Beacon of Creation

With Tarkir Dragonstorm winding up, we’re following their lead and enhancing some old mechanics! Like going from Scavenge to Renew and Flashback to Harmonize, we asked the listeners to design some new mechanics based on old ones. Designing mechanics is one of the hardest things to do a designer, so check out the fruits of everyone’s labor!

Cards mentioned in the episode Scryfall gallery

Submissions

Khord: Evolve -> Biomimic

Biomimic (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has, Deathtouch, Reach, Trample, Vigilance, or greater size, put a counter of that type on this creature)

Evolve, but with new counters. This ability is centered around the flavor of the simic with a heavier lean on “green” keywords to match the simic guild’s changes after the death of Zegana

vtbassmatt: Eminence -> Distinction

Distinction — , if CARDNAME is on the battlefield or is in the command zone after returning from the battlefield since the beginning of your last turn, .

Eminence is busted because you don’t have to expose your commander to any danger. In this fixed version, they have to put in some service to come online.

MonoWhiteBorder: Spectacle -> Extract

Extract {Cost} (You may cast this spell by paying its Extract cost reduced by the greatest amount of life lost by an opponent this turn.)

I picture this mechanic in a desert style survival setting such as Thunder Junction or Amonkhet. Places where people are trying to do anything and take advantage of anyone to survive. Similar to spectacle an opponent needs to lose life but there’s upside more life that player loses.

kuyashiiPlays: Persist/Undying -> Shallow Grave

Shallow Grave (When this creature dies, if it had no decayed counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a decayed counter on it. It can’t block. When it attacks, sacrifice it at end of combat.)

Persist and Undying have two different issues with them, Persist has a design problem with needing a -1/-1 counter set which just isn’t very common, and Undying is difficult to balance/develop.

Shallow Grave leans a bit more into the Unearth space, where we get one more attack out of the creature, but also leaves the body around if you need it for some other use

Pat: Squad-> Duplicate

I made a variation on Squad! This is the “endure” to Squad’s “fabricate,” because it can be used in places other than entering the battlefield.

Duplicate this. (Create a token that’s a copy of this, except it loses this ability [and isn’t legendary].)

IlDiavoloVesteRosa: Haunt -> Departure

Departure (When this creature dies, exile watching upon target creature. The watched upon creature has [this card’s keywords, if any] and “When this creature dies, return the exiled card to the battlefield with a finality counter on it.”)

This keyword offers an aura-like effect to a creature that eventually results in the body back, re-triggering its ETB like Haunt would.

In all honesty, Haunt just needs to just do anything except “copy the etb” to be good and doesn’t need to be upgraded, but it’s always fun to give new likes to old mechanics.

Bradley Rose: Meld and/or Host/Augment -> Weld

Weld is a keyword action that appears on DFC artifacts whose front face have the subtype Part. Any two Parts can weld together.

To weld two Parts, put them onto the battlefield with their back faces up and assembled as a single Contraption on sprocket 1, 2, or 3.

When you weld them, you choose the top of one card’s back face and the bottom (upside-down end) of the other card’s back face so that the result is a Contraption that forms a complete sentence of rules text.

(Note to podcast hosts: For clarity, the card I’m sharing has a front face named “Hamster Wheel” and its back face has its top end named “Power” and its bottom end named “Generator”. You can write the back side’s name as Power // Generator.)

Because this mechanic and its cards are so wordy, I’m avoiding sharing a second card in full. So let’s say a second card’s back face is Heavy // Magnet. With Power // Generator, you could weld a Contraption that’s either “Heavy Generator” or “Power Magnet”.

Juliet: Clash -> Debate

I’ve thought a lot about Clash and there should be some way of making it fun to see a land on top of your library the way landfall does, except Clash should be more fun, since it even lets you smooth! Additional operations to performing a clash make the long-ish reminder text longer, so instead here I’m going with a simplified version and more fun execution:
(Each debating player scries 1 and reveals their top card. Winning players have the highest mana value.)

You could tie into scry synergies, emphasize the control by letting you do it before the clash, trade-off winning or losing the clash to prioritize your top card, and also here both players win on a tie. Alongside this, I think we could see more changes to card designs to make winning and losing less of an all-or-nothing like in Lorwyn, and more of a sooner-or-later, maybe. You could also feature Commander cards with more debating players rather than Clash’s 1v1, potentially sharing the wealth with each winning player? I bet there are some fun casual multiplayer designs to build there, even if I’m not presenting one to our judges today.

(also for a fun fact griselbrand is given the title “scourge of the heedless world” on the card Infernal Plunge)

Bonus Submissions

MonoWhiteBorder: Convoke -> Banquet

Everyone loves convoke. Lots of people love Improvise. But why are we leaving other card types out? What if you could tap anything to convoke? This probably gets really strong in constructed formats but also allows that extra enchantment you have to help you out in limited.

Banquet (Your nonland permanents can help you cast this spell. Each nonland permanent you tap after you’re done activating mana abilities pays for 1.)

MonoWhiteBorder: Cycling -> Banish

Do you hate when you play your cycler but then later it’s bad and you want a card? Why choose any longer? Banish lets you cycle a card from anywhere by exiling it. You don’t get the graveyard synergies but you get the smoothing we all love.

Banish {Cost} ({Cost}, Exile this card from your hand, graveyard, or battlefield: Draw a card. Activate only as a sorcery.)

MonoWhiteBorder: Outlast -> Embolden

Outlast stinks but I want it to be good so bad. That’s a me problem I know. The idea here is that the first counter is free and the cost grows as you put more counters on the creature rather than being steady throughout. I could also see the cost being a single colored mana but the negative interaction with summoning sickness makes me think we can get crazy.

Embolden (T: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. This ability cost 1 more for each counter on this creature. Activate only as a sorcery.)

Bradley Rose: Decayed -> Slow

Slow (This creature can’t block creatures with haste.)

Decayed’s drawbacks are:
Can’t block
Sacrifice after attacking

Souping up decayed means:
You can’t block fast creatures
You don’t die when you attack

Hella souped.

Topics Discussed:

• evolve to biomimic
• biomimic only allows certain abilities… are flying and lifelink too good?
• which keyword is the best to spread?
• can a keyword be too expensive to put on a card?
• eminence to distinction
• the age old question of: is the mechanic busted or the cards?
• my deck doesn’t do anything if my commander gets killed
• one turn grace period to use your commander
• cycling from the command zone
• command zone abilities as on-board tricks
• spectacle to extract
• starting the cost higher so you have room to discount
• souping up as a way to catch up to modern technology
• persist/undying to shallow grave
• persist combo potential limits its ability to come back
• squad to duplicate
• do both copies lose duplicate?
• proactive reassembling skeleton
• to use a generic word or a more flavor-blasted word?
• haunt to departure
• haunt…no longer that confusing, relatively???
• pacifism being a seal for a possessed human
• offensive haunt
• how sad is haunt/departure when there are no targets!
• meld/host+augment to weld
• also a contraptions refresh
• lots of text on the backside of commons
• how many combinations, chat??
• adding game variety without adding novelty
• clash to debate
• fun to put in to play… but how good is it??
• do both participants win an internet debate?
• secret griselbrand title
• mdub debuts a floor analogy
• convoke to banquet
• cycling to banish
• outlast to embolden
• decayed to slow
• the downside of decayed counters
• turtle people
• decayed vs finality
• tim betrays peter in the edit