Starting in Zendikar, quests have been a fun way to build towards a goal. This week’s guest, Qirn, has been thinking all about quests for a Legend of Zelda set and has some ideas. Along the way we break down the challenges of designing quests and the cards that are like quests. A deep dive!
Scryfall gallery of cards mentioned in the episode
Qirn’s cards mentioned in the episode:
Topics include:
- feeling the lack of juliet
- 2 mana, draw 2 (with drawback) more common these days
- gaining tempo by giving up tempo?
- 2010-era “may” on every trigger
- quests are hard to do with less than 7 lines of rules text
- haven’t seen common quests outside original 5 landfall
- still plenty of mic picking up tim mouth noises
- hard to put a big hammer effect on a common
- but standardizing is nice at common. same trigger same number of counters
- life gain on a quest is especially weak
- could we parcel out the prizes for quests? “trade route”, “pilgrimage”
- quests can just be popped by enchantment removal too
- why were quests a hit?
- a dream is enough to give someone a good impression of a card
- tim’s dread of quest-like cards in multiplayer
- should quests be DFCs?
- repeating the same action for a quest might be tedious
- but separate triggers might make quests feel unrelated to each other
- what can boost quest-matters?
- one-time quests? less videogame-y?
- instant speed, on board four +1/+1 counters
- don’t block my first striker for the rest of the game
- when the value of a quest counter swins so wildly, it’s hard to synergize
- tim tries to remember giant fan
- uncarmon quest
- both triggers for counters and payoff… foreshadowing?
- custom card detour
- pyromancer’s triggers are slightly different… worse than completely different?
- fallout quest givers
- fallout cards are too pretty to be recognizable from the games
- tim’s “how annoying is this in the 99” test for quest cards
- guns: the ultimate in hidden reach
- creature-quests raise the floor and lower the ceiling of quests
- players are just buying junk with their quest reward money
- animating quests to collect checks from duchess
- “one or more creatures damage a player” multiplayer rabbit hole
- quest subtype
- Qirn’s UG explore DFC
- a use for spare quest counters
- from ascent to descent
- how to build a set to support celebration (two permanents a turn)
- what other design paths start with quests
- cryptex unllock counters
- ixalan DFC quests leading to lands
- sneaky white ramp vs overt
- cases vs quests… who’s questier?
- cases and battles all have ETB/static abilities to make them better topdecks
- multiple quest counters mean you have to solve over multiple turns
- the beastmaster ascension zone
- case deck, planechase cases
- battles are quest trigger standardization to the extreme
- premium segue (self-awarded)
- mse files stowed in dungeons