Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #629: Designing Destruction

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

This is another in my "Designing _____" series where I walk through making basic effects. In this podcast, I talk about making all the various destruction cards.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so today is another in my designing blank series where I talk about how we design a certain aspect of the game, basic effects that we do. My first one I did was called designing counter spells. That one, as far as I'm concerned, just came out my, and you guys seemed to like it. So I'd already done a designing drug damage, so today I'm doing designing destruction. So the idea of today's is I'm going to talk about anything that destroys something. I will say one of the, in general, divvying up magic mechanics gets complex because there's a lot of different ways you can divvy them up, so today I decided I'm just going to stick to effects that destroy something. I'll touch upon some other things, because when I talk about it, it's kind of hard not to hit some other things.

But I'm going to try as much as I can to more focus on spells that destroy things. Literally the word destruction is in the spell name. So that's what I'm focusing on today. Okay, so let's start with destroying creatures. Okay, so the king of destroying creatures is black. Black is the color that just straight up gets destroyed target creature. So let's start by talking a little bit about the history of black and destruction, because I like mixing my history in when I do these. So Alpha, the original version of Magic, had a spell called Terror. And Terror said destroy target non-artifact, non-black creature.

And the reason behind it was, the idea was you were scaring somebody to death. And well, the idea was if they're a black creature, well, they're used to this crazy stuff, and it's hard to scare them. And if they're an artifact creature, they have no emotions, in theory. And so, how do you scare an artificially made thing? So when Richard made Terror, the idea behind it was the restrictions were flavor-based. But what happened was for quite

a while, the idea that black can't destroy non-black, non-artifact things carried over. Eventually, we started weeding out the non-artifact and we just did non-black. And then eventually, what we realized was what Richard was trying to do, I think, in the first place was just make a flavorful card in a vacuum. The idea that black couldn't destroy its own things, nothing inherently black about that. Black is all about doing whatever it needs

to do to get the job done. So the idea that black couldn't destroy its own things was antithetical to black. It didn't make any flavor sense. Was black willing to kill its own things? Absolutely. And so we started realizing that the non-black part just because what was happening was when we had non-black on every black card it was making the destruction that was not black stronger

than the black creature destruction. And the goal had always been that black is supposed to be king of killing creatures. That black harnesses death. Black both has the tools to kill creatures and the willingness to kill creatures. And so we made the choice to say, you know what, black should just be able to kill creatures. And so once we made that decision, destroy target creature just became a thing that black can do. Once you made that decision, destroy target creature just became a thing that black can do. Now, we often put riders on black because it makes for fun gameplay, especially for limited.

For constructed, a little less so. We find for constructed, it's just straight up, look, you can destroy a creature, it's better for constructed. But for limited, it's kind of cool to say, oh, well, you know, there are different things that matter. You know, black has trouble with this area in this limited environment, which just makes, can encourage people to do certain things that might not normally. Okay, so now if we're going to look at, in black, at common, black usually has one straight up destruction spell, which is something that says destroy target creature. Sometimes it'll have a little bit of a rider of okay in this environment it can't destroy some like for example we were making an Ixalan we were trying to make a flavorful pirate spell and so we ended up making walk the plank and from a flavor standpoint the idea is we'll

destroy target creature well well non merfolk creature you know cuz walking the the plank and making Murfolk walk the plank wouldn't do anything. And so it allowed us to make a walk the plank that had a little bit of flavor to it. And also it just made Murfolk have this, you know, in that environment, Murfolk have a little extra flexibility. So one of the reasons we made Murfolk is, oh, well, the pirate's main defense against them is a little weaker. And Black's main defense is a little weaker. So that's a good example of that. Now, I'm mostly doing destruction effects today. The other thing we'll see at common is usually black does something

that's more limited in how it kills things. There's a bunch of different ways it can do it. Most of it isn't a destruction spell. It can drain something, which is more like a direct damage spell, which I covered my direct damage thing. It can do minus X, minus X. So it can reduce power and or toughness.

And by reducing toughness, it can kill things. That works a little bit like direct damage in that minus two, minus two will kill any creature that has two toughness. You also can combine it like direct damage with damage dealt by creatures so that the combined damage will be enough to

kill something. Sometimes black will do restrictive kill where it destroys a target creature with some larger limitation. For example, we've done black destroys tap creatures, which is like, oh, and sometimes white has done that in the Creatures, which is like, oh, and sometimes White has done that

in the past, too. The idea being, oh, well, I can't just kill anything. I can kill anything that's messed with me or attacked with me in some ways. We're starting in the White's area. I'll get there in a second. But pretty much at Common, you will have a straight-up just, I destroy you. One of the things you'll notice

that we do at Common is we tend to price Common cards for Limited, where we tend to price Uncommon and up more for Constructed. So usually Destruction Spells meant for Limited cost four, five, six mana. The reason for that is Destruction Spells are just stronger in Limited, and Limited is a little slower. You're going to get to higher mana cost. So a very common thing we'll do at Common is we'll make our kill spell at Common a little bit more expensive. Usually have some sort of rider on it,

like Destroy Target Creature. Its controller loses three life or something like that. And then that allows us to make it a little more expensive. In general, what we found was Limited is better if Black's destruction is not so cheap and easy. But for Constructed we'd like to have very cheap, powerful Black destruction. So if you notice, for example, at Common it'll be four or more mana, where once you get to Uncommon you can see it as little as two mana.

And once again, that's just a matter of balancing limited versus constructed. Okay, so let's talk about other damage spells destroying creatures. Sorry, other destruction spells. Okay, so white is the one who... White destroys creatures, but usually not straight up destroy target creature. Every once in a while, at uncommon, for like five mana sometimes, you'll get destroy target creature, or sometimes exile target creature. I'll get to exile in a bit. So black, black will kill anything every once in a while.

And like I said, every once in a while we'll give something like Destroy Target Tap Creature. The ones we tend to give it more normally and at lower rarities usually are things that play into White's main strategy, which is White sees itself as the good guy. So White doesn't tend to destroy things without reason. You know, we give White, for example, stuff like pacifism, um, or arrests, things that sort of, you know, put them in jail sort of feel where I've dealt with the thing, but it can still get out if it has the means to get out. Um, the destruction spells that white tends to do usually in, uh, there's a couple categories. The biggest category is, uh, destroying attackers or destroying attackers or blockers or every once in a while destroying a blocker.

And the idea is, oh, well, are you messing with me in combat? Well, if you're messing with me in combat, okay, then you're interacting with me. One of the things that white likes to do is white sees itself as a good guy, meaning that white doesn't like to shoot first. is a good guy, meaning that white doesn't like to shoot first. White likes to believe, I'm not firing at you or destroying you until it's proven that you're a danger to me. So attacking or blocking is like, oh, well you're trying to either kill me or kill my creature. Okay, well now you're getting in a fight with me, so now I'm allowed to destroy you if need be.

So the most common thing, and you tend to see this in common in white. For example, white will usually have one passivism spell in common and usually will have one destroy target attacking

or blocking creature. It can vary. Sometimes it's just attacking creatures. Sometimes it deals damage to them. Instead of straight up just destroying creatures. Sometimes it deals damage to them. Instead of straight up just destroying them, it'll deal damage to them. We tend to do the damaged version if there are larger things we don't want to make it as easy for white to get rid of.

But it'll vary. It depends on the environment. And we'll shake it up just to make white feel a little bit different. The other destruction effect we tend to do at common for white is white gets destroyed. Usually it's power four or greater. White has this idea of it's the color of the small creatures, and it can sort of fall the big creature. It can destroy the big creature.

And usually that's on a spell that's on a destroyed target creature with power 4 or greater we mess around a little bit with trying different powers and toughnesses there is a period of time where white did destroy some small things but I think we've moved away from white destroying

small things. Our thought process is both red and black. Red does direct damage, which kind of scales toward the small side, and black can do minus X, minus X effects, which once again scales toward the small side. Black occasionally will destroy a target creature with a low power or a low converted mana cost. Black will do that every once in a while. But we've moved that away from white. White now is, I get rid of the big things.

I get rid of things that mess with me, or I get rid of big things. White doesn't... We've moved away from white destroying small things, although in the past it has done some of that. The one other thing that we will do... So both Destroy Target Creature 4, Power 4 or greater,

and Destroy Target Attacking slash Blocking Creature, we both will do those at common in white. At uncommon, we will give white a little more universal destruction, sometimes at a higher mana, often with Exiling. Once again, I'll get to Exiling in a sec. Then at high rarities, white starts to get into the wrath of god effects, which is

destroy all creatures. Um, usually it's destroy all creatures. It has done like pick a size, destroy everything of that size, or just destroy all the big creatures. Um, we have allowed white a little bit when it's doing destruction effects. Sometimes we'll make the, um, wrath of god where it's like I destroy big or destroy small once again we're moving a little bit away from destroying small for white

so more when you see wrath of god effects it either will be everything which is normally what it does or it will be large the one thing we sometimes do with wrath effects is we let white choose something to not destroy. Everybody chooses a creature or sometimes destroy

all non-something, but white sometimes will, when killing everything, will spare something or have a subset that gets spared. We do allow black to do creature destruction of everything. So for example, I mean, we mix it up with black. Sometimes it's draining. Sometimes it's minus x, minus x. You know, any effect that black can do to one creature, we let it do

to all creatures. But black can destroy all creatures. Black can do straight up mass destruction effects. We don't do to all creatures. But black can destroy all creatures. Black can do straight up mass destruction effects. We don't do it a lot. But the times we've done it have been pretty high profile. So it is something that black can do. So you'll notice I'll talk about black and white so far. So the problem is red we don't really let destroy creatures because it has direct damage.

So with very, very few exceptions, we try to avoid writing on red destroy target creature, because black and red already have a lot of overlap. So having black be destroy the creature and red be direct damage just makes them feel a little bit differently. And it gives them... Black usually will have some restriction

in common. Not always, but often will. And red's restriction is built into its direct damage, which means high toughness is the problem for it. And so normally a common, red is dealing damage, it's a locked number, it's up to four maybe. Higher rarities have X spells and allow red to do a little bit more damage. So red's limitation in some ways is toughness.

So we allow black to do different stuff. But anyway, red doesn't tend to destroy a target creature. Also, blue... One of blue's weaknesses is it doesn't destroy permanents. It has lots of ways to deal with permanents. And at common, for example, we'll do a lockdown card. So it's an aura that goes on a creature that doesn't let it untap. Often it'll tap it when it enchants the creature.

And blue, like I said, I talked about counter spells and blue has bounce and putting things back in the opponent's hand. But as far as straight up destruction, blue does not destroy things. That's kind of its weakness. The one quirky exception,

and this is more a templating thing really, is blue is allowed to destroy something if it then replaces it with usually a token. I prefer when we do those effects that we exile them or we put the creature in the bottom library or something, only because it is weird to say this creature turns into this thing and then later you can reanimate the creature while that thing is still on the board. That's a little quirky. But anyway, blue in general does not destruction effect. So when I'm talking about destroyed creature neither red or blue destroy target creature.

Green, that's why I get to green, green does it a little bit. Green's weakness is it's not good at destroying creatures. Now we do allow green to fight but that's not technically a destruction effect. That's more of a direct damage style effect.

So green can fight, and green can do what we call biting, which is sort of a one-way fight, where it does damage to a creature equal to a creature's power that you control. So there's a bunch of stuff that falls into not destruction effects but allow you to deal with creatures so that is green's main way to deal with creatures is fighting it also has stuff sometimes we give it the ability to lure things so things must block it

we both do must be blocked which means anything can block it but the opponent chooses what blocks it and must be blocked, which means anything can block it, but the opponent chooses what blocks it. And must be blocked by all creatures, meaning when it attacks every creature that's able to block it, must be blocked. And there's stuff like trample. I mean, there's different ways for green to sort of deal with creatures.

As far as actual destruction effects, there's a couple. The biggest one is green is an anti-flying color. Blue and white are the main flying colors and green and red are the main anti-flying color. Blue and white are the main flying colors. And green and red are the main anti-flying colors. But green is number one in anti-flying. So much so that usually at common, we will give it a destroyed, well, we'll give it an anti-flying spell.

That anti-flying spell often is just destroy target flying creature, like plummet or something. Sometimes we let it do damage. Usually any way that you can deal with creatures, we let green play around with some of that. Although green doesn't do much lockdown, per se. But it does do... It can damage flyers. But the most common place we do flyers is just let it destroy flyers.

So the one destruction effect that you'll see green in common, as far as creatures, is destroy target flying creature. The one other area that green can do, and we'll get to that in a second, is artifacts and enchantments. Green can destroy artifacts and enchantments. Like I said, I'll get there in a minute. But we occasionally, in the right environment, will let green destroy an artifact creature or an enchantment creature. That is something that technically you can do.

Those are pretty narrow, and we only tend to do them in a strong artifact or enchantment environment. And even then, sometimes we just straight up let it destroy the enchantments, destroy artifacts, or usually artifacts or enchantments. But it is a lot, that subset is something that green is allowed to do.

Okay, so that is destroy target creature oh everyone's in a blue moon we will allow something destroy a creature type if that type really matters it's not something we do very often but it is a subset that occasionally

like for example in Kamigawa for example there was a war between the humans and the spirits. And so we divided up the direct damage spell in Black Haman. So it's destroy target spirit and destroy target non-spirit were two different things. So it sort of helped reinforce the flavor of the sets. We do that occasionally. Okay, that is creature destruction. So let's get to artifact destruction. So red, white, and green have the ability to destroy artifacts. Red and white are the two colors that tend to get destroy target artifact.

I'll get to green in a second. Green gets into the naturalized base. Destroy either artifact or tenant. We'll get there in a second. So normally a common, red gets a destroyed artifact and white gets a destroyed... Sorry. Normally a common,

in a normal set, red gets a destroyed artifact a common. Normally an uncommon, we let white destroy artifacts. Or, if the set's about artifacts or there's some strong flavor of artifacts,

white does have the ability to destroy artifacts. Although, usually, white will get into the naturalized space. We'll get there in a second. So normally at common, red is the color that destroys target artifact. Blue cannot destroy artifacts. Black cannot destroy artifacts.

So only red, green, or white can destroy artifacts. Traditionally, we'll put it on a spell, but sometimes to shake it up, we'll do it as the spell but sometimes to shake it up we'll do it as an enter the battlefield effect or we'll do it on a creature as a sack effect or something normally a common oh this is true for all destruction effects I didn't mention this for creatures

normally common tend to destroy just one of something and if we're ever going to destroy more than one of something it's at higher rarity so if I'm going to destroy just a single creature that tends to be common if I'm going to destroy more than one of something, it's at higher rarity. So if I'm going to destroy just a single creature, that tends to be common. If I'm going to destroy two creatures, that usually is at least an uncommon. Also, a creature that has an enter the battlefield effect that destroys a creature, because that's a two-for-one, we traditionally do that only at uncommon or higher. So like a necrotol, a creature that enters the battlefield and destroys a target creature,

we don't tend to do those in common. We only tend to do those at uncommon. Artifacts, same thing. We destroy artifacts. We will, at common, do a creature that enters the battlefield and destroys an artifact. We will do that at common. Then, destroy target enchantment tends to be something white and green can do. White, at common, normally has destroy target Enchantment tends to be something white and green can do. White at common normally has Destroy Target Enchantment.

Normally, like a Demystify is a thing we do at white common. Then green and white are both allowed Destroy Artifacts and Enchantments. Sort of the naturalized effect, as we call it. Green normally has a naturalized at common. Most often it's a spell. Every once in a while it's on a creature. White traditionally gets those kind of effects at uncommon. But in certain sets where

it's needed, we sometimes let white get the... White's version is disenchant, but white gets it at common every once in a while. Normally green is better at it than white. So we've talked about artifact destruction, equipment destruction, and enchantment destruction. Red usually has the best I just destroy artifacts and

white has the best I just destroy enchantments. Green has the best I destroy artifacts or enchantments. And so normally when a color is playing in that space, the one exception is green thematically hates artifacts more than red hates artifacts. Green does not like unnatural things, where red just likes blowing things up. So every once in a while in an artifact set, we will give green a really efficient artifact destruction spell. But more often than not, green is doing the naturalized type stuff. As I said with creatures, if you're destroying more than one thing

that usually is not a common, common will have, red will have an artifact destruction spell, white will have an enchantment destruction spell, green will have either artifact or enchantment destruction spell. That is the default, usually a common. Then an uncommon,

white usually is doing a little bit more expensive destruction type stuff. It normally has some of the destroyser's Enchantment Artifacts at uncommon, and it has some creature removal at uncommon. So white's removal is a little more defined at common and a little broader but more expensive at uncommon. Okay, we get to Planeswalkers. So black is the only color that straight up gets to destroy a Planeswalker. So if we want to make a card that says Destroy Target Planeswalkers. So black is the only color that straight up gets to destroy a Planeswalker.

So if we want to make a card that says Destroy Target Planeswalker, that would be a black card. We don't normally do it by itself because it's a pretty restrictive ability. Most traditionally we'll do Destroy Target Creature or Planeswalker. That's usually how we combine them. And

we tend not to destroy Planeswalkers at common. You know, any of my rules, you know, environments can change sort of what we're doing, but usually destroying target Planeswalker is an uncommon or higher effect. And normally it's on a rider of destroy target creature. So destroy target creature or Planeswalker. That effect originally was only done at rare or above. I think we started doing it uncommon every once in a while, depending on

the environment. But we tend to do or Planeswalker at higher rarities. And black, like I said, most often combines Creature or Planeswalker. Nobody else straight up combines Preacher or Planeswalker. Um, nobody else straight up destroys target Planeswalker.

In fact, I don't think you even see, uh, the, the words destroy and Planeswalker on a card that's not black. Okay, land destruction. Uh, land destruction is something we don't do a lot of just because we find not having access to your mana not particularly fun. Um, the main color of land destruction is red. just because we find not having access to your mana not particularly fun. The main color of land destruction is red. Red is the one color that's usually at common. There's something that's destroying the land.

We don't push it anymore. Even stone rain, which costs three mana, two and a red, we consider to be a little aggressive now. So most of our land destruction tends to start at four mana. It often can have a rider on it. Usually, because four mana land destruction is kind of weak, it's doing something. It's doing some direct damage to the controller or something.

Both black and green can destroy land. All three colors are allowed to do so. And if you go back to alpha, for example, in early magic, black, red, and green all did destroy land. In fact, one of the problems in alpha, I think, was a little too much land destruction. The earliest land destruction we ever made, actually, black had the cheapest land destruction at BB for Sinkhole. And although red didn't require double mana, because it had stone rain, red in theory was supposed to be the strongest land destruction, but black having a two mana land destruction

spell made it, in the early was supposed to be the strongest land destruction, but Black Hang, a two-mana land destruction spell, made it, in the early days, more powerful. Nowadays, red is the one that gets the most destruction. Sometimes we'll combine artifacts with land. If we do that, that usually is a red spell, because red is the color that destroys land and destroys artifacts. I mean, green, I guess green can destroy both, but we tend, I'll get to green in a second,

we tend not to do normally if it's an artifact or a land that tends to be a red thing, sometimes we'll do that at common, usually it's where artifacts mean something in the set that having that as a rider on the land destruction spell means something usually at common

we tend to make a land destruction we tend to do a land destruction. We tend to do it on spells. When we do land destruction on creatures, we tend to put that at usually uncommon or higher, just because, once again, any sort of card advantage, while we let you destroy artifacts and enchantments because they're a little narrower,

land and creatures, which you mostly can destroy all the time because you sort of always net card advantage we tend to make those things at uncommon and higher when we put them on creatures as end of the battlefield effects or as sack effects and such okay the one thing that green occasionally gets although we've been doing less

of this is destroy target non-creature permanent green will do this on oozes and things where it can't destroy creatures, but it destroys any permanent not-creatures. And that is the one kind of spell that lets green destroy planeswalkers. Green never says it destroys planeswalkers,

so we don't get destroy target planeswalker in green, but we occasionally get destroy target non-creature permanent. And that can destroy land, that can destroy planeswalkers. Obviously, it can destroy artifacts or enchantments. So, we tend to do that effect at uncommon and higher. Tend not to do that at common. Usually because of the versatility.

And even that, we've been doing less of this effect. Although, we do it occasionally, I think. But we've been doing less of this effect, although we do it occasionally, I think, but we've been doing less of that effect. Okay, and that brings us finally to Destroy Target Permanent. So Destroy Target Permanent is one of those effects that is not a mono-colored effect. In the early, early days, I think the first card to ever do it,

Desert Twister, was mono-green, but green can't destroy creatures, or most creatures can destroy flyers and artifact creatures. So that effect, there's no one color that can destroy all the card types. As I went through today, you know, green and blue, for example, can't destroy creatures.

And red and black can't destroy enchantments. And black and blue can't destroy enchantments. And black and blue can't destroy artifacts. So there's no one color that destroys everything. White is the closest, but white doesn't destroy... Oh, in land destruction, the one thing we do let white do

is when it's destroy all lands, Armageddon-style effects, we occasionally let white do that. We don't really do that effect much anymore, and we're just as likely doing red as we are doing white when you destroy all lands. So white doesn't do pinpoint land destruction, so that's why destroy target non-creature permanent

is a green spell. And why you can't get mono-white to destroy target permanent. So the two color combinations we tend to do in destroy target permanent is white, black or black, green. And the reason for that is black can destroy creatures, land and planeswalkers. It's missing artifacts and enchantments and both white and green can destroy artifacts

and enchantments. So mixing black along with white or green allows you to destroy any permanents. We tend to not do destroy target permanent common. Usually it's uncommon or higher. In general, we lean toward that effect being rare. I think we've done it uncommon. But it is something that we restrict to just doing, we don't do in mono color. It's a multi-color effect. Okay. The other thing to talk about is exiling. So today I was talking about destruction.

When you can destroy something. The rule of exile, and exiling means to remove from the game, so it's gone and mostly can't come back. We sometimes use exiling as a limbo. And there's a few small effects that bring things back from exile, although I don't like those effects. Exiling, normally white is the color that exiles. So in a normal set in which exiling isn't playing a larger role, white is the default color that tends to exile. So the stuff that I just talked about where, you know, it's destroying,

attacking, or blocking a creature, or it's expensively and uncommon destroying a creature, a lot of times white will do the exiling. White is the color that naturally gets to exile things, and that sometimes white is the answer to things because it exiles. The one rule we have, though, is any color is allowed to exile in place of where it would destroy. So the idea is anytime something would destroy something, we do allow it to exile in the set that needs it. So for example,

while block normally will destroy a creature or some subset of creatures, block can exile them in a set where exile has some usage that we need to care about. A good example would be in Battle for Zendikar when exile mattered as a theme that went on the set. So we just put more exiling effects in. And the way we did it is we just took normal destruction effects and changed them to exile.

So any color can get access to exile. White more naturally does exile. But any color that can destroy can't exile. Blue, because it doesn't do normal destruction effects, we put the exiling on the counter spelling. So that's where blue tends to get exiled and sets the need to exile. Red also, by the way, while it doesn't destroy things, we'll put exile rider on

its direct damage spell, which means if this creature we put in the graveyard, instead exile it. Disintegrate style things. The flavors, I so scorch you that there's no remnants left to ever even reanimate. So occasionally we let red do that. Also, the one other thing we do occasionally,

usually in white, is instead of going, instead of exiling something or destroying something, either we shuffle it into a library or put it on the bottom of a library. Blue can put things on the top of a library and go so many deep on the top of a library. We tend to consider that bouncing. We're shuffling something into the library, putting it on the bottom of the library.

We consider it essentially to be destruction. That is something we let white do occasionally. There are sometimes effects where we want white to be able to get rid of something, but for some reason we don't want to do exiling. Shuffling it in is a lot like exiling. So white is the color that sort of doesn't destroy things when we want to get rid of it but not destroy it. So that's something we would do in white. that sort of doesn't destroy things when we want to get rid of it but not destroy it. So that's something we would do

in white. Anyway, that, my friends, is all the destruction effects. So I'm... One of the things that I've been trying to do with this series, and like I said, this is a relatively new series, is find large enough chunks to talk about and then sort of explain

how and where and why we do them, what rarities and costs and stuff like that. Anyway, you guys seem to like the counter spell one, so I'll keep at these. I know some people really enjoy the nitty gritty of why and how we choose to do certain things. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, but I am not at work.

So we all know what that means. It means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye bye.