Magic the Gathering: Commander Hybrid Mana Rules Proposal Changes

It took me a long time to think about the idea of hybrid mana in commander, because there are so many points that are valid against it. But I will say right off the top, that I am FOR the change, but after much thought, realize that it would require a rewrite of the color identity rules in commander.

So to begin, commander has a ruleset for color identity that says if a card is a color, or has a mana pip of a color on it, then that is the cards color identity. Now this does not count color words (such as Protection from Blue does not make the card a blue color identity), and it does not count rules explanation (the thing in parenthesis on the card explaining the rule).

And here is where we come across an issue with color identity that I already experience with casual players in commander, that people use as an argument against hybrid mana: Color words make players think that a card is that color identity when that is not the case. Especially true since you have white cards that can make blue tokens, etc. So the color rules are already confusing enough for that.

The rules text exclusion also causes some confusion for people, such as for rules explanations for extort.

Complexity of the rules aren't really an issue in this case. The game is complicated. People will learn.

Next is intuition of color identity. Color identity occurs in multiple locations on a card. One is using color words: This card is all colors, This card is Red. This fills in the confusion stated earlier with casuals. Not only that, the Devoid mechanic makes a card colorless for the purpose of things like Pyroblast, but not for color identity.

Next is the mana symbols on the casting cost of the card. This one is the easiest to understand and the one where hybrid mana is having its conversation on. This also includes the mana pips on the card text. If we just took the proposed hybrid rules change and only focused on this, then yes, the proposal would work with no issues. But there are more rules to color identity which causes issue with ONLY changing this rule.

Then there are color pip identifiers on the type line (such as on the back side of Archangel Avacyn, Avacyn the Purifier) and the border of the card. This one is huge because the card itself has NOTHING else saying that it is Red, other than the pip and the border of the backside. When I was first playing commander, I didn't understand why I couldn't put this in a mono-white deck. The pips are all white, and there's nothing on the front side making the card not mono-white. But this kind of card issue also has to be addressed with the hybrid mana changes. You cannot do one and then the other.

Because there's also more types of borders and colors identities, such as the border of the card, which sometimes is colorless or gold. 

Gold ain't no magic color I ever heard of.

So a change would need to be made to color identity in commander, in a way that can make sense. But not matter what you do, the rules will be complicated, but it already is. Would it be more or less complicated in any way that would matter? I don't know. But it would for sure be different. So I came up with a rules change, that I would be happy with, and I'm putting it out into the aether of the internet.

Proposal

We leave the current rules of color identity for identifying the colors a commander can provide (including hybrid mana counting as both), but only look at the mana cost of the spell and the mana cost on the card text for color identity, and not on color pips in the type line, or border/color of the card, with hybrid mana being an OR in this case and not an AND. 

This means that cards like Archangel Avacyn//Avacyn the Purifier is a Boros commander but can be in a mono-white deck in the 99. This means hybrid commanders are all colors in their mana symbols, but can participate in mono-color decks.

Addendum

Also, dual lands are weird in commander. The logic is that I can't run a forest in a Boros deck, but technically the Forest mana symbol is in the rules and not actually on the card (an animated forest does not lose its ability if Deadpool chooses it). So shouldn't it NOT have a green color identity? And I can run an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in my Boros deck. So, the whole thing is really.... complicated.

 

You can run Kormus Bell, Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth and Elesh Norn as your commander in a mono-white deck as mass land destruction, but Hybrid mana is what makes commander rules complicated? I don't think so.

Everytime Pathfinder seems to have a cool idea, they scare themselves out of doing something cool with it

    Pathfinder design is designed to make things take actions, take longer, and take time. Every action is met with a consequence. Every reward is limited, and difficult to abuse. Every decision is mitigated, limited edition, and useless unless perfect. It also seems to want to "realistically" spend your time, by making some unrealistic demands of your time.

    Which comes across my latest learning block of character building. Which is Talismans. Talismans in PF2e are single use, items that attach to specific gear and have special boosts to your different skill rolls and attacks. Its like a little safety vest in some cases, or like a glow stick. You get the effect, it gets used up right away or it lasts for a short burst (usually a single fight or event) and then you need to not only put a new one on, you have to take equal time taking the old one off, or else the whole thing becomes muted.

    There are so many other ways to run this to make it more fun, more valuable to players and without even needing to let it be abused. Thing is, that what I'm about to say, can be done for 10 extra minutes and more in game gold. Just let a player spend 10 minutes "recharging" the thing. Maybe as some sort of "focus" procedure, maybe not. Either way, it allows you to pick one up, and just keep using it. It gives great value to the Talisman archetypes and classes, and makes getting two a day that become inert at night much more valuable and not feel like a waste of a feature.

    I consistently feel like Pathfinder 2 is afraid of power. Its afraid of ease of use. It consistently asks me as a player, to suffer for my fun. And that makes it hard to want to build or play the game. Which is hard to feel, when so many GOOD ideas are included alongside these terrible wastes of energy and time. So much good design and effort is paired up so poorly. 

    And I know they have Runes for things that are a much more permanent effect, but this temporary effect didn't have to be a money sink and time sink all in one that also means that the feats for getting them also feel like so much less, when the feat also only gives you talismans of half your level, which is fine at level 2 and way less powerful at higher levels.

    Suddenly though, it makes sense why at level 16 they are willing to let you have... 6 free half level talismans per day for free....which is 600gp for free per day. Or you can also spend 1800gp to get one, that ... helps you confuse a monster that grabs you, once. Maybe for 1 round or less, maybe for 1 minute. That's not bad, but maybe its because Pathfinder 2e actually has a plan on how to give you money, and pays you well, and doesn't have the same issues with money spending that D&D5e has.

    Maybe that's the key. Because they plan for you to have money to spend, so that you can have a stack of 5 1800gp single use talismans. This is why I want to learn more, because its obvious the design is there for a reason. In 5e this is terrible design. But in a game that plans around your gold income as a metric for the functionality of items, maybe that is a lesson to learn. So what is your income like in Pathfinder vs D&D? Does anyone look into that at all?

Trying to Learn Pathfinder 2e

    Over the last few years, as I've been working on Anarchy Realms, I've tried learning several other TTRPGs. I don't want to be talking out my ass about things and then not have experienced different games. But all TTRPGs come with a difficulty to establish. As in, the group is already mid campaign in a D&D 5e game. There already are other groups doing that game (but they are mostly full and play on the same days as your game). There are barriers, and limitations to trying out a game.

    So  when I started learning Pathfinder 2e, I started with online videos. And my goodness are the PF2e creators passionate about their game! Look at this cool thing! This is an awesome thing! Rank this! Talk about that! Mix and match here!

    D&D 5e content creators are always, "Hasbro has doomed the game! WotC is using AI for everything including the DM, which is you! You are now AI!" etc, etc, etc. So there's a lot of attraction TO pathfinder in that way. Not only that, there are certain slices of the game where they REALLY show how much love they put into the game. With design ideas and detailed expansion of concepts.

    But as I learned more, and the more I looked into the math, the more .... worried I got. But hey, I haven't played the game yet, and some of these ideas, rock really hard when used in 5e. So I'm gonna borrow column A and B, leave C and just maybe come back later for the D. Anyways, that is to say, I took what felt good and I experimented. I experimented with a 10 over to critically hit system, but in 5e it ... over power and over guarantees certain things. I tried the Doom condition as a curse (that both high level fear applies and just existing near a powerful elite monster can create). I even converted backgrounds into a ersatz archetype system.

    In the end, some things worked, and somethings didn't but it made me want to explore Pathfinder 2e even more. So, as I started to get ready to do character creation in Anarchy Realms, where some of the steps felt similar to how I had read the character creation for PF2e was, I decided to go to Pathbuilder, and build a character.

    Now this was my first deep dive, and making a level 1 character is EASY, FUN, and consistently gave me results I was excited to explore. But then I made the mistake of trying to plan the character. I tried to level up. And that's where all my glittery eyed optimism for Pathfinder started to fall apart. When I started to actually dig and brush away the sand of this beautiful dinosaur bone, I realized that what I was coming across was coprolite.

    So, first of all, the class that caught my eye was the Thaumaturge. In the end its not perfectly what I wanted, but it was super close to perfect (to be fair, there's no single class in d&d that is perfectly what I want, but between the broadness of d&d and multiclassing, I can usually get the character done).

    So first things first. I build characters to be a pun, reference or joke. For example, making an Orc Pirate Sea Druid for a forest campaign. Too niche? How about designing a Wild Magic Sorcerer named Kows M Waldo (Chaos Emerald) who uses Chaos Control to create wild magic surges. The game is taken seriously. The actions are done to be included with the group. But the character is designed to be a joke. If I go for funny, I'll end up with serious.

     So I read through some things, and I saw that the Thaumaturge had the ability to fly on their implement, and use a whip and bell and I could choose to play a Minotaur (love Minotaurs). So here I am designing flying bullshit and I get feats (skill feats, general feats, class feats etc) all the time! So many decisions! But, with few exceptions, the decisions don't feel good. Not only that, but without reading the books and referencing things, its hard to see that a decision I'm planning at level 1 or 2 or 6 suddenly locks me out of something. How I have to pick what will be a legendary skill for me, even if my design wants both. But that's fine, cause I believe that a game is a series of interesting decisions, and so planning this level up, is itself a game, and part of the game.

     But that's the thing. Most of the time, my decisions weren't interesting. And if I didn't get Acrobatics, or reach Master in a skill on time, I don't get to actually do some of the interesting things there are. Furthermore, so many skills are so limited, that they are boring. Then you start getting your class feats, but not all the class feats are fun, but some feel "essential" to how the class to work. But then you don't get them all, so you start adding archetypes to find that hole your character is missing, but that also gets complicated between all the options. But again, they aren't "good" options. They are slanted this way and that, compared to the other option. So, I can't just pick what I want. Sometimes, I have multi level gaps of useless feats, that don't do anything, may never come up, or should have just been a thing, cause why is this minor feature a feat?

    While in D&D5e, once I level up a class, all the necessary features get added, and my decision is in feats and multiclassing. So I have to decide if getting my ability score up is worth not getting some feats, and in many cases, with the all feats now having an ability score improvement with them, the decision is often easier to pick the feats. As for multiclassing, because of how the game gives you all your class features at level up, you can easily split focus and even plan around good cut off points.

    Pathfinder player choices are instead leaning more towards gritty realism, incremental improvements, and quirky funny choices, that aren't quirky or funny. Every increment and edge helps because the game is designed to keep you at a 50% hit rate (if you don't upgrade your stuff, upgrading and magic items are vital to pf2e).  Magic items in d&d5e are all, boosts and fun. You don't NEED them for a build to work, or to have fun.

    I kept not having fun after the first level of making characters in Pathfinder 2e. But this experiment is still ongoing. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.

Game Companies: Don't do Micro-Expansions, instead do shareable DLC!

The Evolution of DLC:
From Traditional to Shareable

Introduction

To begin, let us understand what a micro-expansion, aka micro-DLC, actually is. Micro-expansions are a subcategory of micro-transactions. In many cases, a micro-expansion, much like a larger game expansion or DLC, asks that every person buys it to gain access to it. This can include a wide variety of game aspects, such as dungeons, battlegrounds, areas or zones, and even other typical micro-transaction staples such as characters, classes and aesthetics.

The issues with micro-expansions are similar to the issues with micro-transactions when looked through the lens of what social damage it does to players in a game. This includes pay-to-win concerns from players who cannot participate in the dungeon to get loot from it, and therefore it is similar to a loot-box in the resulting benefits for the person who bought it. It fragments the player base, meaning less people can potentially play together. It becomes what the game design leans into, so that money can be excised from the player base instead of earned. All of these leads to upset players, who may stop playing because they cannot find the fun in the game anymore.

Which is where my proposal comes in: If you sell DLC for single access dungeons, then allow the person who bought it so share that access with anyone in their group. It gives access to the content to people who cannot afford to buy the DLC, and yes for some people even that $2.99 can be too much, and it helps with the problem of fragmenting player bases. If you have a free vs monthly/battle pass model, you can even give one free dungeon to those who buy a battle pass, and that way those in guilds could cover all the seasonal content by working together on what free dungeon they pick.

The Problem with Traditional DLCs

So why did companies leave making traditional DLCs, large patches of content that often times feels like a sequel within the same game engine. The player base often looked forward to such expansions every two to three years. People would renew accounts, start preparing for the expansion, and often play through the game quickly and drop their subscriptions again after a few months. Even though many players would continue to leave subscriptions on while not playing or even would actually continue to play after these rushes, the growing amount of players and the need to adjust to the size of the rushes meant that companies would have to invest in extra servers that they would end up no longer needing or would need to continue to operate after it was no longer profitable to their margins.

Producers have been seeking out how to diversify their monetization so that they do not have to be stuck in one model. Producers have pushed Developers to decrease the space between one expansion and the next, which begins asking players to pay for a new expansion every year.

There are benefits to faster smaller DLCs for developers as well. It helps keep player engagement up, since the space between DLCs is smaller, and therefore people who only play for new content stay subscribed longer. It has less risk of being wrong in a design choice, as in making a mistake in design did not waste multiple years development time and money, and is instead less impactful to the bottom-line.

This all leads to the current state of games, which are Battle Passes over the traditional monthly subscription. Battle Passes offer rewards over the top of the free to play model. They reward players coming back to the game daily, and therefore generate player engagement. They often allow you to earn in game currency or other rewards for playing and doing daily check ins. This model often sells other micro-transactions, but allow you to earn the next battle pass, or at least earn more value based on in game currency than normal in game currency purchases would.

This all leads to the new problem games are heading towards, which is, selling where you can play. Lands to explore, arenas to fight in, dungeons to delve, are all being sold piecemeal and are not being included in the purchase of the subscription or battle pass. These micro-DLCs are going to magnify the issue of traditional DLCs in that you will start to see hyperfragmentation of the player base. Leading to a point that someone could buy the DLC, and have no one to play it with.

My Proposal: One DLC for the Whole Party

The idea is simple: If you want to sell a dungeon individually to people, allow them to share it with their group. The idea behind this is similar to Dungeons and Dragons having a DM who usually has all the books and the players join and get to participate and use the book content without having to buy the book themselves. Most of the people who would take advantage of this would not have bought the DLC themselves, and the player gets to enjoy what they purchased without worrying that no one else bought the DLC. Because the benefits are higher for those who do spend the money, and the loss of monetization to the company is minimal, since most people taking advantage of this would not have made the purchase, there is little worry of missing out for the company.

You could even give out a free dungeon for taking up a battle pass or paying a subscription. That way with this model, players can coordinate with their guilds or friend group to cover their bases. It increases the desire for people who play in groups to join guilds or invite friends.

The issue of dungeons being glorified loot boxes can also be resolved this way. Usually selling a dungeon is like selling a loot box, but you have to play through it first. This allows a reason for players to want to run the dungeon with the player who bought it. Sharing the dungeon could also increase their drop rate of materials or non-equipment goals. It makes sharing worth it, and makes purchasing the DLC worth it as well.

Developers can target people who do not have the micro-DLC in other ways, to help build monetization. Playing in a shared dungeon can lead to earning points to purchasing the dungeon for free, and therefore cascade dungeon runs out across the population. As people earn the dungeon, the dungeon sharing rewards naturally decline, incentivizing recruitment of outside players, "Come on! You can play for free and I can share the dungeon with you!" as free advertising. Not to mention that such models are viewed so favorably with players that it fosters an extremely positive view of the company.

Actual Real World examples of not using Shareable Content DLC

One of the major content companies using shareable DLC is actually tabletop gaming. Even in a digital space, places like Roll20 ask only that one member of an adventure of the DLC to be able to share it with others for that adventure.

Companies focused on short term monetary gains over the life long monetization of their product are moving away from that into the realm of individual micro-transactions and micro-DLC. Wizards of the Coast and by extension Hasbro is looking to follow Blizzard into the hellpit of micro-DLC to nickle and dime every player out of money, despite making billions of dollars already, and having HAD one of the most profitable games in their respective market.

And the same way that Blizzard Activision has lost its ability to earn trust in their player base to the tune of being bought out by other companies and having their entire team disbanded for failure of the executives, so too does Wizards of the Coast have the specter of doom looming over their future business model.

Already evidence has shown that people left WoW for FF14, and people have migrated from D&D to Pathfinder, with 4 more major D&D-a-likes coming out that address the issues with the game, and have the promise of freedom of creation to 3rd party makers.

Conclusion

So often companies start off with passion about their games. They make games in service of gamers. In turn those gamers create huge buzz and talk about the game that it reaches the general zeitgeist. Gamers grow up and become content creators: artists, writers, directors, producers. They make content for people, which references these games in sacred terms, and popularizes them.

Then the companies abandon the gamers, and target the average consumer. The average consumer, not having time to game all day, loves the shortcuts and purchases they can make with real dollars to shortcut their advancement so they can enjoy the game. Which is exactly where micro-transactions have value to those casual gamers.

This abandons future gamers, people who would love that original game experience like their parents had had 15 years earlier, but who now cannot enter the game without micro-transactions. They abandon the game, and suddenly future revenue drops as the casual gamers pay-to-win themselves out of content and migrate to another game.

Mitigating that migration, requires treating your game as if people could leave it at any time. If you realize that you do not have perfect control of people's desire for your game, then you have to design it in a way that it engages them. Things that remove people's ability to engage, can be managed with sharing. You can strive for engagement with rewards for sharing, and create natural endings to it so that in the end, you have received enough engagement from all those participating in your game, and those who pay to play, have enough people to play with.

The (Un)characteristic Urge to Quit Retail

 or

How I'm Currently Feeling

It's difficult to go around and say, hey, lets do this work here and have to deal with customers. I'm telling you right now, customers are the worst. I love helping people but I hate customers. People I can deal with, customers are just transactional vampires, who want to make everything one-sided in their favor, while not actually spending the amount of money necessary to get those benefits.

A guest of mine, would understand my limitations, and what I can offer them. We work together to give them the value they can afford. I guide them through the help they need to accomplish their goals, and using my advice and guidance, they reach their goals, because they try.

Customers want things done for them. They want you to do the work. They do not, can not, and refuse to do the work. Customers are stupid, lazy, and often bigoted.

So how can we avoid customers in our life?

I think it's about how we present ourselves. We want to filter customers away quickly. Get them to give up and move on as fast as possible. That means, we want to set our boundaries with them and enforce them. If they feel hurt by those boundaries, that's not our fault. Because plenty of others work around our boundaries.

Say NO

So one of the first things I realized when I started to get tired of kowtowing to customers was that I valued myself higher than I valued their money for the company that fails to pay me enough to pay my rent. With that in mind, I learned to say NO.

And honestly, there's nothing quite like saying no to an old entitled white person. They get angry so quickly. I don't know if it's the shock or embarrassment that they should have known better, but they become so furious. Like cartoony in how their face deforms.

"Can I get the key to the bathroom?"

"No."

"Why not, why won't you let me use the bathroom?"

"Because someone is in there right now."

Take time OFF

I also do my best to stay away from my job. I use my sick time when I need it, even if its just because of a headache, or I woke up feeling mopey. I take my time off, and don't hold onto some grand vacation I'll never take and can't afford anyway.

I also make specific time for friends and family. Seriously, spend time with people that love you.

Also while at work, take your breaks. And don't feel like you have to be the person who handles the crazy customer. Excuse yourself and grab your manager. That's what they are getting paid for. For trouble.

Do not let customers dictate your mood

And focus on those wonderful guests of yours. They are the ones that make the work worth it.

Do not help those who will not help themselves

The frustration of it will be too difficult to be worth it. Ask them to try to do it themselves or tell them you will guide them.

Chasing the Hashtag

Youtubers tend to chase what's trending so that their videos show up on the recommended list of videos to watch when you end up trying to find out what PubG or Tidepods are all about. They have a very fast medium, and many are able to respond to trends quickly.

Blogging has its own niches that if fills, and trending on those topics can be very specific based on not only what the blog is about, but the site it is on. With blogging though, its usually about something that happened, and it can usually be a conversation about it, rather than doing the thing yourself.

I've been writing a fanfic, and it is very much within a category, but all the currently updated stories have been trending to very similar ideas. Fanfiction tends to act more like live writing, with chapters published before the next section is even planned or thought of. As chapters can take time to write, people who read a story and like it, will sometimes do their own version of it quickly. It feels very much like how doujinshi ends up being.

It would be like live streamers watching live streams as they live stream, and imitating the most popular live streams as they stream.

Thing is, that this work, this chasing is what brings views, and depending on the platform, audience and what not, it is what brings in money. But, does longer form media (novels, movies, games) trend this way? Usually there is so much time and energy required to finish these works, that chasing a trend could just leave you being dated. I feel like this kind of work has to do its own thing and in part create its own trend.

As Ford is quoted as saying but probably never did, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

But how do you show up in a search result, if people don't know to search for you? At least SOME of what you do has to chase the hashtag. Some of it has to be based on what is trending. Otherwise, people will never stumble across your content. Chase a little, create a little. Hope that people like enough of your quality and content to want to explore what else you have done.

Some sites make it easy, like being able to browse people's profiles for similar work. Other sites, are a bit more obtuse. Authors for example slowly start replacing the name of their novel, with their own name on the cover of books to help people who liked their other work to find them again.

Actors and directors become the headline of the movie, rather than the movie's subject or plot. Eventually a streamer becomes popular for who they are, and not the game they play. But they had to play that game first. Game Theory had to make theory videos first, and now they make... I don't know, some sort of streaming quizzes or something.

I think that if anything, that is the current state of entertainment right now. I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing. But if you want to get started in any of it, start by chasing a trend or hunkering into a niche, and then go on from there.

Thinking Out Loud - Level Design

The way I design a level is usually by creating an interesting shape first. I then think about what that shape makes difficult, and add challenges based on that. I usually go too far at this point. Then I go through the whole thing and test it and scale back what I call "the asshole coefficient" of the design.

Depending on the kind of level you are making and the intended difficulty the coefficient can require entirely changing a portion of the shape of a level or the challenges that are in that portion. Finally I test again.

This is when I feel the level is ready for outside testing. I'll ask a coworker to test it real quick, mostly looking for fun vs asshole sections. If a section stands out as being too frustrating, or too easy, I tweak those areas.

This is usually what I would submit to approval and mass testing.

Sometimes, I have trouble picturing a new shape that would be interesting, so I revisit things I've done before and I ask, "are there new challenges I can put here that would change how this plays?" But this is very rare, and a last resort option.

Fanfiction is the Remix of Literature

Sometime some twenty years ago I came to realize that I enjoyed remixes, covers, and genre changes in music. Something about listening to a song suddenly played as Bluegrass or a rap song done in the style of Elvis that really makes my ears perk. It helps if I know the original to some degree.

In comic books this is Elseworld stories, and things like Red Son. They take a familiar concept and mess it up, shake it up or change one simple thing that alters the entire timeline from that change. It then asks what happens from there, and usually they find a story they couldn't tell before. Sometimes its about inevitability, the idea that no matter our choices we trend towards one outcome. Sometimes its a "more things change" situation.

In online comics I would say that the work of David Willis exemplifies this perfectly. He's also one of the few where the creator themselves are remixing the work. In this case he takes his characters and resuses them in different situations, each time slightly different, or hugely different. They end up with different people.

All this is to show that fanfiction is to literature what the remix is to music. Sometimes it scrambles it. Sometimes it is a genre change. They'll replace instruments and slow things down. I really started thinking about this when I came across a review of a newly posted story. The review essentially said, "This is an old trope, and it's a lame trope to boot."

Ouch! Harsh criticism strikes a critical blow! Now, this person, they themselves are writing stories that are a bit trope-ish, but he's doing so from a fresh angle. The person he reviewed seems to be rewriting a concept, and honestly this version is coming out better than others I have seen online (maybe even by the same guy, online can be like that).

But that criticism kinda doesn't affect what this guy is doing. He's writing a story he wants to write, and as Nancy Kepner almost said, "Most fans fanfiction is just a form of mas-"-turbation.

But fanfiction is a remix, its a genre change, and sometimes its a cover. Books are catching up on this concept, even though this is older. And has been done by Disney within our lifetimes. I also tend to view any work carried on by others to no longer be the original. And that's okay!

We can change stories to fit the times, and to fit what we want to tell. Characters and events are mutable. Take Batman. Batman is Zorro. Zorro is the Scarlet Pimpernel. And the Scarlet Pimpernel is only now becoming public domain (since it has now been 70 years since the Baroness's passing). But those stories are very much inspired by. Influenced by. But not, an actual fanfiction of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Smallville is a fanfic of Superman. The new 52 Batman is fanfiction of Batman. Stranger Things is fanfiction of 80s Sci-fi and horror (this one is a bit of a stretch, I'll admit). Thing is, we remix ideas all the time. But it all just happens to be how closely we follow the source material. For fanfiction, we use the names, and sometimes entire history of the series. We branch off somewhere. Or we reinterpret actions. We make characters fall in love or make different choices.

So, if you find a way to step away, and make that fanfic your own. I encourage you to do so. I know I've been trying.

Modern Magic - Mardu Control - Rivals of Ixalan

I've been playing Magic: the Gathering on and off for about 15 years now. But it wasn't until the last 3 years or when I started playing Modern, that I became interested in competitive magic. When I first started, I remember reading articles by Zvi Mowshowitz on how to design decks (not to say I'm any good).

One color combination that's been really digging its heels into my psyche is Mardu (Red, Black, White) and I've been building a Modern Mardu Control deck that has shown some success (it's failures more often to do with my own incompetence rather than the deck's failings).

In about a week a new Magic set is coming out, and some cards in it caught my eye, to either include in my own deck, or as potential powerhouses for other Red/White/Black mages out there.

First:

Angrath, the Flame-Chained has a lot of potential for Mardu Control, but in Modern the biggest issue I have is that too often I don't want my opponents to have a graveyard. But I like this in decks that run heavier on Liliana of the Veil. Usually by the time this lands, you have stripped enough of their hand that you are either finishing off their hands or just hitting them in the face for 2 life a turn.

Second:

Rekindling Phoenix feels like red's Kitchen Finks. Not in the life gain, but as this free you can't deal with it with 1 removal kinda feeling. It is a value card, and the difficulty in removing it can be of great value in protecting other higher value cards later on.

Third:

Dire Fleet Daredevil (or as I like to call her, Snap Other Mage), is a red Snap Caster Mage that trades Flash for the ability to steal spells from your opponent. This is going to be a 4 of to start in my testing, but might be sideboard tech versus control decks. There's a lot to be said for stealing from your opponent's graveyard. The lack of flash is this card's greatest weakness.

Fourth:

Slaughter the Strong is a very interesting wrath effect. It's weakness is that it gives the opponent a choice and leaves some power on the battlefield unless your opponent was just full of huge creatures. It gets around certain things like Hexproof and Indestructible since it forces a sacrifice. I'd have to look deeper into how often the clause would interfere with protecting the player from losing.

Fifth:

Tilonalli's Summoner I feel can be a great control finisher. You want to play this when you have destroyed your opponent's hand, and board state. Something about being able to start spewing out elementals really excites me.

Sixth:

Oathsworn Vampire reminds me a great deal of Blood Soaked Champion. Recursion like this is very fun, but I feel like I would have to change up my deck's build a bit more to fully utilize what this card can do.

Opening Paragraphs - The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree

"The assassin crept toward the house through cold blue beams, moonlight dancing across the forest floor in a handful of silver coins." ~ S.A. Hunt, The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree (pg.1).

This one sentence immediately soured me to this book. This is, easily one of the worst opening lines I have read. It is painful to read. It mixes up what it is talking about. It has two different color descriptions for what should be one thing. It sounds like a fantasy book, but is written like modern fiction.

I read this, and on a macro scale, I understood that the whole thing was essentially a man walking through beams of moonlight towards a house. I get it.

But when I first was reading it, I thought, "cold blue beams of what?" I pictured silver coins scattered on a forest floor, shining in the moonlight.

I took a step back.

Cold blue beams of moonlight. Maybe they should have done of instead of a comma. But that messes up the rest of it.

"The assassin crept toward the house through cold blue beams of moonlight dancing across the forest floor in a handful of silver coins."

No, that is really bad too. Now it feels like the creeping assassin is dancing. Also, again what is up with the silver coins? That's when I realized, that the silver coins are describing how these little beams of moonlight look like when the land on the forest floor.

So they took the word like from the simile. It makes it harder to parse. But after a few moments I was able to understand the opening paragraph of this story. I immediately gave up on reading it.

Game Flow - Super Mario Bros.

Stage 1-1, Start

Designer/Game
Goal - Mario starts sitting alone in a field. The goal is unclear at this point in the game.
Conflict - A timer is ticking down, and soon enough a goomba will show up.
End State - timer reaching zero, mario getting touched while small, falling, reaching the goal or warp pipe

Player/Gamer
Reaction - Since this is a player's reaction, it includes reactions to the goals, the conflict and the potential end states. Possible reactions to the goal include experimentation of movement with the controller. The conflict is presented with a countdown timer. Most people would assume that the game ends at the end of the countdown. Even without input and enemy eventually appears and kills the player if they do not react to it. There are too many states to list every possible experiment in this blog, so lets move on.
Analysis - Again, this is the player's analysis of the goals, conflict and end states. It is important to note that reaction and analysis float continuously back and forth and through the decision, unlike a novel which tends to be more linear. Analysis occurs after they react to a to what happens after each decision they make. Such as, "Oh the timer is counting down, well let me try to do something in this game,"
Decision - Decisions are just that. These are things that the player tries to do. Overall decisions are a result of reaction and analysis.

All this is happening within the first seconds of the game. As you can see, the player side is clearly defined, and the game/designer side is clearly separated. I believe that this balance is an example of why Super Mario Bros. is such a fun game. It allows the player to control themselves, instead of letting the game control them.

On a higher level, there is very little control of the overall goals and conflict of the game. The player has the decision of which level is next mostly taken away from them, except in the cases of the secret warp pipes. In these cases, the player experiences a similar state of automation as they do on the micro level. There are designer stated limitations that the player works within to make a decision on how to proceed with the game.

Designer/Gamer
Goal - Get Mario to the end of the last stage. This will include passing by or defeating Bowser.
Conflict - Several stages and bosses until the end of the game. Limited number of lives to succeed before a complete reset occurs.
End State - Losing all lives, reaching the end of the game.
Reaction - Mario automatically proceeds to the next level when the goal is reached. The player has no control over what Mario does once an end state is reached on the micro level.

Player/Gamer
Analysis - By playing the game, the gamer can identify warp pipes and short cuts and life loops that allow them to manage their gameplay a bit.
Decision - The gamer chooses whether to go through a warp pipe or simply go after level goals.

The overall control of the Mario games is not up to the player in the macro level. They lose a bit of automation. If you look at future Mario games, they like to give the player the ability to control their macro level game play (starting with Super Mario Bros. 3 which introduced and overworld, and improved upon in Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine, where he goes through portals from a central hub).