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inventors-fair · 11 months ago

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Split Precedent Commentary: In the Aftermath

[NB: Any spelling errors or off-the-cuff-isms are the result of a 2AM writathon that I should've finished much earlier. Always take language—not specifically mine, but language as a concept—with a grain of salt. You think I proofread any of this? It's the rambling of a mad person.]

There's something to be said for a week where I lay out the exact precedents I'm looking for, and the rails still end up getting rocked. Would this have been a good week to do examples? Honestly, we used to have those all the time, but as it happened examples just felt more self-indulgent and often had their own caveats. Oh, what am I saying? Some of the awkward wording was my own fault, and in the end none of it matters. Or maybe it does. I'm split! I'm spilt. I'm my own milk and my own cookies, desperately holding together even as betterment tears me apart.

Speaking of betterment, I'm writing this after I've said it a hundred times down below, but we really didn't need flavor text for any card this week. At all. None of the split cards got 'em and I was hoping to give folks a week off. Y'know? Instead, well... I think sometimes renders end up being a little too gospel. But when you're looking at printed precedent to design your cards, it helps to know what you need.

That's what I want this week's takeaway to be, I think: know what's being asked of you, and study what's come before. Everyone here is remarkably clever, I hope you know. Yes, you. You're a Magic player. You're clever by default. Just...don't be too clever for your own good. Nobody here was asked to reinvent anything, and yet, there were off-split, off-rarity'd, off-whatevered cards here and there that make me realize... I probably wasn't clear enough. I mean, that's it, right? Just what happens. And there were a couple good cards that came out of it. None that won, but like, a couple cool cards are indeed cool.

I'm gonna be up at the counter today so I won't have time to check in, but ping on Discord if you have questions and I'll get back to you. And also, check out some Judge Picks for cards that I wanted to highlight in the commentary.

@bergdg — Plug & Chug

(For anyone curious, Berg and I talked about the nature of this card in the contest and precedent and whatever, so we're just gonna go with it as-is because I can't be bothered to be as iron-fisted as I have been in the past) Anyway. I feel that we're edging more into MHX territory here. Not opposed! My main concern with the cards is mostly with flavor. Mechanically, yeah, quite reasonable to have fun with Plug even as some alternate chain-of-nonsense burn spell with cards like Virtue of Courage. Season of the Bold does give precedent to the fact that Plug should be the card dealing damage, though. I could've sworn I've seen that somewhere else but the Season is actually the only one with that specific wording. Who'da thunk.

Really though, what is the flavor of "Plug" as a verb? I think this speaks less to your abilities as a card namer and more to the fairly limited nature of this contest when it comes to folks talking about, like, connected names in general. They used up all the best ones, and as a result WotC had to resort to the cool but odd GRN/RNA names. Maybe it's about plugging things in? And "Chug" is the more mechanical chugging-along kind of flavor? Maybe there are less incongruous names, but whatever. IMO, Chug could've been blue to fit the nature of this contest, or you could've made it an instant and knocked off fuse for the MH2 split, without too much suffering. For what it's worth, though, on its own merits, this card's 90% solid concept and a great insight into mechanical cohesion with this prompt.

@bowtochris — Escape // Escalate

What a nightmare of a card to deal with. Just to be clear—I assume that this was supposed to be uncommon or rare? One of those slippy-through-the-crack things; I'll give you some benefit of the doubt but I've got my eye on you. I think that I'll get one really minor thing out of the way first, and it's less nitpick than it is question—what's up with how the Azorius do their thing, dawg. In "Escalate," I mean—I'd expect that name from the Boros, and at the same time I have to wonder about their aggression. But also, Martial Law is a thing, and they do have soldiers.

Perhaps vigilance could be used instead of the +1/+1, but I dunno if that would've made a difference, because either way it's one hell of a card. Serious blowout territory. That's the way to beat through the opposition when you're in some kind of stalemate. Evade when you can, and then mass-evade when you can't. Yeah, this is a finisher—I'll say that this should be rare. Even Escape is a fine enough card. At rare, I kinda expect that it can target something besides just one of your own creatures, but at uncommon, Escalate would be a wee bit too strong... Tough stance, but it's making me think, and most importantly, it's making me want to play this card. Seriously cool thinker here. And you know what? Maybe it's not just Azorius stuff! Why's it gotta be Ravnica? Besides precedent, but that aside, who's the name the escalation?

@corporalotherbear — Doomed to Repeat

What an awesome card that I totally didn't forget to save when scouring the inbox! Ahem. Do you know the band Los Campesinos!, emo Brit-rock stuff? That's all I can think of when I see "Doomed," and I think I doomed myself here. There's minor precedent stuff that I can whinge about later but this one is my own fault. And it's your opponent's fault that they played a massive creature only for you to control the board and smash it to pieces. As long as they don't have a small one that they can sacrifice instead. But as a post-combat card, this is a fun one, innit? Aggression is also fun here—get your swings in turns 3+ and then find something big to mess around with later.

I think this card's fairly versatile depending on the color you pair it with in limited. If you want to run this as a simple mono-black piece of goodstuff in casual or commander or whatever, then all the more power to you. You could even see this in a decent Standard brew, format-dependent! But anyway: white can use tokens as fodder, blue can mill/surveil and bounce your opponents' cards for best sacrifice strategies, red can sink its teeth in and then swing through a clearer board, and green has the best creatures to get back in the late game. I won't say that this card is breaking new ground, but it's breaking some cool usage of Aftermath enough for me to give it a thumbs-up.

@curiooftheheart — Read 'Em & Weep

Sometimes when the precedent is eschewed, I found it to be understandable both from an interpretation standpoint and from a design standpoint. Here, the lack of monocolor fuse-cards as precedent would've lent itself to possible acceptance, but I'm not sold on either the concept or the execution. The mechanics of Read 'Em are almost always going to put you at a disadvantage unless you're doing some serious looting, but sure, control decks could use that. For 2UUU, the effect to loot and give a temporary Hysterical Blindness-style effect... It feels like a lot of investment for a trick that only seems designed to work when fused.

There's this feeling that both cards have to work together in order to reach their potential, a ham-fisted amalgam determined to fit the world allowed by the name, as opposed to a concept under the name that fits into the best of what fuse-cards want: independently good effects that synergize well if the situation/resources allow. Weep (which should be worded like Roilmage's Trick, IMO) is far too situational unless you're practically mono-blue. I find myself coming back to the whole world, though, and I wish that you'd gone for...anything that wasn't literal, honestly. It doesn't fit into the cheating aspect presented, and being "blindsided" is usually the action that happens when one is reading the cards, right? The creative investment ends up feeling like a "get it?" at the end of a joke, and as such loses its merit in the face of its potential.

@dimestoretajic — Odds & Ends

When you made/submitted this card, did you know that there's already a split card with this name? I mean, I can't really knock it against you, there are only so many options. So I won't! What I'll say instead is that I'm also going to pretend that this is a rare because (in commentary order) it's ignoring the precedent rule as an uncommon. As I'm writing this, I made a post about it; because it's more than one person who's oops'd it, probably my bad.

Mechanics! Mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. "Ends" is an interesting one; I believe that cards like Slight Malfunction or maybe Galvanic Discharge need to be utilized here? Either choosing the target needs to happen first, or it needs to be some kind of trigger—probably the former. It's still a mediocre killspell as it stands, IMO. And almost all the time, Odds would be less of its own card and more of a kicker for Ends. It serves next to no purpose by itself, which would be fine if you're deep in the dice-sauce, but each of the minute family of cards that've done this before has done it either cheaper or better (see Barbarian Class, Pixie Guide, Wyll). It could be just UR for a cost. Is that enough for the intended limited?

What I'm trying to say is that this card really has to struggle to justify itself in a sea of better options, and what that reflects is perhaps less of a niche cohesion than intended. The name would've been pretty perfect, sure. That's just not enough. When considering these effects, it behooves you to look at past precedent and ask not just what the ceiling is, but also the floor. Where would this card land in a draft deck, in casual commander, in a strange homebrew? There's a lot of love for die-rolling fun, that's for sure. Stacked against the cards that run those effects, this one ends up being the odd one out.

@grornt — Bait & Switch (JUDGE PICK)

Anyway, you're mean. You're very mean. I feel the almost Oko-osity of this card here, but not just because of the food token. What's especially clever is the usage of independent names that tell their own story, and then bam, together you've got a recipe for disaster. In limited, you can eke out a little victory even without making the food token and snag a bombastic beater that you let go in pack two. In commander, which was definitely thought of here, you have the element of controlled chaos. This card was definitely worded with a lot of love behind the thought process, and I appreciate that immensely.

I guess I still can't get over how weak Bait is, heh. There's this semi-unspoken knowledge that halves of split cards have to be slightly underpowered versions of equal effects for the cost, but at the same time, a little variety wouldn't go amiss. What's even the archetype for it, y'know? Let's get off of Ravnica and think about other worlds, or even just a [format] Horizons set. I feel that you could've maybe scried, even? It could play into "setting a trap" thematically, and then as a turn-one play it could feel impactful independently. Right now, it's slightly off-kilter in favor of "mediocre without fusing," and that's a little harsh, I know, but with a card this polished and a history of good decisions like yours, I'm gonna encourage you to push the envelope one metaphorical inch further. And a little to the left. Right there, on that totally-innocent giant X painted into the floor. Now, just stand still for a moment...

@horsecrash — Exceed // Expectations

Welcome to Jerktown, population me: the cards from GRN/RNA had the first three letters the same, not just the first two. Unless it was a conscious decision to ignore that, in which case your license to visit Jerktown's embassy has been revoked and... I'm not going to use "jerk" as a verb here. Anyway. This card meets expectations fairly well otherwise, I'd say. Clean, crisp, and a severely disappointing rare. Honestly, I'd say that this a perfectly fine uncommon, and I'd've been rather happy to see it in that slot. Was the rare side because of complexity with countering abilities? I guess I can see that. And also, why was the card draw stapled to the counter and not its own line?

These are small potatoes being thrown at a giant frog, though. Exceed is a pretty awesome combat trick and I like how you can give reach in blue-brid and still have it feel normal. Hexproof as a combat trick is always more powerful than it seems. Countering stuff for four mana doesn't always feel as nice, especially if it's just a tax, but the draw almost makes it feel worthwhile, doesn't it? In my opinion, you could've had a five-mana Voidslime+[effect] and that would've definitely exceeded my expectations. Maybe it could've been a nice slimy "Exc-" name... Excrete lol. Good lord, I'm exhausted.

@hypexion — Protect // Promote

Why flavor text on these cards? Genuine question—because it's never appeared on split cards before, mostly. Have I become that much of a stickler, or is it just a random afterthought, and I'm reading too much into it? It's a decent piece of worldbuilding, if not Hemmingway. I don't think it's necessary in the context, though; saying that it's a Brokers card would've been enough for me. As it stands, it's as Broker as a card in that vein can get, and I'm happy to slap some seal of approval on it. "Protect" as a previous split card does dampen that a little, but I think yours is definitely more notable.

The cantrip is an excellent nod to how aggressive these decks want to be in the early game, and honestly, Promote is really aggressive all things considered, if you know when to use it. Pop it off too early and you won't have anyone to promote. But maybe you do need the extra damage and the shield counter just isn't cutting it, yea? Either way—the counters are there. That's all that the Brokers are about no matter what they're doing, and you've made that crystal clear. This card demonstrates some solid limited thoughts to how these effects tell the player when they're supposed to be used. IMO, it's possible that Promote could've been one more mana and given team vigilance or something, but that's a minor addition to a solid base.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Questions & Answers

With a heavy heart, I must inform you that this also just barely misses precedent by having different card types on the halves. While I'm whapping you with a miniature newspaper, I think that I have questions about how to build this deck. There's some really interesting stuff happening here, mostly in the sense that the tempo and control sides of zombies are rearing their heads. Investigating towards a long-term goal is how Questions is telling you to operate in the early game, and if you've got a mana sink then it becomes a really, really, really bad Divination. Which is fine! Answers really is only one answer, but making folks sacrifice nonland permanents is a real pain in the butt, especially if you're out-tempoing the control players.

And yeah, there's this image if someone getting the answers they need, but the thing about split cards is that there's less of a story at hand and more of a dichotomy to be explored, y'know? What are the halves of this coin? I'm not totally opposed to the flavorful direction; what I'm saying is that my mind wants to see them operate in that space of differences as opposed to continuation. And what deck wants to see these cards pop off? I feel that you're mostly going to use Questions, because card draw over turns is still decent even when compared to instant cardification. Answers is a unique effect that's got me asking more questions, honestly—like the integrity of a Zombies deck that can reanimate via SOI/EMN effects, perhaps. This is a card where I wanna see people play with it first because, well, I do have quite a few questions.

@melancholia-ennui — Wither & Bloom

I think that there's a gulf between these cards that I'd like more information on, if you've got it, because it feels like I'm not seeing something. The destruction is totally fine for a modal-ish rare, and Bloom is also a great blowout card. What do they do together? For 2BGGW, you get to destroy a nonland permanent and populate. Is that enough? Pumping a zillion mana into this card could get you some destruction, but there's the argument you have to make of whether or not the effect is worth it. With something like Flesh & Blood, you can make a big creature, or deal damage, OR for more mana make the creature big before dealing damage. Same with Beck & Call, where eight mana gets you four fliers and some card draw on top.

So what could this have been synergistically? I think that Bloom is the real problem here, because as much as X-spells on Fuse cards is an awesome idea, the keyword is a wee bit clunky and honestly, there's more draw for me towards Wither. What I'm thinking is that you can use a card like Morbid Bloom as precedent—e.g. "Exile up to one card from a graveyard. Create X 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens, where X is that card's mana value." Something like that, yeah? But if you wanted to do an X-spell, I think that you could come up with a weird idea to go along with it. Oh! Maybe it's: "Exile up to X cards from graveyards, then create a number of 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens equal to the number of card types from among cards in exile." ... That's a little verbose, but you see what I mean.

@misterstingyjack — Swords to Plowshares (JUDGE PICK)

I bet you think you're sooooo clever, don't you. Well...yeah, you kinda are, I like this card. I also think that you overcosted Plowshares by a lot. It's a cantrip that can, in many circumstances, end up doing nothing unless you have an extra land to play and/or a token to create. It's Explore plus Wake the Reflections—I'd max it out at four and it could even be 2G if you really wanted to push it. It would take up your full turns two and three to use it, and it wouldn't get too much on the board, so I honestly don't think it's that bad. Regardless! Swords is a great Raise the Alarm style of card to go with this, so that's all good.

Flavor is pretty awesome, too. My more hopeful interpretation is that there was some clash between two rivals/enemies that eventually led to peace and prosperity in the land. Maybe they even got married! Or, depending on the setting in which you want to place this card, you've got some defenders triumphing over an invading foe, and later they can turn a defended land into a homeland. This card invites a lot of generally wonderful feelings, and with how Aftermath cards can tell a story, I'll say that you knocked it out of the park. Just gotta tweak a couple numbers. For anyone reading this, I wanna know in the replies: how would you interpret this timeline?

@partytimesdeluxe — Hot & Heavy

I never know how to feel when people get really weird with these cards. Full rules text make this sort of situation not-exactly-possible, but is it really IMpossible? It's weird! It's weird and I wish it was weird in a way that wasn't grokable, because we're in the Valley of Magic Design, and it's something that plagues custom designers more often than not.

Lemme explain. On the one hand, if you were to throw this into the file of a premier set, it wouldn't see the light of day. Split cards and Overload both introduce their own manner of complexity that doesn't lend to reading well on one single card. On the other hand, if you were to show this card to someone who's more familiar with the ins and outs of Magic, someone with a penchant for Horizons-style sets, then they instantly get it and appreciate the build. And if you show this to someone designing for a Horizons-style set...they're gonna ask you where it fits in, and there really isn't a good answer.

It's not just the niche of this particular card as a sideboard-only piece. One has to ask: why make this a split card in the first place? Both of them are perfectly reasonable as single cards, and even printable with a couple random quirks as-is. Overload is a versatile and super-sweet mechanic. But what deck is in need of having both of these pieces there with such complex inner workings? There isn't a reasonable enough answer. Again, in pure design terms, having this in sideboard arsenals is a neat design concept, and is still grokable. It also eschews context, which is ultimately its downfall. It's a difficult vibe to contend with, but an important one to keep in mind.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Accept & Deny

If I'm not mistaken, Deny should be worded like Memory Lapse, right? Or are we okay with doing shorthanded stuff these days? I know that Commit/Memory puts spells in places, so it's probably fine, but at the same time it's worth checking. Maybe it would squish that flavor text somewhere else—like on a different card, perhaps. That's a lotta text on one card, Batman! Really, genuinely and truly—one of my first thoughts this week was that people wouldn't have to come up with flavor text if they didn't want to. Alas, though. The card as it stands is getting a stamp of approval from me, for the most part.

I wonder if the folks back in the Dissention era tried to play supermulticolor decks based on these cards and combinations. Was there a three-color draft meta back then? Was the mana good enough? With this card, you could make Accept-ing a creature into a great combat trick or just an extra bit of assurance if you're at parity, and if you're not, then Deny can throw all that stuff right back at them and stall for the turn. Selesnya players might not appreciate the countermagic as much as Azorius players might appreciate the buff, if I have to split hairs about guild gameplay. But what do I know, I draft nonsense. This card feels like a mid-2000's throwback in a good way. What else is there to say? Besides the above critiques, I mean.

@stupidstupidratcreatures — In It to Win It (JUDGE PICK)

I am deeply sorry for not capitalizing the "I" in "Win It" down there. Hopefully, that means you are equally sorry about not adding a rarity to your card. I've assumed based on my massive intellect and handsome face-thing that this is probably okay as an uncommon. Combat tricks to board presence? Yeah, no, that all makes sense. This card feels like one that can help you win out of nowhere, but the setup for it asks a lot of your deck. If you haven't built up that much power, it's a bit of a bugbear, but there's nothing that a little mummy power can't help fix.

God, this card was real close to being sad in retrospect. Y'know? Facing one of the eternalized jerkwad zombies is no easy feat, but this initiate is really gunning for it. I think that it's really awesome that you've chosen to go for the hopeful future effect, where the aftermath is that this person's survival is allowing them to perhaps lead the charge to whatever victory that they're going for. Having "Win It" be the name of a card might be a little on the nose—but, yadda yadda, restrictions and creativity. This card also shows black's willingness and resolve in a positive manner, which is a definite plus. Gameplay-wise, protecting one for the board charge later is a perfectly reasonable way to go about a tempo plan. I'm down for it!

@tanknspank — Sword & Board

One of the benefits to having split cards in a set is, despite their initial apparent complexity, they're actually quite simple cards to grasp. The text is usually minimal, but the combined effects and/or the contrasting themes are what grips the player when reading. These two cards have a lot of text that are almost certainly better utilized on either two different cards or one simplified card with Entwine or something. Small text boxes are the devil's playthings, and that devil has tiny little hands that make it hard to see what he's doing properly, I tell you what.

If this was, like, Horizons territory? I'm right there with you and yeah, I grok it. My groking has nothing to do with the size of the text; I have relatively youthful eyes and a whole lot of time adjusted to staring at screens, so yay for me. Still, Flesh & Blood is the closest precedent, and even then, there's no fuse card with that many lines of text—for a reason. I feel that that should've told you that this idea was a little wobbly to execute as it was. I have faith that you could make a cool thematically relevant card with it, though, and in the end this set of cards is pretty cool and comes at a good cost. It's just asking a lot from the eyes and brains of its players, and I don't believe it currently holds up with the sheer amount of stuff on it.

@wildcardgamez — Build to Last

Mom? Can you come pick me up? They're putting flavor text on Aftermath cards now. ... Yes, I'll hold. ... While we're waiting, I want to ask about what kind of environment you envisioned where this card would be a viable rare. Amonkhet's artifact theme was... There wasn't a specific archetypal artifact theme in either AKH or HOU, so let's start with that. Was there a reason that the Wall token that you create with Build isn't itself an artifact? What's the purpose of that in conversation with Last? This could've been an interesting uncommon in some ways, but here we are with a situational strangeness.

I'm honestly really confused about what your thoughts and expectations were with this card and its environment. The storytelling about indestructible walls to protect the city isn't unheard of. The disconnect between the Wall being built and the indestructibility aspect is still baffling. How exactly did you expect players to connect the story synergy if there's no mechanical synergy? Last is, on the whole, a situational card in a set where no situation has called for it yet, attached to a card that itself invokes the situation without actually playing a role in what the card ostensibly wants to convey. As a rare, it lacks verve, and as a design, it lacks cohesion. I feel that this one could've used a lot more shaping up before settling on this version.

@xenobladexfan — Fight God or Die Trying

Isn't the usual saying "get rich or die trying?" I haven't used the phrase myself since, uh, ever, but I also haven't seen it since the early 2000s or whatever. What you've got here is a card that certainly has text on it. Heh, I kid—you acknowledged in the submission that Fight God is a card that is asking a lot of leeway. What I can actually say is that 1) your art skills are exactly the kind of thing that helps us see what's supposed to be happening and I appreciate it greatly, and 2) there's actually merit to what this card is asking.

Imagine this: "Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control if the creature you don't control has greater mana value." Eh? See what I'm putting down? Maybe it's not a god, but hey, if my Squire wants to pick a godly fight with a Chittering Rat he's calling God, then all the more power to him. There are ways of going about using Die Trying as a real card, and the wording that you've used is pretty decent as well. I don't think you necessarily need to have "creature" in the Fight God text? Pretty sure that only creatures can legally fight, so. All the same: I'm willing to meet you halfway on this. Respecting the grind.

That's all we've got. Tune in next week for the sound of grinding, gnashing, and whooping. And perhaps more joy to come than we could ever know. Until tomorrow...

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #split precedent contest

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