Experience and Advanced

bass
New Member

Posts: 1

Experience and Advanced Nov 21, 2015 8:04:32 GMT -8

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Post by bass on Nov 21, 2015 8:04:32 GMT -8

Hi

Jay told me to take my idea from a weekend art challenge and bring it over here (from goblinartisans.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/weekend-art-chalelnge-review-111315.html?showComment=1448121092908#c2132460983739859080)

It's this card

Aside from the silly mistake I hadn't noticed (that when you become advanced, your defenders that can now attack lose their power bonus - d'oh), the idea of this card is that experience counters could work like poison counters in terminology.

So, firstly, a player can be "experienced" if they have one or more experience counters, much like a player can be poisoned. For example, "CARDNAME can't attack unless you are experienced."

Secondly, much like how poison counters, once they've accrued to 10 counters, cause a state to take place (you lose the game), when you reach 10 experience counters something happens - you become "advanced". Now even if your board is wiped, your civilisation has been permanently upgraded.

It seems to me to solve the problem of other advance mechanics which are essentially threshold effects dependent on board state and are continually book-keeping (counting CMC or number of permanents), this is a simple thing to track and captures the feel of progression over the game. It also means that proliferate, which wants to work with charge and +1/+1 counters which all seem natural fits for a "progress" theme, now works with the key mechanic of the set.

So... off you go, I guess?

Inanimate
Administrator

Posts: 61

Experience and Advanced Nov 29, 2015 12:08:42 GMT -8

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Post by Inanimate on Nov 29, 2015 12:08:42 GMT -8

I think this idea has some potential. It allows us to have a unified progress mechanic while still having a variety of ways to express it mechanically.

The big concern, of course, is the parasitism of the mechanic. The cards that give experience counters should probably care about them somehow, and be usable on their own. In addition, the cards that get an effect when you're 'advanced' should also probably have a way to give you experience counters. Preferably, every card with 'advanced' should hold the promise of getting you to to 10 counters eventually, though it'd be far easier to just play multiple cards or copies of the same card to accelerate your approach to 'advanced'.

I experimented with a similar Experience mechanic in a past set - very similar, actually - and I found that the individual cards were in a very weird spot, power-wise. You couldn't make 'staple' effects with Experience because then the draft archetype would become a struggle, and the actual cards would end up being too weak outside of the archetype. Finding enough room for interesting non-necessary effects for a format that work well with experience was tough.

Mine were continual progress - they just counted the number of experience counters you have. Having an 'advanced' threshold makes it easier to think of effects, but makes it harder for the individual cards to have an impact. For example, if you have two Experience cards that count the counters in a deck, you still get a sense of 'improvement' upon casting the second card after the first (it got bigger). But in this version, the second card and the first card would both be in their 'unupgraded' forms if you failed to reach 10 counters, so parts of your deck just become 'lame' cards unless you get a critical density of Experience and repeatable Experience.

Overall, I think experience counters are something we left by the wayside for a variety of good reasons, but I think it's a subject worthy of discussion.

jaytreat
Administrator

Posts: 27

Experience and Advanced Dec 1, 2015 13:32:23 GMT -8

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Post by jaytreat on Dec 1, 2015 13:32:23 GMT -8

One trick we can use is for all the experience-threshold cards to be good on their own and even better when upgraded.

Experienced Golem {6}
5/5 unc Golem
As long as you have 10+ experience, ~ gets +5/+5.

Experienced Pyromancer {2R}
2/2 rare Wizard
R, T: ~ deals 1 damage to target c/p.
X, T: ~ deals X damage to target c/p. Activate only if you have 10+ experience.

AlexC
New Member

Posts: 16

Experience and Advanced Dec 2, 2015 5:47:34 GMT -8

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Post by AlexC on Dec 2, 2015 5:47:34 GMT -8

Personally I'd very much rather have almost every card which cares about your experience also grant you experience counters. I don't think it's a good, well, experience for a player to draw even a card that's pretty good if it's got a line on it saying "But I could be so much better!"

Author of Magic Multiverse, and maintainer when I have energy.[br]I proved Magic is Turing Complete, wrote a random Magic card generator, and my board game Steam Works was published in October 2015.[br][br]www.magicmultiverse.net[br]www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing[br]www.toothycat.net/~hologram/SteamWorks[br]www.toothycat.net/wiki/wiki.pl?AlexChurchill/MagicCardGenerator

Inanimate Administrator Posts: 61	Experience and Advanced Dec 2, 2015 17:55:02 GMT -8 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Inanimate on Dec 2, 2015 17:55:02 GMT -8 Agreed, AlexC.

Post by bass on Nov 21, 2015 8:04:32 GMT -8

Post by Inanimate on Nov 29, 2015 12:08:42 GMT -8

Post by jaytreat on Dec 1, 2015 13:32:23 GMT -8

Post by AlexC on Dec 2, 2015 5:47:34 GMT -8

Post by Inanimate on Dec 2, 2015 17:55:02 GMT -8

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