Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #995: Off-Color Activations

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

In this podcast, I talk about how we design activations that require a color not found in the mana cost of the card.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so today's topic was a suggestion from somebody, I think, on Twitter. Maybe on my, maybe Tumblr, maybe my blog. Anyway, they wanted me to talk about off-color activations. And I thought, oh, well, so like one of the challenges, I'm I'm almost to 100, not 100, I'm almost to 1,000 podcasts. So, one of the things I have to do is when I get ideas, there's actually a wiki that lists all the podcasts. And I always search to make sure that I haven't talked about it yet. Because with 1,000 podcasts, I hit a lot of topics.

But off-color activation is something I hadn't talked about. And, oh, the other thing is whenever I think about a theme, I have to say, oh, do I have 30 minutes? Do I, you know, do I have enough to fill up my entire drive to work talking about it? And I thought, I thought that this was a fun theme. Do I have 30 minutes? We are going to find out together. Obviously, if you're listening to this, I have 30 minutes? We are going to find out together. Obviously, if you're listening to this, I have 30 minutes because I wouldn't post it. But I don't know. You guys, if you're listening to this, you know I have 30 minutes. But if you're not listening to this, I guess nobody, then it doesn't matter. But anyway, so off color activation. So let me explain what that is. So normally on a magic card, it has a mana cost.

Usually a card is one color. It could be multiple colors. It could be multicolor. But if a card is one or more colors, and we do an activation that involves a color that is not the color of the card, we refer to that as an off-color activation. Most of the time, it'll be a monocolored card. I mean we we do off-color activations every once in a while on two-color cards with like a third color in a three-color set. We do that on rare occasion. Most of the time it's a monocolored card that has an activation of a second color. Now, we sometimes do it where there's two activations of two different colors, like the original Guildmages all the way back in Mirage.

Sometimes we'll do an off-color activation that's multiple colors. I mean, there's a lot of combinations. All that off-color means is it's a colored activated ability that doesn't match the main color. There are ones, by the way, that are, I guess, technically, we could make a multicolor card that has a multicolor activation

in which one of the two colors is on the main card. I'm not even sure if we've done that, but I guess it's theoretically possible. Normally speaking, with special exceptions, we don't tend to do more than three colors per card. We've made the occasional Nephilim or four-color card.

We do that infrequently. The other big problem with four-color is if you're trying to make something so it can be drafted, it is hard. We can make it so you can play three-color. Four-color is pretty tricky. We can make it so you can play three color. Four color is pretty tricky. So anyway, most of the time with off-color activations, it'll lead the card to have two or three colors.

I will point out, I should mention this. I'll get to it later on. But color identity is not something that began the beginning of the game, but it's become something. So we'll get to that. Okay. So the very first off-color activated card was Sedge Troll in Alpha. So Sedge Troll was a creature. I'm trying to remember his exact stats. I think it was two and a red for two, two, I believe. And then for a black

activation, you could regenerate it. I think what happened at the time was they had made a troll. This is my guess of what happened. This is my guess. I don't know this for sure. I've not talked to Richard about it. My guess is that they made a troll and they decided that troll,

I think trolls regenerated or they felt like trolls should regenerate. But the troll got made in a color that didn't have regeneration, which was red. And so I think regeneration at the time was black and green. And so I think Richard said, oh, I wanted to regenerate, but the ability that I wanted to have, regeneration, isn't really a red thing. Oh, well, what if I just charge you the color that it is? So now let's get into the

philosophy of all-color activation. So the way it works is if I have a card and I have a mana cost for the card, the color of that mana cost dictates what abilities the card can have. So for example, if I want the card to have red abilities, well then I need to put red mana in its mana cost. Now we do make artifacts. I guess I'll go down this rabbit hole real quick just because I got the time. We do make colorless cards, meaning cards that have a generic mana cost. The rule is when we make generic cards we try not to absorb the color that's the weakest in the area. So we are not very aggressive in our costing of

most of the time of generic costed artifacts because we don't want to, especially if we're playing an area where one of the colors is supposed to be weak in it, we don't want to make it such that that color has too easy access. Now, the color can have access to it and part of color identity is we want you to recognize that something isn't good at something. Where getting a color card that is not that color, you know, does not communicate that in a way that making a card that is that color that's just very weak. Players are not,

many players are not good at recognizing power level. So if you make a card that does something, even if it's really weak, a lot of players can't tell it's weak. And so it just reads as, oh, that color can do that. Okay. So let's say we're making a card. The off-color activation lets us basically add another, an ability on that card that is not native to the colors of that card. And so it is just a means. Now, why not just make it a multicolor card? Let's say I want to have a red card with a black activation, like said Stroll. Why not just make it a red-black card? The reason for that is if you make it a red and black card, well, then you need to have both a red source and a black source to cast the card.

red and black card, well, then you need to have both a red source and a black source to cast the card. So let's say, for example, I'm splashing black. It just is, it's harder to get out. Now, if it's a red card with a black activation, that means that I can play it with my red mana. Now, maybe I'm not optimizing it until I get my black mana, but I can play at it, you know. So said show, for example, is a three mana two, two. Okay, well, up until I get the black mana, but I can play at it, you know. So Sedge Show, for example, is a three mana 2-2. Okay, well, up until I get the black mana, I can play it. Maybe if my opponent doesn't have an early drop, maybe I can attack a couple times. And the idea is, the reason that we do off-color activations is it allows us to do multicolor in a way that's a little bit more accessible. The most common place we'll do off-color activations is in a multicolor themed set.

Usually what we'll do is we'll make a cycle of them, or more than one cycle. But when we make off-color stuff, we tend to put them in a cycle. Normally what will happen is there'll be a five-card cycle, and then we have to pick the rotation. So think of a color wheel. So it goes white, blue, black, red, green. So let's say, for example, we want to make a cycle out of our off-color activations. So let's say on white, we make a white card with a blue activation. That means that the blue card will have a black activation, the black card will have a red activation,

the red card will have a green activation, and the green card will have a black activation, the black card will have a red activation, the red card will have a green activation, and the green card will have a white activation. Sometimes we'll make a second cycle where white has a green activation, green has a red activation, red has a black, black has a blue, blue has a white. But normally when we make off-call, and normally, I'm not saying there's not exceptions to this, and at higher rarities, we're much more willing to do exceptions. Usually at low rarities, more often than not, it'll be part of a cycle. And most often when we do it, it'll be part of a multicolor cycle. Okay, so let me get a little bit into sort of how to make an off-color activation.

sort of how to make an off-color activation. First and foremost is you want to be... The ability you're granting gets to be in the color that you're spending. So that even though the card is a white card, if it has a blue activation, the blue activation should be... Like, we treat the activation

as we would treat the card if it was that color. So if I made a card with a creature with a blue activation, well it has things that blue creatures can do. It's designed as a blue card. If I have an activation that has blue in it, well the activation acts as if it's a blue card. So part of doing off-color activations is allowing us to mix and match things that normally don't mix and match. Now part of that is if I'm going to do a white card with a blue activation, I don't want to do something that white can do. So, for example, making a white card with a blue activation to fly, it's like, well,

white can fly. Why am I going to blue to fly? So there's a funny story here that I will tell. So Apocalypse, the design team for Apocalypse was a very new team. In fact, it's possible that nobody on that team had been on a design team before. That's not really how we do things these days. But there were a bunch of people that had wanted to be on a design team and Bill, I guess, was head designer at the time, decided to put them all on a team together. And so one of their cycles,

so Apocalypse, for those that forget, was enemy colored. So they made a cycle of off-color activations. So creatures in one color that activated in an off-color. It was an enemy set, so, you know, it was like white activate red. But what they did was they made it such that everything overlapped in what it did so the white card for red mana you could get first strike and the green card or the black card for green mana

you could get death touch and so it granted things that both colors had I think they were thinking of oh we want like hybrid wasn't really a thing in apocalypse but I think they were thinking of, oh, we want, like, hybrid wasn't really a thing in Apocalypse. But I think they were thinking, like, oh, we've got to design this like hybrid. But the funny thing is, well, what's the point?

If I'm on a white card, why do I need to activate? Like, why do I need red mana to get first strike? I'm on a white card. I have first strike. If I'm on a black card, why do I need green mana to get death touch? So one of the things we do when we do off-card activations is we want to be adding something to the card that the card can't naturally have. There's no reason to add something that the card can already do.

You know, you don't need to have to go to red to get an ability white can have. So that's the first thing, is you want to make sure that what you're adding is something that matters. Now, I'm talking about off-color activations, so I'm talking a little bit about mana activations. It is possible, by the way, when you're doing off-color, it doesn't have to be an activated ability. You can do an off-color that is a triggered ability. You can do a static ability. And what that means, for example, is whenever you attack, you may pay off color to do something. You know, all creatures gain off color colon something. Like, there's other ways to grant the ability. It doesn't have to be activated necessarily.

The other thing that we do sometimes that is similar, not quite, but I'll bring it up, similar, not quite, but I'll bring it up, is we'll have an activation that requires you having a colored thing. Maybe it says tap a red creature or tap an untapped red creature. Maybe it says, sometimes we'll do an activation, but it'll say you may only activate this

if you control a red creature, or if you have a mountain. So those are things in which we treat them like off-color, meaning, if I need you to have access to something that is the other color, we treat that like you have access to that color. So only, you know, tap a red creature, tap an untapped red creature, you control, is similar to having a red mana. It's a little bit easier to do and there's hybrid shenanigans and things

but we do let you get access to off color by showing that you have things of that color, that you've played a creature of that color or a basic land of that color. Okay, so let me get into the reason why we like to do off-color. I mean, I talk a little bit about it lets you have access to the color. One of the things when we're doing multicolor sets especially, is color is not players do not access all colors equally.

When you build your deck, sometimes you build your mana base such that, oh, I'm playing two colors and I have the same number of basic lands, or roughly the same. Meaning I'm playing white-blue and I have equal access to white that I have to blue. But one of the things that happens as you get a little bit better

is you start to realize that you can do what we call splashing. And splashing means that I could play, let's say for example, I have a really powerful card. I'm playing black, but I draft a really powerful red and black card. Or I draft a card that has a black activation. What you can do is, if you're careful about when you need that third color, you can splash it. And so what usually that means is, I'm not going to need the color early, I'm not playing low drops, or I'm playing things, or if the low drops are activated, you know, they're activated, where late game, when I draw that color, it'll

give me access to things. Maybe I can play large things later in the game. Maybe I can activate things that I couldn't normally activate. But the idea is we want to enable splashing, and splashing is an important part of a multi-color environment. A lot of time, part of what our strategy is, is we look at how much people will play colors and then how much they'll splash colors. And it's very common, for example, to build an environment that's primarily two-color, but build in the means for people to splash a third color. And sometimes we do that in a way where the third color is not, it's not super viable to play three colors, at least play them equally. So one of the things about off colors, which is really nice,

is it allows you to give resources for splashing. And the reason for that is the card has utility outside of the splash. Yes, you know, in theory, by the way, you know, if you're playing red and not playing black, sometimes maybe it's your 23rd card. You'll take a card that you can't activate. Or what's more likely is I have the means to splash, but the means to splash is a light touch in my deck. So it's like most of the time I'm not going to have access, but I do have some way to get it. You know, I do have something that'll allow me to have access to it. So, okay, I'll put it in my deck. A lot of the time it won't have that access, but the potential is there. The other thing that it lets us do is off color activate, well, let's get to color identity. So commander came along and in commander, the color identity of the card is the combination

of all the mana symbols, the colored mana symbols on your card. And early on, I think they just looked at your mana cost, but they changed the rules to look at your whole card. So now if you are a white card with a red activation, for color identity purposes, you are a white and red card. So now if you are a white card with a red activation, for color identity purposes, you are a white and red card. So one of the things that's proven to be useful for us, although we do this less than we used to, is if we want a, let's say we make a card that we want to have access, want a certain color identity, we could give it a small ability that's in the extra color so that, you know, the main functionality of the card doesn't necessarily need it, but it gives the color identity to it. And it allows you, if you're playing it as your commander, now you have this extra color

as a resource that you wouldn't before. We used to do it a lot more than we do now. We do it a little bit still. You know, we need to be careful. Another thing, by the way, when we do off-color activations, I didn't get into hybrids. Let me talk hybrid real quick. Normally, when I'm talking about off-color, I'm talking about, you know, it's a white card. It's got a red activation.

One of the tools that came up, so Hybrid first got invented in original Ravnica. Hybrid mana is an ore. So if you see white or blue, that means I can spend white mana or blue mana. So there's a couple ways we can use Hybrid. One is, since I just talked color identity, if I want to make a card that works 100% without the second color, but I want the card to have a two color

identity, I can give it an activated ability that's hybrid so let's say it's a white card with a white blue hybrid activated ability well, if I'm playing mono white, I can just play that card no problem, I don't need blue but, assuming it's a legendary creature, if I'm it's my commander and it has a hybrid activation, it adds a second ability in. Another place we might use hybrid activations, a good example would be in Fate Reforged. So Fate Reforged was a small set in the middle of a block, of the cons block. The first set was a wedge set, and the second set was an enemy

caller set. The way the draft worked was cons of Tarkir got drafted with Fate Reforged, and then when dragons of Tarkir came out, instead of drafting fate with cons, you drafted fate with dragons of Tarkir. The idea is the timeline changes the story. But anyway, so we needed to make a set that drafted both with a three-color set and that drafted with a two-color set.

And so what we did is we made a bunch of hybrid activations, off-color hybrid activations. So the idea was, so let's say I have a blue card with a black green hybrid activation. That means if I'm playing concert arc here,

and I'm playing blue-black-green, for example, Sultai, or even if I'm playing blue-black-white, not blue-black-white, blue-green-red, which is Temur,

I could play this card, and especially if I'm playing all three colors, I have access to all three colors. So if I, let's say I play my blue with a black and green activation, hybrid activation. Well, if I draw my blue and my, you know, if I draw an island and a swamp, I can, I have full use of the card. If I draw an island and a forest, I have full use of the card.

But when you got to Dragon's Ark here, where you're not playing three color, the fact that it was blue and green, basically, I mean, it's also black, but in theory, if you're playing dragons, you're not playing blue and black, because those are allied colors. You're playing blue and green. So that card does

function. So, the card lets you play it in a three color deck and have extra utility, but also play in a two color deck and have full use of the abilities. So, card lets you play it in the three-color deck and have extra utility, but also play in the two-color deck and have full use of the abilities. So hybrid activations will let us do that sometimes. The trick with a hybrid activation, much like a hybrid mana cost, is the ability has to be true for each of them. So if I have a blue-black hybrid cost, it must be

something blue can do and something black can do. That's very easy to use certain colors, challenging others. Blue-black has probably the least amount of overlap of the two color pairs. Red-blue also has some issues at low rarities. It's a little bit better at higher rarities. It's a little bit better at higher rarities. Anyway, so that's hybrid.

I think the off-color activations are interesting. Oh, let me talk about multi-off-color activations. So we tend to do this in sets that have a three-color theme. Usually the way we do that is we'll do a card in one color and then we do activations in the two other colors. So if there's a wedge set, the activations would be, for example, let's say I'm doing a white card. If it's a wedge set, most likely it would be in the enemy colors. It'd be activate for red and black. If it wasn't an ally set, it would activate for blue and for green. The idea there is you have two different activations,

and then you have access to it based on what you have available. So let's say, for example, I'm playing blue and I have black in my deck. Well, now I have access to the blue and black ability. If I have red in my deck, I have access to the red ability. But I have blue and black, I have access to both. So that's another thing I should get into. One of the things that off-color activations do is they, what we call, tier cards. And what that means is

basically when you are putting cards out what you want to do is you want cards of different value to different drafters um now ideally what you want is uh we don't want to strand cards when that means is if i have a card that's only good for one archetype only one person can play it then that card is always going to go to that archetype. In fact, they could get it very late. So let's say I make a powerful card that's really good in a particular strategy, and I make it so nobody but that person wants it, that drafter wants it. Well, then they're going to make a really powerful deck, because no one's going to take

their card, other than hate drafting, and they're just going to end up with them and probably has late picks. So what we want to do is we want to make cards attractive to different players at different times. So the nice thing about off-card activation is that card is most optimal to the person that can use all the colors. So for example, let's say I make, you know, the blue card with a black activation and a red activation in a three-color set. Now let's say I am playing, okay, if I am playing blue, black, red, I'm very interested in that card. I have full utility.

I can use the base ability of the card and I can use the two activated abilities. Now if I'm playing blue, black or blue-red, I'm somewhat interested. I have access to one of the abilities. Anyway, so it makes me want to pick it up because I have some utility. Now, maybe if I'm playing blue but not black or red, I mean, usually that's weak enough that you're not going to play it. But the idea is we want to make a card have different utilities for different people. And so that adds that value to it, right? That allows us to make cards that, you know, a red card with a black activation, like said Stroll, is attractive to a red drafter, but not as attractive as to the red-black drafter. But the red-black drafter. But the red-black drafter's

not guaranteed to get it, because the red drafter at some point might take it, because they're like, well, you know, the base body's enough that I'll run it. It'll be my 23rd card or 22nd card. Okay, another thing when you... Oh, the other thing that is attractive

to the off-color is... So we want to tier the card. We want to get you to consider picking up. So if I'm a red player and I see a red card with a black activation, I will pick it up. If I have nothing better to do, I'm like, well, it's a red card.

I can play it. It goes to my deck. But the next thing it does is it provides some incentive to you. And one of the reasons that in draft, we like to tier things is you might take it for being in a lower tier, but now it tempts you to go up into a higher tier. So for example, I'm playing red. I pick up a black activated thing. So, for example, I'm playing red. I pick up a black activated thing. Part of me says, well, if I make black my second color, look, this card I already drafted gets better.

And so it starts sort of giving you hints where to go. And that's another thing we like a lot about off-color activations is that sometimes when you pick it up, you're not necessarily planning to use it, but it encourages you to use it. And maybe not fully go in the color, maybe just splash that color, maybe just splash some, you know. Another thing that's really common is I'm playing some off-color activations, so I pick up one or two ways to get there. Maybe it's not something I do all the time, but well, it's a dream. It's something that might happen. I at least can think about it. And then every once in a while in the games, you know, it makes that variance. So that's another thing. Let me talk a little bit about variance. Why off color is nice for variance. One of the things that you want to do is we want

Magic games to play it a little differently from time to time, right? We want when you play, like, I talk about this a lot, but variance makes games fun. And so one of the things we like to do is, what if we make cards that will be different in different games? So, for example, if I draw, let's say I have red and black on my deck. But I play a game where I draw red mana and not black mana. Well, that card's going to play a little bit differently. And there's interesting tension because if I get...

Let's say I have a red creature and I play the red creature. Now I know that black mana is going to power up my creature. I'm excited to get black mana. I'm looking for black mana. It makes some dynamism to the game. And it also means that, like, let's say I'm playing a black red creature and I'm not drawing my black mana. Right? In those games, I just can't play the card.

It's stuck in my hand. But in off-color activations, it's not necessarily stuck in my hand. Assuming that I drew the primary color, then I can play the card. And that's just a different dynamic. And so, one of the reasons we like, like in a multicolor set, we'll put a certain amount of off-color in

just because it has some utility that multicolor doesn't. Not to say we don't do multicolor. We'll do that as well. But one of the things when you're making a multicolor set, or even, I mean, I talked a lot about it in a multicolor set. Let me talk a little bit about it in a not multicolor set. So, for example, original Innistrad,

we put in Flashback, and Eric wanted some, Eric knew that there was a, the theme of the set had monsters and humans, had a creature type theme overlap all the ally colors. So white, blue was spirits, blue, black was zombies, black, red was vampires, red, green was werewolves, and green, white was humans. So there already was something in the set that was pulling you toward the ally colors. already with something in the set that was pulling you toward the ally colors. But Eric said, okay, I want five other draft strategies, right? So he goes, you know what I'd like to do? I would like to have some alternative enemy color strategies. How do I do that? How do I encourage that? So what

he did was he took some, I think they were uncommon, but he took some flashback spells and he put off color in their flashback activations. So the idea is you can use a spell, you know, let's say you're a white player. Okay, well, you can use this spell in your white deck, but if you have black in your deck, you can flash it back. You have more utility. And what that did was it allowed him to take those cards and really push themes in the enemy color deck. So that's another thing that we get to do with off-color is

it can sort of help guide you. It allows us to sort of weave in multicolor themes, but in a way that doesn't have utility for people not necessarily going on those themes. So in Innistrad, hey, I'm not going to take the off-color flashbacks as high as somebody playing both colors, but I will take it. You know, there comes a point in the draft where I'm like, okay, fine. I can only cast it once, but it's a spell I can cast once.

Or likewise, maybe you take it and you think like I'm going to use it in my deck, but then I'm tempted to go to the other color or splash that color. So off-color activations do a lot to sort of, like I say, to do tiering and encouragement of stuff. And as the example with Innistrad, it also does some messaging, right? It communicates to players. some messaging, right? It communicates to players. That's another thing is, when you see a card that is one color with the off color of another color, that says, hey, this strategy, these color combinations do

something. And so it's another way, like we do side posts on comments all the time. This is another way that we sort of can give you a little bit of a hint. That the off color activation, like if you see a white card with a green activation, okay, that's probably going in the green-white deck, or at least it's optimized in the green-white deck. So that's giving you a little bit of a clue about what green-white does. The biggest thing, I'm almost at work, the number one thing I want people to get across is

one of the things about doing magic design is you have a toolbox, right? You have a lot of different tools you have access to. Today I'm talking about off-color activations, and I talked a little bit about hybrid. There's a bunch of tools that you have access to. And I think to be a good magic designer, you have to understand your tools, understand when to use

them where to use them um and now sometimes uh I let me my last use case for off-color activations usually it's a mechanical thing usually we're trying to define a second color or tier things or encourage you in or educate you like we're trying to do all that sometimes what happens is um we're trying to do a top-down design i want to get the flavor of something and the top-down design really wants this thing that in no way makes any sense with with the existing colors color colors and so but the thing is so iconic to what we're doing, we're like, oh, we can't make it without doing that. And so sometimes we add in the off-color activation, this is especially at high rarities, for flavor purposes, to say, oh, we really want this card to do this thing, but those

colors don't do it. So in order for us to do that, we add that. The nice thing for, since a lot of times the top-down will be a legendary creature it also does the color identity stuff with you know with the commander so that also sort of

usually a bonus but yeah so we do sometimes most of the time we like

it's a bottoms up design for off color most of the time it's like oh we want this card to represent two colors but we want it to be more one than the other it's a bottoms-up design for off-color. Most of the time it's like, oh, we want this card to represent two colors, but we want it to be more one than the other.

So we'll make cycles of, oh, okay, this is the white, this is the white, you know, go clockwise around the color pie cycle. Okay, well, let me figure out what I want to do and how to do that. The thing we have learned over time is we are well, like, we make color stuff all the time. So if you say, what can a red activation do? I know that.

And there are certain things that are particularly good at colored activations, right? Like activated first strike is very good. So we know if you're doing red or doing white, you have access to that. So having made a lot of off-color stuff over the years, you know, we have a good sense of what you can do. And there's little tricks and stuff. Anyway, I hope that was interesting. I meandered a little bit, but I think I talked for the full 30 minutes.

I mean, I did talk, but I think I talked about different things for the full 30 minutes. So anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed 30 minutes. I mean, I did talk, but I think I talked about different things for the full 30 minutes. So anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed this. Like I said, I do, if you have ideas for topics,

please let me know on my social media. I often make, I often will do podcasts based on suggestions from people. So please continue to do that. But anyway, guys, I am at work. So we all know what that means.

It means instead of talking magic, it's time to me to be making magic. Well, see you guys next time. Bye-bye.