Redeeming the improbables - How mechanics could return

Cool idea! You could also do stuff like discard any number of cards to make it more variable and still keep it balanced.

I also think graft has a lot of potential for creatures with abilities that remove +1/+1 counters as an activation cost. Something like Tap, Remove two +1/+1 counters from this creature: Target opponent sacrifices a creature. There is nothing limiting graft to creatures either. I've used it on custom lands and artifacts as well.

I feel like graft is a great mechanic on its own. It just hasn't been used well yet.

...because come on, why doesn't graft has outlast-style "creatures with counters on them have X"? only thing close is Kraj.

Glad you like the concept



That's mostly it, yeah. Funnily enough, if we would be talking about a single card like my Geist of Blades in a Masters set or similar, than I probably wouldn't mind much. But in the given context of a normal set (let's say in one of the upcoming Innistrad ones for example), I think mixing cards that require two seperate abilities with ones having only a single one could cause confusion - also I simply dislike it for the sake of consistency to be honest.

It's been a bit since this saw a post, so I hope it's okay if I drop an essay uninvited.

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Mechanic #9: Rhystic

This post, like all bad things, was prompted by a twitter argument. In it some guy™ repeatedly says rhystic is inherently bad, and I repeatedly say that "Rhystic's not inherently bad: it's just that all the cards that were printed with rhystic were bad," and we don't really get anywhere in the discussion because they're more interested in twitting gotcha's than having an honest discussion. But anyway, let's get past the onus of the post to the actual content of the post. Rhystic sits at a 9 on the storm scale, and not only do I think it doesn't deserve this rating: I feel the rating is a blatent lie. Yes, we don't see any cards named "Rhystic" anymore but the rhystic mechanic still regularly see print. What do I mean by that: well, let's define Rhystic properly.

There are ~226 counter spells at time of posting: of them, 77 fit the above definition, with Lose Focus modern horizons 2 and Jwari Disruption|Jwari Ruins in the standard set Zendikar Rising. That's a third of all existing counterspells, and it includes recently printed spells. Are all of them good? No. But did they regularly see play in their standards and limited formats? Yes.
The new deciduous keyword Ward is basically just 'rhystic hexproof,' and has existed unkeyworded as far back as Frost Titan's original printing in M11. Smothering Tithe is a rhystic effect rated twelvth on EDHrec at time of posting. Propaganda represents a family of rhystic effects that tax attacking.

So what are the sins of the original rhystic spells that wrongly puts it so high on the storm scale. In my mind there are three large pitfalls they fall into mechanically, and one they fall into psychologically.

• They don't do anything if your opponent pays the cost, putting you down a card (Rhystic Shield, Rhystic Syphon, Rhystic Tutor).
• They're annoying because they trigger too often (Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora).
• They're generally not very cost efficient (Rhystic deluge, Rhystic Lightning).
• The rhystic effect is perceived by players as a downside, making it unpopular.
  
  • While I disagree with WotC's oops all upside mentality they do have a point that players don't tend to like mechanics that they perceive as downsides.

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What can be done, and is being done, to recover the mechanic.

Well, the first problem of the all or nothing nature of rhystic cards can be solved by letting the cards do something less powerful when the cost is paid: instead of Foo unless an opponent pays [cost] you'd have Foo unless an opponent pays [cost]. if they do, Fee. You see the prototype for this effect in Rhystic Lightning which deals 4 damage unless the cost is paid, in which case it only deals two. The problem is, it's heavily over costed: for three mana, I could cast three shocks, dealing more damage than either case. And this brings up the difficulty presented by balancing Rhystic spells: their strongest effect and weakest effect both need to be reasonable for the cost, but there needs to be enough difference between them for opponents to want to pay the cost.

An alternative way of solving the first problem rhystic cards run into is by shrinking how much of the design space the rhystic effect takes up so that the card can do other things. Ward is the perfect example of this. By keywording a specific type of rhystic effect, the effect becomes less taxing on the design space, allowing cards to have effects outside of their rhystic ability. (Ward also manages to solve the other problems with rhystic but this isn't a post to gush about ward, it's a post about how the rhystic mechanic can be fixed in general).

The second hiccup to a good rhystic card is triggering rhystic effects; they need to trigger often enough to be relevant, but not so often as to become annoying (are you paying the 1). The obvious way to do this is by choosing triggers which every deck will need to trigger, often multiple times a turn; that is don't trigger on casting spells, Rhystic Study: I don't want to pay the 1, but that doesn't mean I want you drawing a card. Smothering Tithe butts up against this line because every turn starts by drawing a card, but since that only happens once each turn by default, it's less painful than rhystic study which is liable to happen three or four times a turn. That ties into the other way you can resolve this potential problem with rhystic cards: limiting the number of times it triggers each turn. 

Let's skip over the third hiccup, which is just one of them boring balancing issues, to discuss the much more interesting point of player perception. Players are loss adverse: they don't like it when the stuff they've already paid for turns up in smoke, so a card that says 'hey, I might turn up in smoke if your opponent pays a cost,' has an uphill battle to not be seen in a negetive light. I promise this post wasn't for gushing about ward, but ward skillfully avoids this problem by turning the rhystic effect into card protection; smoking a warded card costs an opponent more. There's another way to acheive this effect though.

The problem with using mana as the cost is that mana is an ephemeral resource that comes back each turn; designing rhystic effects that cost an opponent more permanent and interesting resources is a great way for players to see these cards as a net gain, even when the effect gets nullified because the rhystic cost got paid: simple resources like life, cards in hand, library, or graveyard and permanents in play make for great potential costs, as do stranger resources you don't typically think about as resources like turns and phases.

Another solution to this is giving players control over how much their rhystic effects cost to upturn: this is very popular among the rhystic counter spells, having spell controllers pay X to save their spells. By giving players control over how much they invest, and how difficult it is to smoke their investment, it mitigates the potential feels bads.