Attack Pattern

[Laurie Cheers]

I was thinking about ways to adjust Ephraim's Surveillance card to be useful... as often happens, I ended up with a completely different card.

Attack Pattern
1W
Enchantment
Whenever creatures attack, this combat phase is followed by an additional one.
Whenever a creature attacks or blocks, it cannot attack or block again this turn.

Quite interesting and subtle IMO. You get as many combat phases as you want, but each of your creatures only gets one opportunity to attack, and your opponent's creatures only get one opportunity to block. (This means you can plan your attack knowing how the earlier combats went, because your opponent has committed his creatures to particular blocks.)

I considered adding "Only one creature may attack each combat", but I don't think it needs it.

Oh, and perhaps extra combat phases are traditionally a red idea, but this feels totally white to me...


Current wording:

Wave Tactics
W
Enchantment
Whenever you attack with one or more creatures, you get an additional combat phase after this one.
Whenever a creature attacks or blocks, it cannot attack or block again this turn.

[Matt]

That is totally sweet.

[Ephraim]

I like this. It plays up white's supposed strength in strategic combat, which is in flavour and useful. However, I think that this should only affect you. After all, if you're the player with the strategic superiority (ie: playing white), it doesn't make sense that your disorganized opponent (playing red) should get the same benefit you have.

It makes combat feel a lot like combat in Battletech, although I'm having difficulty imagining a situation in which this would make much of a difference. In Battletech, where the speed of a group of attackers is determined by the speed of the slowest Mech and in which blocking is legal or illegal depending on the speed of one's mechs, attacking with a group of Fast mechs and then with a group of Medium mechs can make a difference. In that case, it's like all attacking groups have banding. If you block one, you block them all. With this card, it seems that attacking with fewer creatures is seldom going to be of advantage to you. Sure, you can attack with a Taunting Elf, to allow your other creatures through, but you could do that in one massive attack, too.

I suppose this can make a difference if you've got a few more creatures than your opponent. Say you've got five creatures and your opponent has three. You can attack with your three smallest creatures. If he doesn't block them, he takes damage. If he does block them, you can then attack with the big creatures. I suppose that makes sense, then.

Aside from wanting it to benefit only the person who cast it, I give this card my stamp of approval.

[Laurie Cheers]

You're right, it should be a one-sided effect.

I think the most common application for this card would be simply to attack with one creature to see what happens, then (if you like the new board situation) attack with another, and so on.
It's also a good way around Fog effects and Wall of Glare.

Maybe it should just cost W...

[Ephraim]

It gets around Wall of Glare, but it doesn't get around Fog-like effects. They typically read "Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn" (emphasis mine.) It doesn't matter how many combat phases there are; they're all occuring in the same turn.

I suppose that it might be useful for attacking with creatures one-at-a-time, but I'm not sure that is going to yield demonstrably different results than attacking en'masse. If I have a 1/1, a 2/2 and a 3/3 and you have the same, it isn't going to change my blocking scheme, no matter what order you attack in. In my case, I'd probably block the 2/2 with my 3/3 and the 1/1 with my 2/2, then let the 3/3 through. The only big difference I see is that if you attack with the 3/3 alone without this enchantment, I might consider blocking it with my 3/3, while if it attacks alone (first) with the enchantment, I definitely don't block it.

[Laurie Cheers]

It gets around Fog in the sense that if you play Fog during my first combat phase, I don't need to attack with the rest of my creatures. They'll stay untapped.

And if I attack alone with the 3/3, and you don't block it, then I'm happy. I don't attack with anything else; I'll just send in the 3/3 every turn.

The effect is a lot like Reconnaissance, I suppose, except that it gives the attacking player a bit more information.

[Jacob Orlove]

This is very cool.

[Matt]

It also gets around stuff like Rain of Blades/Sandstorm and if there's any triggers that trigger at the beginning/end of combat they'll work well with this card. Also stuff like the darksteel equipment (SoFI, SoLS, Spellbinder, Specter's Shroud).

[Jacob Orlove]

It also gets around stuff like Rain of Blades/Sandstorm and if there's any triggers that trigger at the beginning/end of combat they'll work well with this card. Also stuff like the darksteel equipment (SoFI, SoLS, Spellbinder, Specter's Shroud).

Actually, this works well with equipment in general; if you have the mana to move it around, you can have bonesplitter on each of your creatures, for example. Not broken, but cool.

[Laurie Cheers]

Good point, I hadn't considered that.
If that turns out to be too strong, I'll change the cost back to 1W or more.

[Jebus]

This doesn't give you a main phase to move equipment around between combat, so most equipment is going to stay put.

[Laurie Cheers]

Oh, good point.
But I liked the idea of moving the equipment around... it means this card is clearly different from Reconnaissance.

Never mind, I'll have to satisfy myself with a Sliver combo:
Heart Sliver, Brood Sliver and Shifting Sliver in play: attack with a sliver, hit your opponent, get a sliver token and a second combat phase to attack with that sliver token, which gives you another sliver token and another combat phase, etc.
Hee hee.

[Ephraim]

Bump. Let's not forget about this cool card. Laurie, is it ready for a 24 Hour Clock?

[Laurie Cheers]

Yeah. Clock.