Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #890: Ravnica & RTR Storm Scale

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

I go through all the guild mechanics from original Ravnica block and Return to Ravnica block to discuss what chance each has in returning to a premier set.

I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so a while back in my blog, people from time to time would ask me how likely something was to return to a standard legal set, a premier set. And I started something called the Storm Scale. Storm being something that I didn't think was very likely would return to at least to a standard set. A storm being something that I didn't think was very likely would return to a standard set. So the storm scale, the way it works is it's 1 to 10. 1, here's how I describe it. 1 is we'll definitely see again most likely in the next set. It's evergreen usually, so like flying is a good example.

Level 2 is we'll definitely see again, but not necessarily right away. That's more what we call deciduous, like hybrid mana. Three is, we'll most likely do again probably many times. Something like that would be flashback or cycling. Not evergreen, not deciduous, but something we do a lot. Four will be, we'll most likely do again, but they have issues that make them less of a guarantee.

Something like morph that, yeah, we'll probably see again, but not quite as often as something like cycling. Number five is we need to find the right place to bring it back, but I'm optimistic. So example there might be monstrous. It's like, okay, I'm pretty sure we'll bring it back, but it has to have the right place to work. Six means we need to find the right place to bring it back, but I'm a little less optimistic. Something like that would be like ninjutsu, which is, okay, maybe in the right circumstance it could come

back, but it needs a little more specific circumstance. Level seven is, it's unlikely to return, but possible if the right environment came along. Something like split second. Like, okay, it needs the right environment to be there, but maybe we could bring it back. Eight is, it's unlikely to return but possible if the stars align I think I put madness there and madness did come back once

in Shadows Over Innistrad so like it's possible it just really needs things to line up 9 is I never say never but it would require a minor miracle I put threshold here like okay it could happen but it's very unlikely and then 10 is I never say never but this will require a major miracle. Storm, obviously, the whole scale is named after it.

So what I was going to do today is look at the first two Ravnica. Visit 1 and Visit 2. Not Visit 3, because I only have 30 minutes. And I'm going to grade them on the storm scale. So I'm going to talk about where each mechanic came from and how likely I think it is to come back. Okay, so we're going to start with Azorius, which is white and blue, and we'll begin with the original mechanic,

the one in Descension, Forecast. So Forecast, interestingly, I created, inspired by the card Infernal Spawn of Evil from Unglued. The idea of that card was it was so evil that I could reveal it from a hand and just knowing that it was coming would make the opponent lose life. But the idea essentially is it had an activated ability in the hand. That is what Forecast is. Forecast lets you, from your hand, pay mana and reveal it to do an effect. And usually the effect of what you reveal is connected to

what you'll do if you cast the card. It wasn't a very popular mechanic. It actually fell to the bottom 25% of our ratings. The design space is very small, especially when you want to make the reveal effect and the cast effects have some synergy. It was neutral when it comes to versatility. It was actually a problem for play design. So play design had a lot of issues with it. Trying to get that balance is tough. And the fact that it stays in your hand, there's not a lot of answers to stays in your hand. Discard is really the only clean answer,

and that's only in black. Anyway, I ended up giving it an eight. Like I said, the biggest strikes against it was it wasn't that popular. The design stays so small, and play design has issues with it. So I don't think it's likely we're bringing back. The one thing I

generally say, by the way, is 1 to 5 means I think it's more likely to return than not to return, and 6 to 10 means I think it's more likely not to return than to return. Okay, the other Azorius mechanic, the one in Return to Ravnica, was Detain. So Detain says, until your next turn,

those permanents, wherever you Detain, can't attack or block, and their abilities can't be activated. So when you Detain something, you kind of lock it away for a little bit, for a turn, usually. Well, until your next turn. So the rest of your turn and all of your opponent's turn,

depending on whether it's multiplayer, when it gets back to your turn. Detain was pretty popular. Design space was a decent amount of design space. It was a pretty flexible thing. Like whether it's multiplayer, when it gets back to your turn. Detain was pretty popular. Design Space was a decent amount of Design Space. It was a pretty flexible thing. Like, it's very easy to put a little bit of it in a set. Play Design didn't have any issues with it. So I ended up

giving this a Storm Scale of 3. I think this is a pretty useful mechanic and in the right place. I mean, the flavor is good. In the right place, I definitely think it's something we could bring back. I think it's a nice useful mechanic, and in the right place, I mean, the flavor is good. In the right place, I definitely think it's something we could bring back. I think it's a nice, clean, simple mechanic that we could use again.

Oh, and by the way, where did Detain come from? I think what happened was, we had made, in Return of Ravnica design, we actually, for a while, the white-blue mechanic,

the Azorius mechanic, was enchantment-based. I think they went on enchantments, and then the enchantments had an enter-the-battlefield effect, and then you could trigger off other enter-the-battlefield effects. Well, no, sorry. The first thing was, it cared about you casting, yeah, it was like

Constellation was the first version. And then we did a thing where they'd enter the battlefield... Oh, no, no, no, sorry. The enter the battlefield effects was Guilds of Ravnica, not... So, right. In Return to Ravnica, it was Constellation, the early version of it. The idea was that it always went on enchantments, and it was enchantment-based, and it was rule-setting,

and it was Constellation. It ended up not working there. And Guild mechanics have to interconnect with one another, and we were having trouble doing that. So we brought it back later in Theros, but that's actually where Constellation. It ended up not working there. And guild mechanics have to interconnect with one another. I was having trouble doing that. So we brought it back later in Theros. But that's actually where Constellation started. This mechanic got made, I think, during development. There was a mini-team, I think, that made the mechanic. Okay.

Dimir, blue-black. So in the original Ravnica, City of Guilds, it was transmute. So transmute was you paid a mana cost, you discarded the card, and then you search your library for a card with the same converted mana cost as this card, you reveal it and put it in your hand, and then you shuffle your library. And you could only play it as a sorcery.

So the idea was, if I had a card that had a converted mana cost of two, I would pay some amount of mana. That mana wasn't necessarily two, but some amount of mana. Now I could go search for another card that had a converted mana cost of two, I would pay some amount of mana. That mana wasn't necessarily two, but some amount of mana. Now I can go search for another card that had a converted mana cost, or sorry, mana value, as we say it now. Back then it was converted mana cost.

Now it's mana value. So I searched for a card with the same mana value. It was decently light to the mechanic. The design space was medium. It's the kind of thing you could put in a set without needing a lot of support for it. It did have a bunch of play design issues.

Probably the biggest strike against it really is it's a tutoring mechanic, right? You go and get the card you need. Well, when you can do that consistently, it makes games play out too much the same. It sort of removes... Part of what's fun about Magic is that games play out differently, and games play out too much the same. It sort of removes...

Part of what's fun about Magic is that games play out differently, and when you have too much tutoring, it just means the games all play out the same. And so, while we don't mind individual tutors, we still make tutors, we tend to avoid mechanics that are tutors, just because it way increases

the repetition of play, as we like to call it. So anyway, I gave it a Storm Scale of 9, just because I don't think we're going to bring a tutoring mechanic back. It was well-liked. It was smooth. It was a clean mechanic. Transmute, by the way, was made by Aaron Forsythe in the original team. Aaron just... Aaron likes tutoring. The other thing was, Dimir, Blue-Black,

they kind of overlap in the library. That's where they have the most... Blue and Black are the allied colors that have the least amount of mechanical overlap. But one area where they do overlap is in how they interact with the library. And so we decided that Dimir probably wanted to be something library-centric.

Although, on the return, let's talk Cypher. Cypher was in Gatecrash. So the way Cypher works, it goes on spells, and it says, after you cast a spell, you may then exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its control may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost. So the idea is, I cast a spell, I encode it to a creature, I exile it and connect it to a creature, and then whenever that creature deals combat damage, essentially it does this spell. It was decently liked

of a mechanic. The biggest problem was the design space was tiny! So small, in fact, that we had trouble making all the cards for this set. And guild sets need a lot less cards than an average mechanic. So, like, we were having trouble with it with a guild mechanic,

which is 10 cards, maybe. It is very rigid in the kind of, you know, it is not something you can easily do. It's a hard thing. It also, developmentally, from a play design standpoint, was problematic. And so, even though people liked it,

I mean, it's a fun mechanic, it just had a lot of shrinks against it. The biggest one being is just a tiny design space. This was a mechanic that I made. The idea is, not only does blue and black care about the library,

but blue and black also are the colors that have the most evasion, most unblockability built into them. And so, like, oh, well, maybe, you know, blue and black definitely like sort of sneaking by. And like, like, oh, well, maybe Bloom Black definitely likes sneaking by and like, well, what if we

get into the idea that spells that interact with unblockability? So, that's where this came from. It was a cool idea. It's one of those things that I think if we ever bring back, we'd probably need to tweak it in a bunch of ways. As is

developmentally. That's the other big thing, is from a play design standpoint, getting free spells, meaning if I put this on my flyer or something that's hard for you to block, every turn getting a spell, we have to be very careful with stuff like that. Repeatable spells are tricky.

Especially repeatable spells that don't cost mana. Anyway, that is Dimir. Okay, next we'll talk about Rakdos. So Rakdos is the Black-Red Guild. So first time we showed up in Dissension in our first visit, we had Hellbent. So Hellbent is an ability word that says as long as you have no cards in hand,

if a source you control... Oh, I'm sorry. As long as you have no cards in hand, dot, dot, dot, whatever. The idea is that Black-Red, the Rakdos was all about sort of just doing things in the moment and not really thinking long-term. Very hedonistic.

The mechanic wasn't particularly popular from the audience. It had a decent amount of design space. It was kind of neutral on how easy it was to put it into a set. It didn't cause any play design issues and was a pretty straightforward mechanic.

I do think if we brought... I mean, I think it plays well, and I think it is an easy-to-understand mechanic. After the fact, we decided that we made a mistake on this. We think we should have done what we now call heck-bent. It should have been one card or less

rather than zero cards, and the reason for that is we do like having some surprise. Hidden information is kind of cool. So, making you get low in cards in hand, but not empty of cards in hand, we think is a little bit better. So, I'll give it a Storm Scale rating of 5, with a little asterisk on it

that, if we bring it back, it might be heck-bent and not hell-bent. But I do think heck-bent is something that we will bring back. So, a little asterisk to that. The other... Oh, and this mechanic was made by the Descension design team. We were sort of talking about how it felt and then we were trying to capture like,

okay, having total abandon, what does that mean mechanically? And we liked the idea of, well, what if you try to get rid of your hand? And so it was a top-down design in design. Okay, next is Unleash. This came up in Return to Ravnica in our second visit. So Unleash says, it goes on creatures,

you may have this creature enter the battlefield with a plus one, plus one counter on it, but it can't block as long as it has a plus one, plus one counter on it. So the idea is, oh, do I want my creature bigger but unable to block, more aggressive, or do I want to be able to block with it? And the idea is being a little on the reckless. Like, I can push, and I can get an ability. Now, some people thought this was a downside mechanic. Technically, it is not a downside mechanic, because you have total control. Meaning, my creature only, and it is, I can upgrade it, and the upgrade comes with a positive and negative, but I have total control wherever I upgrade it. a positive and a negative, but I have total control over whether I upgrade it.

A true negative drawback ability is I have no control. I just get this drawback. I get some bonus, but I have no choice but to take the drawback. This, you opt into it. Now, given if you opt into it, there is a drawback, but it's sort of a balance. It wasn't a particularly popular mechanic, as guild mechanics go. There's a decent amount of design space

it's not super hard to put it in a deck although you do need plus one plus one counters and there's a few things that you have to care about in putting a deck but it's not that hard to use didn't really cause play design issues and other than using plus one plus one counters there's not a lot of just general playability issues

I gave this a storm scale rating of 4, just because it's a clean, simple mechanic, and it's the kind of thing that in the right place can be very useful. And anyway, my thought on it was that if it was a little bit more popular, maybe I'd even give it a 3, but the unpopularity actually pushed it from a 3 up to a 4.

It's a generally useful and very clean mechanic. So I do think there's a decent chance it would come back. And this mechanic got designed in the team. I don't know who individually made this one, but it was Return to Ravnica, the team designed it. I believe, yeah, I think the design team made it, I believe. Next up, Gruul. So Gruul is red-green.

And Gruul, the mechanic in Guild Pack, the first visit, was Bloodthirst. Bloodthirst N, N being whatever number. And so, if an opponent was dealt damage this turn, this creature enters the battlefield with three plus one plus one counters on it. It wasn't a super popular mechanic when it came out. A little caveat to that, I'll get to in a second. Very large design space, just like I get bigger if I've done damage.

It's very flexible, easy to put in. You don't need a lot of them. In fact, you could have one of them in a set and work just fine. Didn't cause any play design issues. It uses counters, but playability is pretty easy other than that. The reason I gave this a Stormscale rating of 3, uh, the only strike against it was its first impression, like, when we did it. But we did bring it back in Magic 2012, and it played really well, and it was pretty popular there. So, I do think it's a nice, clean, simple mechanic.

I think it's pretty, like, it's the kind of thing I do think we can do on some regularity. And that I think it's think it's flavorful and always relevant. Like, okay, I have to damage you with creatures. Well, I do that in most games. Okay, when we came back... Oh, and who made Bloodthirst? Bloodthirst was... So the Gilphek design team, the one

design team that I was not on of all the Innistrad design teams, the team was run by Mike Elliott. It had Aaron Forsythe, Brian Schneider, and Devin Lowe on it. I believe they made this mechanic. I don't know specifically how it got made.

Bloodrush, Gatecrash. So our second trip to Ravnica. Bloodrush was an ability word. You paid some mana, you discarded the card, and then target attacking creature got plus X, Blood Rush was an ability word. You paid some mana, you discarded the card, and then target attacking creature got plus... Whatever the power toughness of the creature was, it got it. So the idea is, it either was a creature, or it became sort of a giant growth that granted the size of the creature.

People liked it. The design space, though, was small, because, like, well, if I wanted to grant plus two plus two, then my creature needs to be plus two plus two. And so it ate up a lot of space that made it hard to make too much of it. Um, and so it's one of those things that, like, if I separated it and brought it back,

I can make a 2-2 now and five years make a 2-2. Um, but it's tricky in the same set to make too many 2-2s. Uh, didn't cause any play design issues, and there's no major memory or logistical issues. I rated this a 6, mostly because it is just tricky to use. There's not a

lot of design space, and you can't make a lot of cards of it at any one time. I mean, it could come back with the right circumstances, but it's a little more limiting than something like Bloodthirst. Okay, next is Selesnya, green and white. So when we first showed up in City of Guilds... Oh, did I mention Blood Rush was made by the design team, by the way, of Gatecrash?

I forgot that. Okay, Selesnya. Convoke in the original City of Ravnica. So Con convoke says your creatures can help cast a spell. Each creature you tap while casting the spell pays for one or a mana of that creature's color. So, essentially, you're allowed to tap your creatures as a way to pay for mana

for the spells. Super popular mechanic. People liked it a lot. Large design space. Super flexible. Doesn't cause play design issues. Doesn't really affect playability in any way. So this is a solid three. This is like, we've already brought it back in a core set. We brought it back.

It's the only, I think, guild mechanic that we brought back again as a guild mechanic for Celestnia. It's just a very, very solid mechanic. I expect us to use this often in the history of Magic. I just think it's a clean, flavorful mechanic. The mechanic was made by Richard Garfield,

by the way, who was on the original Ravnica team. And it, although interestingly, Richard didn't make it for Selesnya. I think he made it for Boros

and I moved it to Selesnya because Selesnya, I think he thought like, oh, it's an army and the army's helping each other. But I thought it was like green, white, the community helps itself color. So it made a little more sense in oh, it's an army, and the army's helping each other. But I thought it was, like, green-white, the community helps itself color.

So it made a little more sense in green-white. But anyway, Convoke is a slam-dunk mechanic. It is not evergreen or deciduous, but it's close to that. It's as close to deciduous as it gets. So I rated it a three. Okay, next up, Orzhov. So Orzhov is white and black. So our first visit was Haunt. So Haunt was a mechanic that says when this creature dies,

exile it, haunting a creature. So you exile it. And then when that creature died, the creature that you're haunting, it would do something. So on creatures, it had an enter the battlefield effect that when that creature dies, it does something. And on spells, it would do the spell and then attach. And then when that creature died, it does something. And on spells, it would do the spell and then attach.

And then when that creature died, it would do something. So the spells and the creatures were similar, but worked a little bit differently. So the mechanic was unpopular when it first came out in the bottom quadrant. The design space is narrow. It requires a little bit of flexibility to put it in. Play design was kind of neutral on it

not easy to use but not hard to use and the biggest issue from a playability standpoint is what I call stickiness the mechanic isn't done in a way that's easy to remember how it works part of it is

that the creatures and the spells work differently does not help. But it just, it's a very cool flavor that my creature is then going to inhabit another creature. The execution, my take on this is, I gave it a Stormscale rating of 9. I think it's quite possible that we come back and say, how do we capture the flavor of haunting

and see if we can execute this same flavor in a slightly different mechanical way. I think this mechanics is a bit clunky. This was also made by Mike Elliott, Aaron Forsythe, Brian Schneider, and Devin Lowe. There's a really cool flavor here. I just think the execution of how it's done is hard to process and hard to sort of remember.

And usually people can never remember how it works. There's a sign that something's a little bit off. It's not quite as intuitive as it could be. I think the general concept of haunting is great. I know Chris Mooney is a giant fan of it and his GDS3. We had a week where you had to take a mechanic and try to do it better, and he did.

He did some cool things with Haunt. I do think there's something cool in the concept. I would probably rework how he did it a little bit. Okay, the other order drop mechanic was X-Tort. It says, whenever you cast a spell, you may pay white or black hybrid. If you do,

each opponent loses one life, you gain that much life. So the idea is, it turns all your other spells into drain effects, so you have, each opponent loses one life, you gain that much life. So the idea is, it turns all your other spells into drain effects, so you have to pay for each one. It's pretty popular. The design space was medium. The versatility is... I mean, it chews up some of your draining space, but not super

hard to fit in. Developmentally, it was kind of in the middle. It definitely had some memory issues, because you had to remember that it triggered every single time you played the spell I gave it a storm scale rating of 6 I feel like I feel like it's something that

is cool and flavorful but it has a bunch of small issues that add up to make it a little trickier to use than some other things this mechanic, there was a mini team they got made and I think Sean Main made Extort. It's my memory.

Okay, next up is Izzet. Blue-red. Replicate. So Replicate says... Replicate has a mana cost. When you play the spell, copy it for each time you paid its Replicate cost. You may choose new targets for the copies.

So replicate blue and red, is it mechanically, is the color that cares most about spells? So this was a mechanic that goes on spells that lets you sort of multi-kick them, essentially. Lets you copy them multiple times. It was a very popular mechanic. Design space is decently big.

It's a sort of medium. It chews up some medium. It's, it chews up some of your spell space, so you have to be careful in how you fit into the spell. It didn't cause developmental issues. And while there's a little bit of math to the costing, it's not that hard to use.

I gave the Storm Scale rating a five. We did talk, for example, in Strixhaven of bringing this back. There's also a chance we bring it back instead of making it multi. Instead of saying you can do it as many times as you want, I can see us bring it back and say you can only do it once. We might have to change the name then, but you could

replicate a single time. The fact that you could do it multiple times shrunk the design space a little bit. But anyway, I do think the idea of spells that can copy themselves is pretty flavorful, so I do think that will come back. And Overload, Return to Ravnica.

So this was, you pay a higher mana cost than the normal spell, usually it's higher. You may cast a spell for its overload cost. If you do, change the text by replacing all instances of target with each. And what that means is normally it's a spell that hits one thing, but if you overload it, it hits all things

that it can legally hit. Pretty popular mechanic, very small design space. One of the biggest problems is having something in which the singular thing was a color and the group was the same color didn't always line up. Like, maybe I destroy a target creature in black, but destroy all creatures is more likely to be white. So we have

some of that color pie issues going into it. And it's the kind of thing where having too many effects that hit everything can be tricky to get into a set. Play design, there's some issues there. It's not... It's kind of in the middle. It's not easy, but it's not super hard.

And then it didn't have really any rules, memory, logistical issues I gave it a 6, mostly because it's hard to design for, that's probably the biggest issue for, is that it's trying to hit the right spot now it is pretty popular, oh and the cool story of this design is

Ken Nagel created this card in his in his great designer search when he was competing in GDS 1, it's interesting, as I'll get to, there's three different mechanics that all came about in the Great Designer Search. So, Guild Mechanics.

The Great Designer Search works well for Guild Mechanics because it needs things that are a little bit smaller, which is usually the kind of things that we make in the way the GDS works. Okay, now we get to Golgari. So Golgari, the first mechanic was called Dredge in Raptor City Guilds. And this is a card that, it has a number, a dredge number.

And what that says is, instead of drawing a card for the turn, you may mill that many cards, whatever the dredge number is, and then you may draw this card from your graveyard rather than your normal draw. Mechanic is pretty well liked. It's very powerful. Very powerful. Probably the most powerful of all the guild mechanics.

Design space, medium. Because it's something that you can keep doing, so you have to be careful the kind of effect you keep doing. And it kind of wants to be in a set with some graveyard enablers. It is very problematic from a play design standpoint.

It's the most broken of the guild mechanics. And it definitely manipulates a lot of zones, so there's a little bit of complexity that goes on there. Interestingly, I made this mechanic in original Ravnica. And I say it similarly, as people think I'm exaggerating.

I'm not. We tried about 40 mechanics. We tried so many mechanics for the Golgari, and we eventually came up with this. Interestingly, when I made it and turned it over, when we turned it over from design,

you just could give up your draw to draw it. The added milling was added in by development, which ironically, this doesn't happen often, I think made it stronger. I think the milling... No, it created a little more synergy with other cards,

so that was nice. But anyway, I gave this a Storm Scale rating of 10 just because it's kind of busted. It's kind of like Storm. I mean, I do think maybe you'll see Dredge in the occasional Supplementals product, maybe, although it's just a very powerful effect. It's a fun effect. People like it, but it's broken.

Or as we used to say in R&D, bah-broken. Okay, when we came back, we had Scavenge in Return to Ravnica. Scavenge, you pay the cost. Exile this card. It goes on creature. It's from your graveyard. Put a number of plus and plus encounters equal to this card's power on target creature. And you can only do this as a sorcery.

So the idea is I have a creature, and then I can use this creature as a resource to buff my creature. Kind of like how the blood rush in Gruul, you could temporarily pump your creature. This is more of a permanently pump your creature. Now this is also from the graveyard. It's a little bit different and a little more mana to do that.

But it gives it kind of a second utility. Like I have a creature and then I have a second use when it's in the graveyard. Players liked the mechanic. The design space is pretty large. It definitely requires some creatures. You have to make sure that you have... It limits how many other ways you can build up creatures,

and then you want advantage of why creatures get bigger. So there's a little bit of working around it when you put it in a set. It didn't cause any play design issues, and it uses plus one plus one counters. I gave it a Storm scale rating of four. I do think Scavenge will come back. I think it's flavorful and a pretty, there's a lot of sets that

can make use of it. And Scavenge got made I think by Ken Nagel in Return to Ravaging Designs, my memory of that. Boros, Red White. So the original mechanic in Ravager City Guilds was Radiance. It's an ability word. So target creature and each other creature that shares the color with it

gets whatever the effect is. So when you use the ability, if I hit a red creature, all red creatures get hit by this ability. If I hit a red and white creature, all red and white creatures get hit by this ability. It was not a popular mechanic. Its flavor wasn't great. Well, I think Radiance had... Radiance's two big problems was it's confusing

and it wasn't the best fit for Boros and the design space is kind of small. It does require... You have to be careful when you build it in because it hits multiple things. It wasn't impossible to do play design for, but definitely had some issues. And the biggest strike against it was it's just very

complicated to process. If I have a red creature in play, a white creature in play, and a red-white creature in play, and then various other creatures, like just the combination of what could happen is very hard to track. And on top of that, it just wasn't very popular. So I gave it a Storm Scale of 9. I'm kind of

skeptical it's coming back. Oh, Mike Elliott designed this in Regional Ravnica. Okay, Battalion. So this was in Gatecrash. Battalion says whenever this card or at least two other creatures attack, it was generally well-liked.

Big design space. Pretty flexible. Didn't cause play design issues. No real memory issues or anything. I gave this a Storm Scale rating of 4. This was designed by Sean Main during his... in The Great Designer Search 2, he designed this. The only strike against it is, if we had to redo it, we might consider being two creatures rather than three creatures,

just because three proved a little hard to do. Maybe in a Boros setting where you have more small creatures, maybe that's okay. But when we've talked about bringing this back, the fact that it's three and not two, I can see us bringing it back and maybe making it two, maybe renaming and making it two. Okay, finally, Simic, green-blue. So the original mechanic in Descension was Graft. Graft with a number. This creature enters the battlefield with that many

plus one, plus one counters. Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may move a plus one, plus one counter to it. The mechanic wasn't particularly popular, although I personally really like this mechanic. Design space was medium. It went on creatures. I mean, it needed to be instead of plus one, plus one counters, but not that hard to do.

Kind of neutral for play design standpoints. There weren't any power level issues, but I know digitally there's some pains with it. And, you know, it is a little harder to track because it creates... Every time you play a creature, there's a trigger. The kind of thing digital brings up all the time. This is kind of a pain, digitally speaking. I gave it a Storm Scale 8.

I think that it just wasn't that popular, and it's not very digital-friendly, and so I feel like maybe in the right place it could come back. I personally was a fan of it, but I do get it. I think we made it in the design team, by the way. We were trying to figure out how to make Plus One Plus One Encounters work, because we liked Plus One Plus One Encounters

being a theme for Simic, and this was sort of designed that way. The final mechanic is Evolve. This was in Gate Crash. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature,

put a plus one, plus one counter on it. So if it's a 1-1, if you play a creature with power 2 or toughness 2, it gets a plus one, plus one counter. Then if you play a creature with power 3 or toughness 3, it gets a plus one, plus one counter. Very popular you play a creature with power 3 or toughness 3, it gets a plus one, plus one counter.

Very popular mechanic. Decent design space, sort of in the medium. There are some challenges. When you design a set, you want creatures with high power, low toughness, and low power, high toughness that are a little bit cheaper, so you can trigger this a little earlier than normal. But other than that, it's not hard

to put in. Didn't cause any play design issues. And it uses plus one, plus one counters. It cause any play design issues, and it uses plus one plus one counters. It does have some memory issues, because you have to remember as you play creatures whether it triggers or not. I gave it a Storm Scale rating of 5. I think that it is a pretty fun mechanic. There are some issues with it, there's some memory issues

and stuff, but I do think it's a fun mechanic. This mechanic was made by Ethan Fleischer in his Great Designer's Search. Great Designer's Search 2, when Ethan won. This was the mechanic he made for that Fleischer in his Great Designer Search in Great Designer Search 2 when Ethan won this was the mechanic he made for that so to quickly recap once again remember 5 and less means I think it's more likely to return than not to return

6 and greater means it's less likely to return than to return so let's run through these real quick and then I will end it for today so for Zorius Forecast I think it's less likely to return Detain I think it's more likely to return for Dimir Transmute, I think is less likely to return. Detain, I think is more likely to return. For Dimir, Transmute, I think is less likely to return. And Cypher is less likely to return.

So neither of those mechanics, I think, are likely to come back. For Rakdos, I think Hellbent as Heckbent is likely to return. And Unleashed is likely to return. So both those, I think, is a decent chance. For Gruul, Bloodthirst, I think is likely to return. Bloodrush, I think is less likely to return. For Selesnya, Court of Calling, sorry, not Court of Calling.

Convoke, I think, is likely to return. And Populate. Oh, I didn't mention Populate. I skipped over Populate. Let me talk about Populate real quick. Populate was in Return to Ravnica. I accidentally forgot this. It says, create a token.

You pay some mana. Create a token that's a copy of a creature token you control. It was a mechanic I made. It was a riff on proliferate, but instead of making all the counters you have, it just makes one token. We tried all the tokens. It was too much.

It was a pretty powerful mechanic. It has a medium design space. It's a bit rigid because it really requires a lot of tokens, although we make a decent amount of tokens these days. Didn't cause a play design issue, and it uses a lot of tokens. I gave this a Storm Scale of 5, so I thought it would come back. So both Convoke

and Populate, I think, are more likely to come back. Haunt in Orzhov is less likely. Extort is less likely. In Izzet, Replicate is likely. Overload is less likely. In Golgari, Dredge is less likely. Foul is less likely. Scavenge is likely. Boros is, Radiance is less likely.

Battalion is more likely, although it might be two creatures if we bring it back. Simic, Graftge is likely. Boros is... Radiance is less likely. Battalion is more likely, although it might be two creatures if we bring it back. Simic, Graft is less likely. Evolve is more likely. So anyway, those are all the mechanics from the first two Ravnica's. I hope you guys enjoy. I used to do...

I've written way more Storm articles than I've done my podcast. So one of the things I might be doing is some more Stormscale articles. Sorry, Storm Scale podcast upcoming. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this. But I can see my desk. So we all know what this means.

It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Hope you guys enjoyed this today. Bye-bye.