Ravnica Allegiance - What are you thoughts on mechanics?

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

With Ravnica Allegiance knocking at the door in paper magic and all five paper mechanics spoiled, what are your thoughts on the MTGPQ translations of these mechanics?

Paper version

  1. Afterlife N (When this creature dies, create N 1/1 white and black Spirit creature token(s) with flying.)
  2. Adapt N (If this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put N +1/+1 counter(s) on it.)
  3. Spectacle (You may cast this spell for its spectacle cost rather than its mana cost if an opponent lost life this turn.)
  4. Riot (This creature enters the battlefield with your choice of a +1/+1 counter or haste.)
  5. Addendum - If you cast this spell during your main phase, [note: Addendum is an ability word so it has no implicit rulings attached to it]

Personally I can see Afterlife as a rather easy translations:

  • Afterlife N - When this creature dies, create N 1/1 white and black Spirit creature tokens with flying (same as paper)

Adapt and Spectacle could easily follow Ixalan implementations:

  • Adapt N (Activate 1: If this creature is not buffed, it gets +N/+N)
  • Spectacle - trigger condition similar to Raid, except it checks for opponent having received damage the past turn

Riot is going to be interesting because in paper magic it’s a choice that needs to be automated in PQ.
My guess on this:
Riot N - This creature has haste. When this creature is reinforced, it gets +N/+N.
But plain buff doesn’t make it very interesting when compared to adapt - the two mechanics end up being very very similar.

Finally, I’m really really curious what they can make out of Addendum, given the current limited implementation of Flash.
Will they give all Addendum cards flash too, or will they come with some much more MTGPQ-specific? Because flash is very limited in PQ, I see people casting these cards on their turn most of the times anyway.
I have no realistic ideas here.

Looking forward to your ideas and thoughts on the topic.

2

Tilwin, can you edit your post to include the paper descriptions of each?

3

@Wyrven
Done, thanks for the suggestion :smile:

4

I think Addendum could work like that card that costs less on your opponent’s turn (but the opposite).
Give them all flash but different effects on your turn (like in paper). I’d say lower cost on your turn, but that would make it pretty much impossible to cast with flash.

Riot will probably be based on board state. If there are X or more red/green gems you get haste, if less you get buff. Not saying that’s ideal, but its probably easiest.

5

Riot could be a simple prompt on ETB. “Creature gains haste: Cancel / Confirm”. If declined it gets a buff instead.

Addendum could be awkward, but I guess they could just go the stored mana route with it (store a little extra mana for an added effect).

6

See other thread for similar speculation. https://forums.505go.com/discussion/76628/new-mechanics-in-ravnica-allegiance-speculation

My thoughts are there, but additional ones since I’ve seen more of the set spoilers:

Spectacle’s effects are a mixed bag: some are buffs, some are extra effects, some are mana discounts, etc. It really will depend on how they want to implement. They could take the straightforward path and make it a trigger condition or a gem/board state, or they could go the “intended” route and make it similar to a Converge mechanic using collected past damage, or Undergrowth where the basis is the same (creatures in graveyard) but the effect is variable.

Before the choice menu for Surveil was implemented, I would have thought the board state would have been how they implement Riot. Since we do have the menu available, I’m still not discounting an either/or option to choose between the haste or buff. I also like James’s idea above of a simple “give haste” prompt with a buff if declined.

At first I thought Addendum would need a flip-card style approach, but I’m now no longer sure how best it might work. The difficulty is that it’s an anti-flash mechanic, in that the extra benefit comes when casting during your turn, whereas flash is an add-on for the opponent’s turn. Like Spectacle, Addendum’s benefits aren’t just mana decreases, some do functionally different/extra things when cast during your turn. It’s entirely possible that it’s just a straight implementation with flash and a behind-the-scenes check of whose turn it is to get the extra benefit listed as text, similar to cards that have effects on end of turn/opponent’s turn/next turn.

7

Personally if I were Oktagon, given how awkward it can be to play Flash cards, I would have reworked Addendum completely into something like: “If this is the first card you cast during your turn, gain extra effects”. It’s still awkward, I admit, but at least since too many cards are played during your turn anyway in this game (as in, many instants in paper Magic become sorcery here), it may be more beneficial to ditch the “if you play this instant as sorcery” kind of deal.

For the rest:

Afterlife - Either kept the same with number tweaks (as in, Afterlife 1 becomes Afterlife 2 etc), or completely reworked into something like Servos: 1-shield token supports that give your first creature +1/+1 and flying… which on a second thought, may not be a good idea.

Spectacle - Agree on the implementation based on Raid.

Riot - One thing for sure, we can’t allow this the same as paper Magic; If several Riot cards are cast at once, then we’ll choose buff on all but one, resulting in a fat hasty beater. And let’s not consider the potential horror if we can give Riot to tokens: March of the Multitudes becomes 23/23 lifelink haste, which is absurd.
Admittedly I don’t have a good idea…

Adapt - Maybe something like Activate X: If this creature is not buffed, drain mana and give this creature +X/+X or so. May not be too interesting or usable, though, admittedly… Or I dunno… Maybe something extremely radical/complicated such as: “Activate: If you don’t have a support with the same name as this creature, create a Support with: Your creature with that name gets +X/+X”, a.k.a., something of a limited version of Voja. That way, like in paper Magic where it is possible to re-adapt once you remove all of a creature’s counters, you can also re-adapt if the support blows up.

8

I actually think that the new mechanics are a mixed blessing, they are needed to avoid the game to become stale. On the other hand implementing them correctly seems to be more work than actual worth, at least for some mechanics.

I would like to see more reuse and revitalisation of existing mechanics once in a while.

Having gotten that off my chest, here are my comments to the mechanics.

Afterlife is a simple conversion, they could make it similar to embalm, so on death N activation gems are created and need to be popped before the spirit token appear. The token exist already, though I think the current spirit token is only white.

Adapt is also simple, but I would propose it was a ETB effect which could then be hampered by disable effects, but still work once after enabling the creature.

Spectacle N - maybe I’m being negative but as the paper version stands I predict that this mechanic is not working on release. Isn’t there a timing issue here? Will I be able to cast spells after my creatures have attacked? Or do the wording have to be changed to last turn damage?
My alternative would be cost - X, where X = damaged dealt to the opponent to a maximum of N this turn/last turn.

Riot - I think that choosing between haste or one reinforcement would be better, since reinforcement are needed for other shenanigans in previous sets. (Similar to @James13 proposal above) This limits the size of creatures with Riot - possibly, but I think that this will enable smaller common and uncommon to retain their usefulness for quite a while.

Comment on @Tilwin90 suggestion, in my opinion way to powerful if this is done every time a riot creature is reinforced, or else it will only be mythics creatures that have this effect (possibly puny 1/1 creatures to begin with). As I read your suggestion not a fan.

Addendum could just be any effect on the card, but I have no solid proposal on this mechanic.