Hello and welcome to In General. Here on the Sunday segment of The General Zone we discuss just about everything relating to the game of Magic and sometimes even more than that. This is part two of my discussion and analysis of Conspiracy.
For my thoughts on some individual cards from the set look: Here!
For Uncle Landdrops article about the Legendary Creatures in the set look: Here!
In today's article I will share my thoughts on Conspiracy as a whole: the mechanics, the design, and the idea of exploring 'untouchable' design space.
Mechanics:
Conspiracy - The eponymous mechanic of the set is embodied by this new card type. Conspiracies cost you a draft pick, but don't take up a slot in your deck. How do I feel about that? Bad actually. This creates a problem for me because previously you just drafted the CARDS that went in your deck. Now you are drafting something that ISN'T a card...strictly speaking they are closer to planeswalker emblems than real Magic cards. But how far are we willing to let this go? This may sound dramatic, but what if I said:
"My cube contains Snack cards. You can draft these cards, but they don't go in your deck. They simply entitle you to a snack."
Ham sandwich may not disrupt the draft much. Probably a 4-8th pick. Snickers Bar on the other hand is probably a windmill slam and would drastically alter the environment.
Do you think I have gone too far? There is a Conspiracy that says you just get to go first. Period (almost). That card exists in Pokemon, not Magic. There is a Conspiracy that makes all your lands tap for any color. Now the resource system is more like Hearthstone than MtG. It is not that much of a stretch to think there could have been a Conspiracy that reverses the turn order. At that point we are really just playing Uno.
Hidden Agenda - The Hidden Agenda ability is already on my nerves. I am in love with the idea of competing information. What can you discover? What can you hide? What can you assume safely? This is a fantastic interplay that already exists in many games.
Hidden Agenda is inelegant. It essentially forces you to wear a sign that says: "I HAVE A SECRET!" Why is your Conspiracy face down? Pretty obvious.
Although there are some ambiguities in the rules, I am a firm believer that the sideboard and the command zone are distinct game areas and MUST BE physically separated for clarity - just the same way you separate your graveyard, library, hand, and battlefield. Worse still, once you flip your Hidden Agenda up and reveal what you have named, EVERYONE else in the draft will know what you are trying to do, simply by virtue of being in the same room.
Parley - Nowadays, it seems as though every product that gets released features some mechanic that is a boring rehash of an older mechanic. I dare anyone to explain to me why Strive is not just multikicker. I don't think a convincing argument exists. Parley feels very similar to Clash, which was already not a favorite of mine.
The only real difference seems to be that everyone draws the card instead of having the option to Scry it away. And 'winning' the Parley happens by seeing a higher number of nonland cards instead of a higher converted mana cost. Time to catch the bus to Yawnsville. This is as tired and contrived as it gets.
Will of the Council - I say this at the risk of getting a bit too political for a game blog, but heck, here goes nothing. Democracy is an atrocious way to decide ANYTHING within groups of people. If you could trust humans to act in the best interest of the group YOU WOULDN'T NEED A GOVERNMENT.
Will of the Council is quickly going to devolve into 'punish the guy who played it'. This is the exact reason I advocated against playing punisher cards. Your opponent(s) have absolutely no incentive to agree to anything that lets you profit. You are always going to be better of playing something that doesn't give the opposition the option to improve their position.
Dethrone - This isn't exactly an uninspired reimagining of something old. It is new...in a way. My issue here is that this is so bland and so shallow though. This is something that I would have rather seen on a single card. Perhaps an Artifact or Enchantment that gives this to your Creatures. No need to create a new keyword for something so simple and automatic.
Draft - The draft-altering cards, for lack of a better name, are hit or miss for me. There are certainly times where I have looked at a pack and thought: "I wish I could just take 2-3 of these cards and pass on the rest." On balance though, this is a gimmick. I do not suffer gimmicks lightly. Some of the cards are also dependent on multiplayer games to some degree and I am not the biggest fan of multiplayer gameplay.
Also, there are many ways to play limited other than booster draft, and this product does not give them any service. Sealed Deck, Stack, Winston draft, Rotisserie Draft, Rochester Draft - these are all fun in their own ways. They add spice and replay value to your limited sets. Why make a CASUAL draft product that doesn't even address the idea of playing the casual-only draft formats?
I have a second issue with these cards that I will remark on briefly, as I will be saving the bulk of this topic for next week.
If you design something that breaks the rules of the game in some way, you are inherently entering new design space that had previously been restricted. It can be easy to overlook that this design space may have been closed off for a reason. Most people don't care, they like the game the way it is. There is a subset of the player base however who has ALWAYS considered this restricted design space to be open. These people are creative and savvy. They see a niche, a gap in the design and they fill it. It could be creating a new format. It might mean creating a new card or card type. It almost always means breaking a few rules.
Take Commander as an example. Why do we have to abide by the rule of four? What if we instead had a rule of one? And who says we need 60 card decklists? Let's make it an even hundred.
I am in this category of player. You can't give me something 'new' and ask me to buy it. I already have it. I imagined it. I experienced it already. I refer to this issue lovingly as: "The Disillusion problem." And I will be discussing how it relates to Conspiracy in the next In General. After that: Vintage Masters, baby!
As always, thanks for reading. Shout it out in the comments.
-GG
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