move forward but no one gets targeted as fast

Gala Greeters and Ledger Shredder are multi-format stars even with the restriction. I think my favorite new design is Firemane Commando, where you get a card for attacking with 2+ creatures, and your opponents also get a card for attacking (not you) with 2+ creatures.

My electric toothbrush makes a noise that sounds just like the first note of your intro music. You guys literally live rent free my head.

Absolutely agree on the "triggers once each turn" restriction. The amount of people I saw who thought that the new Gisa, the Hellraiser card was useless when it was first spoiled because her crime ability only triggers once each turn was baffling to me. Like, if she didn't have the once per turn restriction she would immediately go infinite with at least 4 or 5 different cards. I wonder how different they would feel the first time they got hit with infinite mill with Altar of Dementia, or had their hands stripped apart with Sadistic Hypnotist

I do like the mono color support. My favorite set (all of Zendikar block) loved to reward mono color, and I appreciate mechanics and support that encourage me to reduce from 3 color decks to 2 or even 1. I especially like how they design the support so it only suggests being mono colored instead of requiring it. A 2 color deck could use Throne of Eldraine or Scepter of Eternal Glory, but mono color decks get to use them more efficiently.

I want to talk about the Sorcery Speed and the Once per Turn" clauses. In some cards, they are necessary to prevent them from going crazy, combo off too easily or making the strategy they are in too broken. The Tenth Doctor's activated ability is completely understandable at Sorcery Speed. So far I understand it and share your thoughts. Just as it happens with the "Once per Turn" clause. But there are other cards, like the new Olivia, where I disagree. When what you need to activate an ability is several resources (in this case sacrificing two treasures and paying three mana) to only put two +1/+1 counters on all your creatures, it feels deficient at Sorcery Speed. That's my problem with a lot of "Once per Turn" or "Sorcery Speed". Some cards need it for cutting power creep, but others are made worse for no reason. Another thing I'm not liking at all is that, instead of analyzing card by card (because Commander has been the most popular format and the reason why so many products have been released for at least 5 years), the new cards they release for the Commander format specifically, like the Precons, are usually limited in a stupid and boring way. Wizards is catching the trend of "if you want it to be more than once per turn" or "if you want it to activate at instant speed" it has to cost five or more mana. And that's laziness when it comes to design. The card Old Gnawbone is just the perfect example of this. They talk about how Professional Facebreaker is a much more moderate version, but come on, it cost three, while the dragon cost seven. Ofc is going to be nerfed. They are both good cards (Facebreaker being amazing) but they cannot be compared by any means.

tapped treasure tokens is definitely a positive change in design for me atleast

small correction at 40:00, back when returning to the command zone was a replacement effect rather than a state based action, Elenda players weren't worried about having Elenda bojuka bogged, that would just return her to their command zone again. The real fear was having your reanimation spells countered, leaving her stuck in the graveyard

Printing a few more cards like Tale's End and Tishana's Tidebinder- especially outside of blue- would be another solution to activated and triggered abilities getting out of control.

The reason I dislike once per turn is because so many of them were placed in white cards and playing boros or mono white back then before wotc decided to let white have less horrible card advantage. It was tough back then.

I will say, I don't mind commanders that can 'solve' themselves, although inefficiently. Like Slimefoot the stowaway. It deals damage whenever a saproling dies, and you can pay 4 colorless to make one, but ultimately your gonna want to find better ways to make saprolings.

Mandate of peace is an amazing challenge! I found it a few months ago and its been an absolute bomb. Especially since my buddy's Ulamog has been the bane of my existence.

I agree completely with your take on the partner mechanic. I'm holding out hope that there will eventually be some 2 color backgrounds and background commanders.

One thing thats nice about the once per turn abilities is that it allows more flexibility for design. You can put abilities to print with a lot less playtesting and worrying that youre putting out a game-breaker.

I've been a fan of Wizards pumping the breaks by making more Treasure tokens come in to play tapped. Seems like that was the whole point of switching from Gold to Treasure but hey! Now they're finally using that lever.

Love to see the positive twist on last weeks topic! Understanding the flaws in things can be important but I like the things I like because of what is done well, not because I love talking about their weaknesses.

Personally, I like the *once per turn* clause as someone who used to play Yugioh a lot. Though, there is a caveat to that. I want them to use it more sparingly than yugioh does. Specifically for the *really* powerful and flashy effects. This type of restriction can be really stifling and hurt the game in the long run if they overdo it.

I think any time Anzrag is mentioned its interaction with Xenagos, God of Revels should be mentioned. Xenagos increases Anzrag's power and toughness by X at the start of every combat where X is Anzrag's power (and gives it haste). It can hit astronomic power levels more or less instantly if it can force blocks. Even if you can't force a block it's 16 commander damage to someone's face from just the Xenagos boost.

Halt and Catch Fire was amazing!

I use Mandate of Peace a lot because i can cast it after damage during combat, and then go off in MP2

R-E-S-P-E-C-T the positivity!

my challenge the stats today is Skittering Cicada in kadena slinking sorcerer showing up in 32% of her decks, and honestly that's far too many as it doesn't do what people think it does. It is a 2/2 colorless insect for 3 with flash, that grants flash to your colorless spells which works fine, but the second half of the card says that "Whenever you cast a colorless spell, until end of turn, Skittering Cicada gains trample and +X/+X, where X is that card's mana value." but the problem is that morph, manifest, and cloak card have 0 mana value while face down, and when you go to cast them in that manner they enter the stack face down as well. so the Skittering Cicada only gets trample and +0/+0, not the amount of mana used to morph/cloak/manifest the card. I have seen people try to use it as a cheep option to Urza's Liberator, but that's just not how the card works.

I just wish "the ability only triggers once per turn" could be retconned onto so many previous cards. I 100% agree that loops and infinites would not be missed, like mosquitoes.

My problem with once per turn is that the restriction comes at the end of the ability description, which turns the description into a feels bad the first time you read it. E.g. "here's this really cool ability, oh by the way it only happens once". If the templating had the once per turn limitation at the start with the "when X happens" text, the expectations as you read it would be managed a lot better. It'd also make handling that trigger a lot easier because you wouldn't miss that last line of "only triggers once".

Big YES to iterative design, taking concepts and responding to feedback with changes that make for more interesting/enjoyable gameplay

Man, I felt so awkward when Joey called out Matt’s challenge. Matt did a good job of just letting it go

Color restrcitions are great, its why i play jegantha c9mpanion in my jodah the unifier deck. And i also love the once per turn restrcition when its like "do the thing x times but only once per turn" al la Adrix and nev twin casters

Stinging study is a bomb in my Spirit of the Night deck!

I unfortunately feel like there are a lot more recent design trends I dislike than ones I like. I suppose what I can give them credit for is doing a good job at exploring new ground - there's not a lot of new commanders that is just "x commander but better", they are still finding unique and interesting niches.

Commanders that dont solve themselves immediately made me think of Chishiro. He gives out 1/1 counters but the creature has to be modified in another way first. Where as my replacement commander Aaragorn with his renown ability just lets you put 1/1 counters almost immediately

I do really like the 3 mana rocks too we got in precons in the past.... I am really excited what the green one will be 😁

Mandate of Peace also works as a counter spell. If someone during combat tries to flash in a blocker or remove a creature of yours you can cast Mandate in response and since it ends the phase, the yet-to-resolve spells all get exiled and never resolve!

I just knew Dana would bring up Elenda when talking about non-flowchart commanders, I used to have an Elenda deck that started out at a Brawl deck, and I loved having to get crafty with getting Elenda from the gy in order to get the dies trigger, I still play the deck as though I can’t send her to the command zone because it’s just so much more fun that way

Hi, it’s me, the one person besides Dana who has seen Halt and Catch Fire and loved the reference.

I they need to be careful with "activate only as a sorcery" qualifier and not make it an overgrown trend. It is nice when the other players have the ability to interact. Sure an instant speed ability is stronger and thus would cost more mana and be a bit slower, but generally that gives the other players more agency during my turn. There are times when only as a sorcery is very important Basilisk Gate could have cost 3 mana and been instant speed but Conduit of Worlds needed to be sorcery speed. So it is a good design tool, but let's be careful with when we encourage vs discourage interactive gameplay. Edit: "It's not reducing interaction". YES it is. On my turn my opponents can only interact at instant speed. If their Royal Assassin was sorcery speed only, it would not count as interaction on my turn. Sometimes the reduced interaction is a reasonable cost to make some other part of that card's gameplay more fun, but I enjoy the other players being able to do thematic actions at instant speed.

I've been a huge proponent for 2 mana rocks being better, but lately have been choicing some specific 3-mana rocks like Chromatic Lantern in certain decks, or a new maybe-favorite Patriar's Seal

They are doing very well with 3 mana rocks. I think Worn Powerstone was the only 3 mana rock in any of my decks before this year. I can think of 3 others that have made my lists this year.

I agree wholeheartedly wit the first bit, the "once per turn" bit. As a cEDH player who also plays higher power casual, I am HAPPY to see these types of limitations because even though my general power level is higher than most of the casual pods, I don't think everything needs to be broken...

Firstly: Very nice to see you focusing on the positive things in the game. Secondly: Dana absolutely nailing it from 6:21.

My Xavier Sal deck is my favorite deck and part of the reason is the restriction bc it makes me have to get more creative with how I interact with my opponents turns

I think I'd like the "only once per turn" effects more if they were a bit impactful to really warrant the drawback. Like if instead of getting a +1/+1 counter, its TWO +1/+1 counters. Something that would be busted even triggering 2-3x a turn, but as a one-off is still worth trying for. Maybe even add an "during your turn" clause for the highest impact ones as well.

Anzrag has 54% include of Dolmen Gate, but bubble matrix is only in 5% of decks. Pair anzrag with bubble matrix and any way to assign combat damage as though you aren't blocked and you win the game.

Any card which makes a home for multiple mechanics under one umbrella is super interesting to me. Doc Aurlock recently is a great example of that.

Little do people know that Dana's deck that has 4 basics of thr same color is a mono-colored deck

I would love to see more conditional "partner", for instance "Partner woth a Sphinx" or "Partner with and artifact creature" (obviously, a legendary one)

I hadn't heard of Vish Kal before, saw the art and immediately thought it was Oloro Ageless Ascetic 😅

I just can't believe there's another human being who watched Halt and Catch Fire. I felt so alone for so long lol

For high cmc commanders in green check out majestic genesis, good card in my progenitus might work for yall

"Once per turn"-restrictions are an incredibly double-edged sword in my opinion. On the one hand, I understand the need to restrict abilities that are too powerful or too easily abused, but on the other hand, playing lots of cards with that restriction can really feel like you're never really getting anything going while everybody around you is popping off. It feels very "stop-start-y" while also being a restriction that comes a bit late with so many strong cards lacking one. If I'm drawing a single extra card per turn with Welcoming Vampire I might feel like that's a fair restriction until the Tatyova player casts Reshape the Earth and draws 10 cards like also ramping 10 times. Then, I might curse the lack of such restrictions on pretty much all landfall cards, but I might also feel a little bad about the restriction of my vampire. And yes, that might be an extreme example, but even just Explosive Vegetation is quite silly in landfall decks. There are also cards where I genuinely don't understand why that restriction was neccessary. A great recent example is Vadmir, New Blood. If a player manages to go on a crime spree with that card in play, they now have a huge lifelinking menace beater that doesn't have any protection, nor haste or stronger evasion. I highly doubt most people would call that busted because it still requires quite a bit of set-up for that pay-off.

With how ubiqutous and cheap good mana fixing has become (you don't even NEED fetches and shocklands to play 5-color), it feels to me that double pip-manacosts are still not really making a card hard to cast in, say any 3-color deck. Depends of course, what the overall mana value of a card is. A RR-card that you want to cast early will be harder to cast most of the time thatn a 6RR late game bomb, when you possibly also have treasures to work with. I'd really enjoy way more strong tripple-pip cards at mana value four and above. They're still comparatively easy to cast in dual color decks. I have four Rhystic Studies because I've been playing magic for a long time and I bought a playset of these for like a buck about 20 years ago. I'd still not play this in any tripple color deck containing blue because it's just so stupidly strong without any downside.

Tapped Treasure Tokens. Yes, it's still making treasures, but it's now tempered and those can't be used right away. Still experimenting with Eminence. I know the majority of players would prefer we never see Eminence again, and I understand where they're coming from, but I still say that the mechanic can be made to work and be balanced if done properly. Much like how they continue to iterate on Partner, I'm happy they haven't abandoned Eminence completely.

On the note of Anzrag…pair him with General Marhault Elsdragon. For every creature that blocks Anzrag, he gets +3/+3.

every time a card gets spoiled, i just see people complain if it has a 'limit once per turn' or 'only as a sorcery' but i agree that it's a lot better to have that. it's very much in the same vein as a commander that combos with itself. thinking of for example the new 'commit a crime' mechanic in Thunder Junction and how if these abilities did NOT have a once per turn limit, they would very easily go infinite with so many cards. i also like the new Saddle mechanic being sorcery only. the new Gitrog for example that only triggers with it does combat damage. you have to very much telegraph what you're trying to do and force your opponents to interact with it, and they'll know exactly which creature is getting sent to the bin

Anything that helps with cognitive overload is great. Triggers once a turn may be feel like a downside, but losing because you missed a trigger is the worst.

I really dislike the sorcery speed activation limitation. I get you find it interesting that youre restricted and have to make decisions during your turn. But I think the complexity instat speed brings is the fun part.

I liked original Partner, but Dana nailed the problem with its original implementation: some of the specific cards that were given Partner were too generically designed. Perhaps ironically, that generic quality was why I wasn’t very interested in brewing Partner decks back when they first came out. I wanted both Partners to be relevant for their abilities, not just their colors, and I wanted them to push me in a certain direction. There were only a couple combinations that met that criteria for me, and even most of those didn’t really pan out once I actually started brewing. In my opinion, Commander Legends was the height of the “character arc” Matt mentioned, because it gave us the best part of Partner (the creative flexibility) at max level while keeping things in check by putting it on much more narrow designs. Backgrounds & Doctor’s Companions were mechanically fine and very flavorful, but they’re still limiting in a way that’s slightly off-putting to me. I would like to see more generic Partner in the fashion of Commander Legends. And don’t ever bring back Partner With.

One of the things that annoys me about Sorcery Speed is it’s at the end of the ability. I rather they start with it “Payment: Only as a sorcery, do a thing”

I genuinely think we need more ‘bad’ cards. Like objectively awful such as leveller or just more underpowered cards. Making the weird cards that aren’t pure upside work is a big part of the charm of commander for me

I think the two things WotC prints to make a card go from interesting to boring is: “Activate only as a Sorcery.” and “once each turn.” If they wanted something to trigger once per turn, make it a TAP ability, then you could at least have more ways to build. For sorcery speed, the problem is that those commanders just can’t compete with tier 1 commanders, which in my opinion makes them less fun. I used to play a Willowdusk deck until I played a game against a Witherbloom deck, and that’s when I realized that Willowdusk was just bad. I took the deck apart shamefully because it just couldn’t compete. Imposing restrictions makes the game less fun, I mean just look at the whole concept of Stax.

Counter point. Color pips are easy on convoke spells.

I love when you have good things on a commander that you need to tap to use like svella not like kinnan

I do like Cloudkill when it comes to black commanders with high mana value.

Love Dana's challenge, one of the best fogs

Yeah, I also tend to avoid commanders that do to much all by themselves. It's why I didn't build a Tom Bombadil saga deck and instead built an Atraxa, Preator's Voice Saga deck.

I don’t mind once per turn, but i loathe only as a sorcery. Would rather it say only on your turn.

On Mandate of peace: IT could also be a "counterspells" for boardwipes. Because loovk at their Hand and i am going to wipe the Board, i might AS Well Swing in first

I can't agree more with this particular topic. I have sent long, long emails to Mark Rosewater per the state of design for principles just like this. Clearly WotC can put these principles into place, they just choose not to in the more egregious examples (e.g., the Scarab God compared to its two partners in crime). It brings the game more in line with something like Vampire: Rivals (highly recommended, from Renegade Games). This game stands out in that you only have two (main) Actions per turn, with minor actions added on individual cards; effects are discrete and limited; effects are sorcery-speed only; and effects are once per turn. Those above constraints are probably too much for the game, but a liberal helping of "sorcery speed only", "the first time each turn", "tap to activate", "when this attacks", and other speedbumps in the way of engines / combos make the game much more interesting and interactive. Probably the biggest single thing they could do is make a new blanket rule affecting the whole game: Activated and Triggered abilities can only trigger, at most, 3 times in a player's turn. This count "follows around" the card between zones, so that you can't cycle a Black Cat using Food tokens more than 3 times (or 6 times with two Black Cats). The exception to this rule would have to be any Storm effects specifically, otherwise they just don't function. I'm perfectly serious when I say that the above rule would make the game *far* more interactive and *far* more enjoyable for most people. You could still build and engine, but infinite engines would be gone, or require more cogs in play or more turns to win a game.

yes, no loops is a great rule for casual

Ok so we have phyrexian mana that makes it more accessable. What if we had another type of mana that could only be paid by a basic land. Mby put a gold ring around the symbol to denote it.

I must say the restriction of activating only as a sorcory apears a bit to often or its added together with other restrictions. And than you have the option to play either the other card, that is better in all ways and does combo very easy or the one, that has multiple restrictions stacked on, and makes feelbad moments for just beeing or feeling like a bad card .... i like the option of playing cards, that don't go infinit or not as easy, but if they are just worse in multiple ways .. Difficult .... And when you have a commander with a tap ability, sure that might be a powerful one, but allready that is a hefty houp to jump through 😕

Challenge the stats suggestion: Sauron’s Ransom in Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, only 19 decks out of 5k

i also love commanders that don't solve themselves. voja for example doesn't make it's own elves and that's why i find it to be way more interesting to build, because of the constraint.

Loved the episode! Buuutt vou brought up Willowdusk as a good example how "activate only as a sorcery" was used well. And I have to disagree with that. As a self- identifying Golgari, I hate how dirty they did a card with such an amazing potential. If it could put the counters on itself or it could be activated as an instant, but only on my turn, or maybe gave it significantly better stats, or it would be a triggered ablity so you don't have to wait for a turn until it did anything, probably, but so... sorry, it just isn't quite good enough. As opposed to Osgir, for example, which is even from the same set.

@edhrecast Anzrag has been huge im my forced blockers deck headed by sir marhault elsdragon

40:42 Master Biomancer?

I agree on rewarding Mono colored cards and making three mana rocks more interesting, but most of this video just seems to be. I like that they're making weak bad cards Sometimes cards need only once per turn or only as a sorcery but I like combat tricks, And I like sacrificing 50 creatures for 50 card's worth of value. What's the point of sacrificing 10 creatures to only get one value?

I'm in the process of intentionally nerfing my Edgar deck so I can play more interesting higher CMC vampires for fun 😅 the Rakdos vamp lord is maybe a better fit for this but i like edgar

It’s webbin time

Half the cards that say once per turn should just tap as a result of triggering instead

On the first topic I very much dislike that design style unless it's on a common or uncommon but on a mythic or rare card it just takes away a lot of the desire and value of pulling that hard to get card when it does something good but only 1 time and now you gotta wait to do it again. I'm fine when the wait is due to the effects cost but when it's just a time restriction placed on the card just to force it, it just makes the card not worth the work to use it.

Matt "No Ragrets" Morgan

I don't think more color pips is really that hard to cast these days in most decks but it is especially easy in 5 color decks with all the support wotc has printed for color-fixing heck Omnath Locus of All is a color pip commander, turn 0 you can have leyline of the Guildpact, crop rotation gets you your world tree. 5 color decks really don't care about pip restrictions at all

I agree with most of the points in this video except for the "once a turn" at the beginning. When i see a triggered ability, i salivate at the thought of figuring out how to break it. I think the once per turn clause is a bandaid for triggers that are too easy to trigger. These kind of abilities should just trigger at the start of a phase if they want it once per turn. At upkeep if they want to make sure its not triggered the same turn, at combat if its buff related, or at end step. And if they do want to limit these easy to trigger abilities, they could also make you pay a cost to get the effect on trigger like 1 mana or 1 life. Stapling on "this ability triggers once per turn" is lazy design and should be investigated. Unless its an ability that youre meant to trigger on your opponents turns in which case its fine.

I feel like active as a sorcery and only once each turn are things we need despite most players hating these words

that comment was on top for a reason, guys. hope you can get out of it soon if possible.

It's funny you mentioned Edgar Markov at 8:30 I run Ur-Dragon and I place the limitations that eminence only reduces the cost of the first dragon I play on my turn, and for the attack trigger I either draw cards or put down a permanent, I'm not allowed to do both... makes it feel a lot less threatening.

I liked what Matt was going for with his challenge the stats, for Anzrag but I would like to suggest an alternative... Way to get your opponents blockers out of the way. Long ago when Magic was still young and damage still used the stack in tempest was printed a card called 'Elven Warhounds' put a lure affect on it and make your opponents never want to play with you again... Yes it happens before damage! XD

I’m really glad you guys made this video because I feel like so much of the discussion around card design is soooo negative and I personally feel that a lot of modern card design is very good

What? No "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" for Aretha?

Once-per-turn restrictions and aggressively banning infinite combos saved Yu-Gi-Oh about a decade ago. Now, the game's still got some severe problems, but OPT restrictions and not having every game decided by who can assemble an instant-win button the fastest are not among them. Generally I like the two games for very different reasons and don't want them to converge toward one another, but I think on at least this one aspect Magic *really* needs to learn from its younger sibling.

I really like the trigger only once a turn... not so much for the speed bump, but also it adds another level to the puzzle.

The “once per turn” cards exist just so we can break them. It’s soooo satisfying

I like the once per turn stuff as well that is why I play Rule of Law. It makes it so everyone can one play spells once per turn.

I dislike the "This Triggers Only Once Per Turn" qualifier. Most of the time the ability could have had a mana tax and be left unbounded. Consider "Copy an instant/sorcery you cast. This triggers only once per turn" vs "Pay UR to copy an instant/sorcery you cast". There are times when the once per turn clause is useful, but usually a mana price would be a better design since the mana price also caps it but allows it to be a couple times per turn. On the other hand I am biased, Riku of the Two Reflections was my first commander and remains my most played current commander.

$20 says this video gets less views than the "ones we hate" video because people love drama (but I'm here to boost this one algorithmically with this comment to help combat that)