Good Gamery

Author: ein

  • It’s Been A Shard Days Night









    [Editor’s note: This article is a bit long, so it was split into two parts. Unfortunately not even we can figure out the new site, so all we were able to get it to do was split it exactly in half by character count.]

    Hi, it’s time for another look behind the scenes at some of the design magic that helps make Magic so magical.


    Early in development, the 5 power matters theme was slightly under-performing, and Firestoker was seen as an ideal place to give it a little nudge. A lot of improvements were suggested – higher stats, making red mana, dealing more damage, and so on. Eventually though we decided on adding a second belt. We’re really happy with how the two-belt version plays.


    As you might have guessed, this was a top-down design. Its creation started with the flavor theme of, “Aggravating the Chinese censors as much as humanly possible” From there its concept, art, name, and functionality were a breeze to work out.


    This card actually started its life while we were working on Planar Chaos, and it went something like this:

    Them: We’ve got slots for a few more plane-shifted cards
    Me: I’ve got it! We could plane-shift Braidwood Cup from colorless…to white!
    Them: You’re supposed to shift a card from one color to another, not from no colors to another.
    Me: That’s what makes it brilliant!
    Them: Ok, even so, we don’t print artifacts with colored mana in their costs.

    Me: We don’t yet, but we could pre-print a planeshifted card from the future when we will!
    Them: We’re not doing pre-prints in this set; that’s the next set.
    Me: But what if when we did the next set, we retroactively send this set a printing of the pre-print of the planeshifted Cup.
    Them: … you want us to add a card to this set when the next one comes out? There’s no way we’re doing that.

    But fast forward to Shards design, and suddenly I have the upper hand:
    Me: So, I can’t help but notice you have a slot open for a white artifact.
    Them: Yeah, do you have an idea?
    Me: Well I was just thinking, we could post-print the retroactive addition to Planar Chaos of the pre-printed planeshift of Braidwood Cup.
    Them: Or we could just print it.

    Me:Well sure, if you have no sense of wonder and are basically dead inside.
    Also Me: Don’t worry Mark, we’ll always remember the beautiful truth about this card, no matter what they say.


    Everyone in design loved the simple combination of staple effects and the fun, flavorful pun in the name. We loved it so much in fact that it quickly led to a super-cycle including Enblightenment, Twiblight’s Call, and Flightning of Fancy. Somewhere around Eightning and a Half Tails we realized we’d lost all perspective and that the set was currently over 80% red and agreed it would be best to cut everything but the original and start fresh.


    Often Magic art is about more than just aesthetics; it can also convey information about the function of the card. Nowhere is that more true than the art of Sedraxis Specter. The tiny nondescript humanoid being overshadowed by his mount lets you know this is a specter. Since Poultrygeist was a 1-power, 1-color flier, the three undead chicken heads imply a 3-power, 3-color flier. The animate skeleton ribcage hints at a graveyard ability, and the whip denotes conditionally available haste. The tethers between the heads represent how even our closest relationships to those we foolishly believe we love drain our humanity and vitality. Oh and the barrels are full of stuff that makes you discard.


    Originally this gained all abilities instead of just activated abilities. I thought there was some reason we didn’t generally print that sort of effect, but could not remember what it was until development had a 100-card highlander Future Future League tournament for fun. In the second round Gary played a Borrower revealing Volrath’s Shapeshifter with Yixlid Jailor on top of his graveyard. This quickly led to two changes. First, skill borrower was changed to its current wording, and second, the following addendum to the comprehensive rules about continuous ability layers was made:

    418.5L Gary is a complete douche; do not under any circumstances agree to play against him.


    Originally this guy was a larger vanilla creature, but we though that was a better fit for the Naya member of the cycle. Some power and toughness weren’t the only casualty of his gaining lifelink though. He also lost the bit of his flavor text explaining how he came to be a humanoid rhinoceros monk surrounded by enchanted golden frisbees. Here’s the uncut version:

    H [ed: continued next week]



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  • Hell’s Angel





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  • Rogue Band of Planeswalkers Destroys Plane for Fun and Profit

    A secretive group of planeswalkers known only by the name “Wizards of the Coast” has claimed responsibility for the sundering of the Alara plane into five separate shards. It has long been wondered what sort of evil force could rip a world apart into little pieces, each of which lacked the full range of mana types.

    The following is a message from these so-called “Wizards,” gloating over their nefarious deeds.


    Greetings puny subjects and enthralled consumers,

    We know you. We know everything about you. Why? Because we’re Wizards, and we’re awesome like that. We know you are addicted to conflict, addicted to ‘gold.’ You’ll give anything – cash preferred, firstborns accepted – for a taste of what we will give you. So we give you what you want – aggressive 5/4 creatures for 3 mana, artifact creatures that will make affinity insane – and you give us what we want. Who cares what happens to all those other helpless individuals?

    Yes, so we had to kill a few million humans ands other ‘lesser’ races. And sure, we had to completely destroy and mutilate the ecosystems to conform them to three-color shards. Hey, we even violated the bodies of many of the fallen to populate some of the places with undead. It’s not like you guys care about their pain and suffering. You revel in it!

    We forced some creatures into weird tri-color combinations that don’t make a whole lot of sense, but their loss is your – and our – gain. Gold is good, even if there isn’t any real logic behind it! Fills our pockets with cash, and that’s what matters.

    So don’t blame us for the devastation of Alara. It’s your fault, we just gave you what you want.

    Oh, and don’t worry – there’s going to be lots of pain and suffering in the future for those inhabitants of Alara. Just imagine the devastation when those shards crash back into one another! Oh, the profits will be glorious.

    Thanks again for the cash, we always have your best addictions at heart.

    MaRo

    Lead Destroyer of Worlds for the Wizards of the Coast





    From left to right, DeLo, BiRO, MaGo, and MaRo, destroying yet another plane of existence
    to profit off the addiction of consumers.



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  • Blarbed Blightning

  • New Website Design a ‘Great Success’

    The Customer Satisfaction Division of the Web Development group at Wizards of the Coast has released their latest poll on the reactions to the new website design. A whopping 100% of all visitors to the site concluded that it was easily navigable and not confusing at all.



    Development Team Leader Samantha Higgens was interviewed on the thought processes that went into creating such a well-crafted website. “We first concerned ourselves with the front page. Marketing tells us that first impressions are extremely important, so we wanted to make sure people’s first thought upon encountering Magic™ was something on the order of ‘Those are some pretty amazing balls it has there.’” Spinning colored balls really represent what Magic™ is all about. We had some conflicts in-group about the download time of the opening page – it takes about three hours for people on dialup just to hear the low moaning in the background! Jeff wisely pointed out that if you could afford Magic™, you could afford some broadband, so we threw as much pointless but pretty Flash there as possible.”

    “From there on, we had to work on how people would then get to the relevant pages on our website. Research tells us that a lot of Magic™ players like puzzles, so we tried to make things as tricky as possible. You can’t even get to the ‘real’ main page until you find out where the small, out-of-sight button is! From there, we ambush you with about twenty different categories, many of which are fairly ambiguous and possibly overlapping. Any important content, such as finding recent banned and restricted lists, are at least ten clicks in. All this is carefully crafted to give the visitor a feeling of adventure as they journey through the many lands of Magic™.”

    “We are also very interested in ‘acquisition’ – that’s getting new players/cash sources to those who don’t know Marketing-speak – so we made sure to put the information on the basics of the game behind a few levels of menus, as opposed to on the front page where it might make sense.”

    “As some of these decisions are somewhat counterintuitive, we commissioned a poll to see if the site was easily navigable. We put the poll on display in what you might call the cellar of the site, on the bottom of an encrypted page stuck behind a link saying “Beware of the Leopard.” If people could figure that out, they could figure out anything!”

    Ms. Higgens then fainted with joy over the success of her product.

    Long-time Magic the Gathering™ fan and general computer nerd Eugene Mills added his view on the new site. “I can’t even get past the balls. What the hell is this anyway, a videogame?”

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  • Boy’s Suicide Possibly Caused by Game; Manufacturer Denies Responsibility

    The tragic death of James Goodman this past weekend has many searching for answers and many, including the boy’s parents, believe that a trading card game is to blame.

    James was an avid player of the card game “Magic: the Gathering”, a game in which players do something with cards.

    “We found chat transcripts and internet logs about James wanting to use this card,” Mrs Goodman said, holding up a “Lich’s Mirror” game card that investigators say was on his person when his body was found. “He and his friends kept saying he had to find better ways to … ‘kill himself’ so that the card would be more powerful” she continued, having to pause to dab away the tears.

    “Does that sound right to you? It’s just sick. Someone should be held responsible.”

    That someone, she claims, is Wizards of the Coast, the company that produces Magic: the Gathering. According to company representative Mark Rosewater, that simply isn’t the case.

    “I just want to be clear, all of us here at Wizards of the Coast are deeply saddened by the loss of Timmy or Johnny or whatever,” said Rosewater. “At the same time, we can’t control how everyone who plays our game will play. We did our due dilligence.”

    “Early in the life of the card, it had much of the same functionality but our legal department was leery.” When asked to elaborate he showed us an early version of the card:




    “To my understanding, the current wording frees us of any responsibility in cases such as this.”

  • Jumping Through ‘Hoops’




    (Due to the new MagicTheGathering.com being unnavigable, Wizards of the Coast has teamed up with Good Gamery to provide Magic fans with the latest research and development news and features straight from the source. The following was handwritten, mailed, and arrived at our desks this morning. – Paz)

    Multicolor-themed blocks have always been well received, from the recent Shards of Alara all the way back to Legends. So we’re proud to say we’ve taken the next big step in multicolor with Hoops of Alpaca.

    First some notes on changes to the pre-release structure. Instead of 6 days before the standard release date, pre-releases will occur on the second Tuesday after the standard release date. Events will be sealed deck format run in a modified Swiss style, followed by a top 8 single-elimination hopscotch showdown. Each player will need to register a deck allied with a single hoop, or two if you affix a 20-dollar bill to your registration sheet and surreptitiously wink while handing it to the tournament organizer.

    Now what you’ve been waiting for, a preview of each hoop:

    The Ghatoss Alliance, the RGWUB hoop, are a catlike culture of barbarians that hail from the Djorgia Savannah. They demonstrate red’s love of chaos and confusion by mixing all the colors together. You’ll see the theme of colored artifacts expanded with treats like our first preview:


    Mr. Whiskers’ Deathgolem

    RGWUB

    Artifact Creature Enchantment – Cat Golem Warrior

    8/8

    Instead of paying Mr. Whiskers’ Deathgolem’s cost you may pay WUBRG.


    The T’bbie Brotherhood, the GWUBR hoop, is a leonine race (not to be confused with the Leonine race or The Amazing Leonine Race) of gladiators that prowl the Latte Steppe. Green has always been about natural balance, and now in the T’bbie it finds itself perfectly balanced with every other color. Its preview card gives a new twist on the always-popular lord mechanic:


    T’bbie Liege

    GWUBR

    Creature – Cat Warrior

    6/6

    Green creatures you control get +1/+1. White creatures you control get -1/+1. Blue creatures you control get +0/+0. Black creatures you control get +1/-1. Red creatures you control get -1/-1.


    The Mowsur Legion, the WUBRG hoop, is a stealthy, graceful, curious group of professional fighters from a level, woodless area who always land on their feet. They champion white’s need for rule and order by uniting all colors in solidarity under their banner. The Mowsur preview card has strong implications in the hoop block but could also be put to any number of unexpected uses:


    Chromatic Ball of Prismatic Twine

    WUBRG

    Artifact

    WUBRG, T: Target permanent’s colors appear in the order of your choice until end of turn.


    The Qat Symposium, the UBRGW hoop, is an ancient species steeped in mystery. So thoroughly steeped that even the members of R&D were unable to learn anything about their cards in time for this spoiler. The closest we could get was their part of the new filter land cycle:


    [UNKNOWN CARDNAME]

    Land?

    T: Add 1 to your mana pool

    (U/B/R/G/W) (U/B/R/G/W) (U/B/R/G/W) (U/B/R/G/W), T: Add (please refer to the Hoops of Alpaca rules primer appendix b for a full list of what you may add to your mana pool) to your mana pool.


    The Pan-Tharr Cabal, the BRGWU hoop, is a race of feline warriors that rule the Mnolpf Veldt with an iron paw. They exemplify the fact that black will do anything, up to and including joining forces with all of their competitors, to win. Nowhere is this clearer than in its preview card:


    Snugglepuss the Conqueror

    BRGWU

    Creature – Cat Warrior

    5/5

    Do anything, 2: Win


    We hope you’ve enjoyed this preview. We think Hoops of Alpaca will present you with a lot of complex dilemmas when deciding which hoop to ally yourself with. But no matter which way you go you’re sure to have a fun experience. As one tester excitedly proclaimed, “With Hoops of Alpaca, every choice is 5!/5!”

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  • Chandra Nalaar for Planeswalker

    For the past 8 turns, the Goldmane administration has been content to sit in office, gaining life for the special interests, while threat after threat came into play.

    When he sent our troops into battle, Goldmane, who never served in the military, gave them only one +1/+1 counter. Every independent study showed that, for the safety of our troops, they needed at least three +1/+1 counters, and sure enough, many were double blocked and killed. They deserved better.

    Ajani Vengeant represents a third term for the failed policies of the Goldmane administration. Vengeant claims that only he can keep the threat against us tapped down, but in fact, thanks to Goldmane, we’re now facing more problems than he can handle.




    Chandra Nalaar has a proven record of taking on our opponents directly. When there’s a threat against us, she isn’t content to tap it down and wait for more problems to arrive before solving them. When Dread came into play, Nalaar dealt 6 damage to it, at great personal cost.

    Nalaar promises to deal 10 damage to our opponent and its minions. Vengeant says that it’s too costly–that we can’t afford it. Nalaar asks, can we afford an Ajani Vengeant administration?

    My name is Chandra Nalaar, and I approve this message.

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  • Mad Libs: Choosing a New Magic Set!

    The newest set in the Magic the Gathering Universe is called the

    of

    . It will debut in October 2008. This set will be the first in a series of three that makes up a new block. It will be aimed at

    as all Magic the Gathering sets generally are — we need the money. Inevitably, the theme of this new set will leave many players with the urge to voice their displeasure on


    . We have decided based on previous research that the most
    set theme is


    . Regardless, we hope to circle back to the

    theme in the near future, so don’t worry! Another exciting development in this new set is the introduction of

    rares that we hope will increase everyone’s

    in the game.

    Probably the most fun part of

    Magic set is picking the codename for that set and block. For the next set, we have decided that the codename will be

    . I bet you can’t guess why! Okay we’ll tell you: we love watching funny shows!!!

    As with any new Magic set comes the job of integrating it into Magic the Gathering online. We know that players will be excited to see and play with the newest cards. We assure them that server overload

    be a problem during that week. We ask them to be patient (but not to give up

    cards) and remember that it’s just a game. If you experience any problems, please don’t hesitate to call us (note that offer of help is merely a kind gesture of appeasement on our part, no help is actually available; for rules and limitations contact our lawyers).

  • Sarah Palin




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