Hey everyone. This is Scott from the top four of the Great Designer Search 3.
In this series of articles I give some thoughts on Magic card design from an outsider’s perspective.
If you enjoy going into way too much detail over the minutiae of Magic card design, and imagining what alternatives/future versions could look like, then definitely read on.
And hey, during the period between my last article and now, one of the cards I made during the competition made it to print… kind of! So that’s neat.
Innistrad Midnight Hunt just recently released, and I’d like to give some thoughts on the set.
Before we get into it though, it needs to be said upfront that, like most modern Magic sets, overall, almost everything looks great. There are tons of fun cards, new mechanics, flavorful designs, and I can’t wait to try it out in draft.
However, making Magic cards is more of an art than a science, and there’s always room for debate. So today I want to look two of the main mechanics from the set and give some thoughts on them, starting with:
#1. Daybound/Nightbound
The new take on the Werewolf transform mechanic is the headliner for the set, and it brings with it a lot of pros and cons.
At first glance, a card like Bird Admirer is simple enough, and it looks almost identical to the previous Werewolf mechanic, just with a flavorful name. So far so good.
But then, a question: what if it’s night and you play a new creature with Daybound?
For example, does Harvesttide Infiltrator enter the battlefield normally or transformed if it’s night?
As anyone who’s read the rules on how Daybound/Nightbound knows, the correct answer is it enters the battlefield transformed on its Nightbound side.
But that’s just the thing: you have to read something outside of the card to know that. There’s nothing on the card that says it. Even as someone who has played this game for 20 years, I found that confusing.
And don’t get me started on Curse of Leeches.
Even LSV misunderstood the mechanic, as he talked about here during the Limited Resources review of the set (starting at 6:25).
And yes, to be fair, there is a day/night token that spells out exactly how the mechanic works, but let’s be honest, there’s a lot of text on that token. And, more importantly, should it be required to have a different card to explain what a card does?
Interestingly, Wizards being okay with cards that don’t give the full information on how to play them seems to be the direction that Magic’s design is heading in. It used to be “reading the card explains the card,” but not necessarily anymore.
For example, Garth One-Eye summons specific cards that, unless all players have memorized them, requires an outside reference to use properly. And all of the cards with the Dungeon mechanic in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms are basically unplayable without Dungeon tokens. And some cards specifically require an outside mechanism, a d20, to play.
I’m not here to say which method is better, requiring specific outside-game pieces or not, but just to note that this seems to be something that we’re only going to see more of in the future.
It makes me wonder how long it will take for us to get to cards like this:
Something like this could have you bring a special nine-card deck that you have to shuffle in addition to your library. The “enlightenment cards” could gain life, revive creatures, draw cards, and then when you play all nine you win the game. (Although you wouldn’t know any of that just from this single card!)
Something like this could come with a token that shows all of the possible tokens so you can pick one at random, or give a link to a website that will choose one at random for you. You have a one in nineteen chance of getting Marit Lage!
Speaking of links…
Something like this could have a website with a “market price” of life/mana that fluctuates based on how many people pay or don’t pay. If people pay the price a lot, then the cost keeps going up. If people don’t pay it, then it goes down.
While I’m not certain about the future of cards like that, one thing I definitely do like about the Daybound/Nightbound mechanic is the precedent that it sets for flavorful battlefield-affecting mechanics in the future.
There are lots of great possibilities, the most obvious of which is cards that control the weather. Something like these:
Of course there are many more interesting possibilities that could bring unique battlefield effects.
The only question is, how many of these is too many? If you have to track day/night, the weather, and whether or not the tide is in or not in a single game of Magic, is that too much?
Or is it any different than having to track a Commander game where there’s a Coat of Arms, Ascendant Evincar, and/or Meishin, the Mind Cage on the battlefield?
#2. Coven
Moving on to another mechanic in the set, coven is… a mechanic that exists.
While there are some cards like Sigarda that are fairly powerful which use Coven, for the most part it seems like a limited-only mechanic. In the same vein of Pack Tactics from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Formidable from Dragons of Tarkir, or Battalion from Gatecrash, it rewards you for building up a board.
However, the question then is, why not go further with it and make it more flavorful?
If it’s supposed to be a coven of witches gathering together and creating mischief, then perhaps you could get an extra bonus if the coven ability triggers at night? Or, since it’s a green/white mechanic only, if it’s supposed to be the humans banding together against the monsters, then perhaps you could get an extra bonus when it triggers during the day.
That could take a boring card like Candlelit Cavalary…
…and turn it into something a bit more exciting. The flavor of working together is at least more present here.
Or if they wanted to keep Coven separate from the day/night mechanic to give the set some breathing room, perhaps it could be something that evokes the feeling of humans working together against the monsters on Innistrad.
There are lots of possibilities:
Something like this leans more into the flavor of the coven summoning magic together, using “coven” to refer to the three creatures who perform it together.
Something like this could turn Coven into a “simpler” version of banding. It could inspire “desperate” attacks or blocks to get the bonus.
And something like this is a little bit out there, but at least it’s more memorable and exciting. Of course it doesn’t have to be a white demon that is summoned, it could be anything: an angel, an avatar, a spirit, etc. The ritual would require some story finagling, but anything is possible. A little finagling for a fun mechanic is worth it in my opinion!
However, as it is, I feel like Coven is going to go the way of Fateful Hour from Dark Ascension. It will be mostly forgotten, which is unfortunate considering Innistrad is such a beloved plane.
Magic definitely has room for some throwaway mechanics that don’t inspire much emotion in anyone, but having one of them in one of the most popular planes feel a bit strange.
So what do you think? Do you like the direction of Magic design requiring outside game pieces? Are you a fan of Coven? Let me know, and looking forward to going on more deep design dives with you soon