New Abilities and Keywording old abilities

[KDenz81]

What sort of creature or card abilities would you come up with?

Are there any existing abilities that you would simplify such as Unnafected by summoning sickness to Haste or most recently Attacking doesn't cause this creature to tap to Vigilance and the Gang of Elk ability to Bushido.

Here are a few ideas I've been toying with.


Celerity (You may play this creature any time you could play an instant)

Force (Remove a card in your hand from the game of the same color as the spell played, and pay 1 life instead of paying the casting cost) - this could be for creatures or other spells.

Immunity or Invulnerable (this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities.)

Landbond:
Forestbond (when this creature comes into play you may put a basic Forest card from your hand into play.)
It would be the same for the other land types.

Landheart:
Plainsheart: (If an opponent controls a plains, this creature gains +1/+2 and First Strike.)

Swampheart: (If an opponent controls a swamp, this creature gets +2/+1 and Fear.)

Forestheart: (If an opponent controls a Forest this creature gets +1/+1 and Regenerate this creature.)

Islandheart: (If an opponent controls an Island this creature gains Flying and {U} : Return this creature to it's owner's hand.)

Mountainheart: (If an opponent controls a Mountain, this creature gains Haste and +1/+0.)

Venom: Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, destroy that creature at end of combat.

Sedate: When this creature deals combat damage to a creature, tap that creature and it doesn't untap during its controller's next untap phase.

Repulse: When this creature comes into play return target permanent/land/creature/artifact/etc. to its owner's hand.

Psion:: (Tap this creature to deal damage to target creature or player.)

Weakness to {Color}: (This creature can't block {Color} creatures.)

Hesitation: (This creature is affected by summoning sickness for an additional turn.)

Peek:: (When this creature comes into play look at the top cards of your library and put them back in any order.)

Essence (Whenever this creature deals or receives combat damage you gain that much life.)

Recover (When this card is put into any graveyard from play, shuffle it into its owner's library.)

Autoresolve (This spell can't be countered, this spell's ability can't be countered. This spell has no resolve period.)

Some of these abilities you can pay to activate, such as Recover, or Peek, etc...

I'm also working on a new version of Banding, but I'm still working the kinks out of it.

Let me know what you think.

[Ephraim]

This is very similar to some ideas you already brought up. They didn't generate a whole lot of enthusiasm so 1. not much has probably changed and 2. it probably would have been better to post this continuation in the original thread.

[KDenz81]

This is true Ephraim.  However I felt that this thread belonged here, since it's more of a general discussion topic than card creation topic.  I don't really mind that it hasn't generated a lot of discussion.  However, now that it's here, perhaps it will.

[Ephraim]

In that case, I am going to copy/paste my comments on some of these abilities (with never-before-seen comments!), because they're the same as they were and my opinions about them haven't changed...

Celerity is interesting, for example. When I read MaRo's article and saw that they almost named "haste" that, I really wished they had. I think that playable at instant speed is a good mechanic for the name. It occurs so seldom that it may not be worth keywording, though. Now that I think about it, celerity "feels" like a creature-only ability, but instant speed playability can also appear on enchantments and artifacts, which means that a more generic keyword may need to be chosen for this ability. If no keyword at all is suitably generic, it may be better just to leave the ability without a keyword.

I like the principle behind Landheart and Weakness. I don't think, however, that they should be keyworded. I like that people are thinking about how to take advantage of what land types peole control and what colours their creatures are and such, but I think there should be more flexibility in how those things apply than one set of bonuses or penalties. For examples of some cards I've designed that have similar traits, see Marsh Goshawk, Arboreal Glider, Frozen Spirit, and Torpid Spirit in the Blue Master List.

I like the idea of Venom. In fact, that very topic came up just a few days ago. The objection was raised (and it's a good objection) that there are three abilities that are very similar and which are often associated with venom: creatures die when blocking/blocked; creatures die when damaged; creatures don't untap next turn. All three exist and are actively used (Serpentine Basilisk, Tangle Asp, Orochi Ranger) I note that you've added an ability "Sedate" to cover the Orochi form of venom. That's one possible solution to the cited problem, but I still think that these abilities are better left un-keyworded for the time being.

Hesitation seems kind of interesting. Mechanically, I'm not absolutely positive how you would word it, but anything that allows for undercosted fat is neat, in my eyes.

Essence can probably just be Spirit Link, instead, with the standard "whenever this creature deals damage" trigger. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are expecting that ability to be keyworded pretty soon anyhow.

Recover, Autoresolve, Psion, Repulse, and Force all seem incredibly narrow. They hardly ever appear and when they do, they're better off leaving the details of the mechanic unfixed. For example, something like Sparksmith is a perfectly good direct damage creature, but it doesn't fit the Psion template. Force locks out the possibility of other alternate casting costs, which is really the one area that can be tampered with to make an ACC spell more or less powerful.

[BWM]

I don't like keywords, they dumb down the game...

[KDenz81]

Actually BWM, in my opinion Keywording abilities makes them easier to understand and saves a lot of card space.  Especially for those of us who've been around the game for a long time and know what the abilities do.  
Besides that if they didn't keyword abilities Akroma, Angel of Wrath would have a lot of text.

Akroma, Angel of Wrath

Legendary Creature -- Angel

Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying), First Strike (This creature deals damage before creatures without First Strike), This creature is unaffected by summoning sickness, Trample (If all creatures assigned to block this creature recieve lethal damage, remaining damage can be assigned to defending player.) Protection from Black and Red (Prevent all damage dealt to this creature by Black and Red sources, this creature can't be blocked by Black or Red creatures, this creature can't be the target of Black or Red spells or abilities.  Vigilance (Attacking doesn't cause this creature to tap.)

6/6

Did I make my point?

[Jacob Orlove]

There's a difference between keywords like flying that appear in every set and have dramatic effects on gameplay while also being absurdly intuitive AND flavorful, and keywords like "recover", which not only appear on far too few cards to merit consolidation, but actually detract from flavor and gameplay because they're neither specific nor intuitive.

[jro]

Mark Rosewater wrote an article on keywording that provides a good sense of why R&D keywords some mechanics and not others.  You can also check out Randy Beuhler's response for the October 7, 2004, Ask Wizards column for his take on the role of keywording.  The most important role that keywording provides (as I see it) is that it becomes easier to refer to that keyword on other cards.

And Bushido is not the same as the Gang of Elk ability, because the Gang of Elk ability triggers for each blocking creature, not just once.