How A Hidden Interaction Broke Magic: the Gathering 

The flavor behind Cascade was that the spell was causing an uncontrollable chain reaction. At that point in the story, all the shards (different worlds) of Alara were colliding with each other and causing all kinds of chaos, so Cascade was a way to represent that.

The Storm Scale is now the Companion Scale.

Just clearing a common misconception the storm scale refers to the likelyhood of a mechanic returning in standard, modern horizons or commander sets print storm everytime.

The irony of cascade/discover is that while higher numbers allows for better spells to be cast for free, it also introduces a lot of variance into what can be cast, which unintuitively also makes lower values for cascade/discover extremely good as the targets can be found with higher consistency. I love how the mechanic is good at both low values and high values.

13:50 The logic is that the suspend spells dont have a mana cost, so you cant cast them from your hand. Cascade lets you ignore the normal mana COST as long as you hit the right mana VALUE. Suspend isn't technically a necessary part of the interaction. So the connective tissue is that WotC uses the ruling that a card with no mana cost is considered to have a mana value of 0, which means they fit the rules of cascade. Tokens are also cards with no mana cost that are considered to have a mana value of zero. Flesh and Blood uses rules where, if a card doesnt have a cost, its just ineligible for effects that look for a certain cost, which is something WotC could do if they wanted.

In Alara they printed a counterspell for Cascade. It was called Double Negative and countered two spells on the stack. So your opponent casts the cascade spell the free spell goes on the stack and you could counter both spells.

Now that you mentioned Miracle it would be nice an episode about it. Really cool mechanic, at least on a feelings level.

The best part about cascade, and the reason for its name, is that one cascade spell can cascade into another cascade spell. Filling your deck with multiple cascade cards means you might cast your 6-drop cascade spell, cascade into your 4-drop cascade, then into a 3, then into another spell. Cascade first appeared in Alara Reborn a 100% multicolored set. Every cascade card was multicolored, making it a powerful reason to go all-in on 5 color in limited (and also subtly mana fixing by letting you cast from the library without the proper colors of mana)

Speaking of Cascade and un-costed spells, Urza’s Saga deliberately names the numbers 1 and 0 in the tutoring effect for exactly that reason, even though negative costed Magic cards do not exist. Technically, Lotus Bloom has no casting cost, so if it said “1 or less”, it would be able to tutor into play a Black Lotus, from your land base. By the laws of Magic the Gathering, nothing is a different integer than zero, despite also being less than 1. Or less than a half if we acknowledge Unglued for two seconds

Discover is a perfect example of how having restrictions on a mechanic provides design space. In a way, restrictions privide freedom to create. Keep up the good videos.

Another benefit of Discover over cascade is that discovery can trigger off of anything. It's not an on-cast thing like Cascade. This makes it weaker in that you can counter a card that discovers on ETB or resolution, but makes it stronger in that a permanent can repeatedly discover.

The thing about Alara standard was that you had Lorwyn-Shadowmoor at the same time with not only the filter lands, but also Reflecting Pool which synergized well with the Vivid lands cycle, giving you an untapped source that tapped for any color of mana. Going through old forum posts from that time, you see people complaining about turn 4 Cryptic Command, turn 5 Baneslayer Angel, turn 6 Cloudthresher which is honestly crazy

Hey, I love banding. Wish it were clearer, but it manipulates combat in such a rad way that has a great feeling of teamwork. Same reason why False Orders is never going to be reprinted; it's really hard to EXPLAIN.

The mana dork during Shards of Alara was Noble Heirarch

Also how Discover is different from Cascade: with Cascade you either cast the spell or (say if you cascaded into a spell that has no legal targets) have to shuffle it with other exiled cards. So you can brick with cascade. Discover lets you put exiled card into your hand, either if it doesn't have legal targets or if you just want to. So in a way you can't really brick with discover.

Looking forward to that suspend episode

0:00 ACKCHUALLY it was Alara Reborn

Makes you wonder why they didn't just make suspend the normal cost, and add a kicker that disables the suspend effect.

They had to change up Split cards due to cascade, too! People were cascading into two parts of a split card or choosing the more expensive of double faced cards despite only cascading into the lesser-costed one. The mechanic makes sense, but it has been abused.

10:25 I've never actually viewed banding in a way where it functions differently depending on if you attack or block. At its core, whether you are attacking or blocking, all that banding does is that you choose how damage is distributed to the creatures in your band.

5:22 propsal to rename cascade to "keep rollin rollin rollin"

Interesting this didn't touch on the more recent "hidden interaction that broke the game", being how it worked with modal dual-faced cards, and how they had to change the rules around it after Valki.

The problem with suspend being a "on cast" trigger would be it's interaction with storm.

i'm sure someone has already said this and idk if your explanation of why cascade works with the suspend cards is correct and weird or just wrong but a much simpler explanation is that permanents with no mana cost are considered to have cmc 0 this includes tokens that aren't copies of something with a mana cost lands and suspend only spell. so you can bypass the suspend because 0 < any other cmc this is why urza's saga specifically says it looks for cards with mana cost 0 or 1. As that looks at the cost printed on the card meaning you can't grab lotus bloom with it as while lotus bloom has cmc 0 the printed mana cost is N/A Cascade specifically says cmc less than itself so it can just find and cast these absurdly powerful suspend cards

The problem with cascade is very low interactivity coupled with 2/3 advantage mechanics. Mtg is broken into 3 main advantage points. Draw, mana, and board advantage. Most cards fall into just 1 out of the 3. The busted cards fall into more. But making a game mechanic where it inherently always does two with very cumbersome interaction on the stack, you create a really unfun game state. Especially when they staple this onto a commander who you have access to all game. I’m puzzled by the introduction of discover. During their livestream they even said they fixed cascade. Like who thought that needed fixing. The randomness is the only factor that brought it down to a balanced mechanic and they took that out. It’s busted and I consider this trifecta when designing card games. Don’t do two of the advantages in one keyword.

This is why I play Whirlwind Denial in some of my decks. Really versatile for simultaneous spells/triggers

The difficulty behind Suspend vs Cascade is that they both exile the card, then cast it from exile.

Cascade or the ability so good that it changed the ways MDFCs functioned. Discover, because occasionally hitting duds while cascading needed to be "fixed". They are fun abilities but so degenerate when actually built around. They seem to design these mechanics around the value random cascade but the fact that Geological Appraiser is banned in pioneer makes it feel like they didn't quite understand that players want the consistent degenerate cascade.

Yes that's very cool and all but is it kicker or is it horsemanship?

Can anybody explain why in modern horizons 3, there is nearly no "at the beginning of your upkeep" and many cards say "at the beginning of your precombat main phase". Why do it at the start of a main phase, if there is a specific phase for start of turn effects?

I absolutely love suspend and I don't even Cascade into it it's just a fun additional thing to throw people off

Suspend feels like two mechanics. One where a card has a delayed cast, and one where it's cast cheaper later. A keyword ability having 2 costs is sort of strange in Magic (I think the only other keywords with that are Awaken and Reinforce?) and it makes it harder to read. Delayed cast: Suspend X _(Rather than cast this card from your hand, exile it with X time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it.)_ Cheaper later: Suspend [cost] _(Rather than cast this card from your hand, exile it. Cast it on a later turn for its suspend cost.)_ ...which is basically Plot, but you pay the cost later instead of up front. Cards with either of those mechanics would have to have a normal mana cost, which would make Cascade function perfectly fine.

Would be very cool to hear your guys' thoughts on Miracle in more detail, because is it a super powerful mechanic? Not really. Its unreliable, it only triggers (at maximum) once each turn, and its actively pretty bad early on in the game. But is it a GOOD mechanic? It absolutely can be- the feeling of topdecking a sweeper at a key moment or a game ending Bonfire feels truly magical, like a higher power gave you a helping hand in your time of need. But, if you're greedy and jam too many miracles in your deck, it will suck. I think its very cool mechanic anyway.

To me taking the resource aspect of magic that is a very critical aspect of it, and then giving any leeway to cheat is just... never gonna work. I've wondered how magic plays with no cheating aspects, so no discount spells, no rituals, no nada and see how it plays, the obvious exception being green search spells for basics and that eliminates a lot of modern stuff that would include delve and such and its kinda crazy how little times you are actually paying the 'balanced' number at the top right of the card corner.

some kinda mana-dork, how about the 1 mana planeswalker

"Without paying its mana cost" should not be printed on anything.

Suspend is Plot with extra steps.. and a lot more baggage on it.

Wait but that’s not why violent outburst was banned unless I’m misunderstanding

"It's very crunchy..." ? What is this? I like these videos but a lot of this stuff is esoteric

I feel clickbaited... And it's not a good feeling. You didn't really explain how it "broke" magic...

Do a video on banding, you cowards! 😅 I have joked in the past that banding is a great example for game designers of how a "simple" and "easy" concept in a game can spiral out of control.

Cascade does not apease my inner Vorthos. Its flavorless.

First. Great vids.

The fact that what you cascade into is so random and unrestricted, makes me find in very bland and boring. If "goodstuff piles" were a mechanism, they'd all be cascade

worth mentioning that a 7 on the storm scale is "not likely to return, but possible if the right environment comes along." in this context id say a set where the theme of discovery combined with an improved design for the mechanic fit the spirit of being "the right environment." anything 5 or less is basically a "yes id like this to come back" so 7 rlly isnt that bad.

I like you guys, but sadly i find myself a little disappointed in the depth of some of these. Like, you talk about the interaction of cascade and certain suspend cards, but you barely analyze the game further than explaining the interaction. For example, there's a lot of rich space for deck building when considering cascade. There's also a lot to be said about how control type gameplay is both disadvantaged by opponents using cascade, while not being able to effectively utilize it themselves. I'd also like to hear about how cascade actually plays in different formats and what the implicit design of cascade cards say about the designers expectations and assumptions of the mechanic. In addition, the interaction between the uncastable suspend cards and cascade is I think a clear example of a design mistake, and you both fail to analyze the interaction of those design elements past explaining the interaction. It could have been a great teaching moment but the opportunity was completely missed.

idk if theres any discover x cards yet but that would b sick

“Broke” 🙄 so tired of this word being overused by bad players