Face Down **Circuit Challenge**

24

Comments

  • edited April 2019
    Revised!
  • edited April 2019
    So, @Tomigon, I'm not entirely sure I understood all your concerns.

    1. Since the card is never revealed (at least in this instance), there is no way an opponent would know what you cache.

    2. Everyone has their own cache in the same way they have their own graveyard and exile zone, so you couldn't get another player's card into your hand.

    3. The "draw" wording was strange and has been changed.

    With our new "subzone" card and the simplified rules, their are tons of applications for it and a very large and diverse design space. Since you can look at and return any card in your cache instead of drawing, assuming you have more than one cached card, your opponent would never know which you took even if he knew which cards were there.
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    I see. You probably didn't have effects like "cache target permanent" in mind. That's fine. If your library is the only zone that you cache cards from, adding cards you don't own to your hand can never happen. But you still need to shuffle your library before you cache the top, or shuffle your cached cards afterwards though, because the top card of your library can be sometimes revealed.
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon
    It seems fine to me if the some of the cards are known (see last paragraph in the above comment), and caching permanents will definitely happen, but, just like when you "exile target permanent" it will go it its owner's corresponding zone. Everyone would have their own cache. Only cards you own can enter your cache.

    The possibility of an opponent knowing which card you "drew" from your cache actually seems like a cool nuance of the mechanic anyway. It will result in more strategic play!
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    No, my point is, if you cache permanents or any other revealed cards, even if they become face-down, opponents would try to remember which cards are which by using this thing(I don't know how it is called in English)
    image
    Check out Jeskai Infiltrator. It exiles a permanent and the top of your library face-down at the same time, and you shuffle them.
    image
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon
    Those are sticky notes (or Post-Its) in English.

    What I'm saying is that if some of the cards in your face down pile are known and some aren't, that's actually a good thing. It makes what you choose to replace a draw with more strategic as well as how you cache. I think the variety and gameplay tactics are actually a positive thing here.
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    If you say so, that's ok. Then maybe you should make them say "turn the known cards face up" or something. Otherwise they would put sticky notes on your cards lol.

    Also, exile is the zone all players share. And you are trying to make a subzone in it. It should specify that if you cache a card, it goes to its owner's cache.
  • @Tomigon
    It does specify, it says "your cache."

    Maybe it should just say shuffle to simplify?
    (Exile it face down in your cache. Shuffle your cache.)
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    Where? It says "When you cache a card, exile it here face down". You also said "Cache target permanent" can happen. That means if you cache a permanent you don't own, it goes "here(your cache)", and allows you to put it into your hand.

    Yes, you should definitely shuffle your cache.
  • @Tomigon
    Like I said, everyone has their own cache card. The reminder text for Notion Mentoring (and every other future card with reminder text) says "your cache," see above.

    The reminder text for a card with "cache target permanent" would be:
    (Exile it face down in its owner's cache. That player shuffles their cache.)

    No, you still can't put cards you don't own into your cache.

    Cool *ThumbsUp*
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    Oh, I was only looking at ningyounk's cache-zone card.

    In "cache target permanent", "cache" is your action. And cache-zone card says "When YOU cache a card, put it HERE." That means a permanent you don't own can go to your cache and to your hand. It should be fixed. Maybe..
    "Whenever a card you own is cached, put it here face-down, then shuffle all cards in your cache.
    You may look at cards in your cache any time.
    If your would draw a card, you may choose a card from among cards in your cache and put it into your hand instead."

    Also, I don't think cache mechanic needs reminder on cards. The cache-zone card says everything. It's like poison counter card, or monarch card.
    imageimage
  • @Tomigon
    That might be a little bit of overkill, but perhaps not. It's cool that we can skip the reminder text!
  • edited April 2019
    @Faiths_Guide
    Your Notion Mentoring's reminder already skipped a lot of informations, so I felt like why not remove the reminder! lol

    This is the card I made with my version of cache. I tried to make the reminder as short as possible, but it's still almost as long as Cipher mechanic.
    image
  • @Tomigon
    Yeah, I definitely prefer the more straight forward and cleaner version @ningyounk and I developed too.
  • @Faiths_Guide
    I believe my version is cleaner and I like to have reminder on cards, but people have different preferences XD
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon
    Oh, I thought we both didn't like the extra text being added to face down and exiled piles of cards?

    Personally, I much prefer the new version. It could easily include the text on the cards, but, to me, it feels like something WotC would push into a less frequent territory with a separate reminder card for gameplay simplicity.
  • edited April 2019
    image

    Slight wording edit thanks to @AustinSmith
  • @Tomigon Okay, lemme see that.
  • @Faiths_Guide @Tomigon

    Hello you two, Faiths_Guide and I were having a private conversation about what the reminder text for cards with Cache would look like, but since you're having an interesting conversation about it here I should probably just give you my arguments here as well ^^

    1) How to avoid sending cards you don't own to your hand?

    I think you have three possible options to deal with this issue:

    a. The more restrictive solution: You want to make sure there are no shenanigans possible and that a card you don't own will never end up in your cache ever. In this case, you change the mechanic so it says "exile the top card of your library".

    b. The middle-ground solution: You want to enable a bit more design space but in a way where it's still completely impossible to get a card you don't own in your cache. In this case, you keep the mechanic to simply send cards to your cache, but the card-by-card designs must only send cards to your cache from your library or graveyard. This enables designs like "When Secretive Phoenix dies, cache it." or "Look a the top N cards of your library, cache one."

    c. The more permissive solution: You want to enable all the design space available which includes stuff like creatures dying to the cache, cache as removal, cache as a weird remand or discard effect, etc. In this case, the mechanic must mention the owner. It can be done two different ways:
    • On a card-by-card basis when cards are sent to the cache (e.g. "Send target spell to it's owner's cache", "Send all creatures to their owners' cache", "Target player reveals their hand, send a nonland card from it to its owner's cache"...).
    • By the mechanic itself, that would state that "Whenever you would draw a card, you may put a card from your cache into its owner's hand instead."

    In my opinion, you should go for either the first option that's cleaner and simpler, or the last version (with the owner mentioned as you cache the card, not the reminder token) that has a lot of interesting design space.

    2) Should you shuffle your cache every time you add a card to it?
    That seems really excessive, in my opinion. The cache should be treated as the hand, you don't shuffle your hand after being thoughtseized. Adding words to the reminder text and making you shuffle your little pile of cards ten times per game sounds like a terrible blow to the mechanic's playability. I don't think avoiding some fringes cases where the order of your cache would matter justify making the mechanic that much worse as a whole.

    If an opponent knows a card of your cache, they will just do what you usually do when you see your opponent's hand: you write it down for yourself. The reason Jeskai Infiltrator shuffles is because you don't want the opponent to have to track cards they know are face-down creatures in the middle of an ocean of manifested cards. I don't think it's relevant in the case of cache.

    3) What should the reminder text on the cards that cache be?

    Once again, I see three solutions:

    a. The exhaustive solution: It has the advantage of making sure nobody will get confused by what the mechanic does, but the disadvantage of being wordy. "Cache [whatever card]. (Exile it face-down into your cache. You may look at your cache at any time. Whenever you would draw a card, you may put a card from your cache into your hand instead.)" — 33 words

    b. The half-half solution: It's still giving you some information on what the card is doing and it's not very wordy, but you can't fully play the cards correctly without external information and it still taking up space for limited value information. "Cache [whatever card]. (Exile it face-down into your cache.)" — 7 words

    c. The Monarch solution: It's saving you all the space in the world but it would require the mechanic and its token to be very high-fan to be worth it and you would still have players sometimes be very confused by a card that doesn't tell them what it does. "Cache [whatever card]." — No reminder text at all.

    I would personally go with the first option if I wanted to be realistic. Monarch was a special case because the set was specifically targeted at enfranchised players. Your mechanic should probably follow the rules of any standard-legal set, especially since it's not that long of a reminder text.
  • @ningyounk
    2) Should you shuffle your cache every time you add a card to it?
    I would say yes. That's how WotC would design cards. Ghastly Conscription, Jeskai Infiltrator exile two or more cards in a face-down pile, then shuffle that pile so that opponents can't keep track.

    And I'm not sure if your first solution of (3) would work.
    Doesn't "You may look at your cache at any time. If you would draw a card, you may put a card from your cache into your hand instead." part end when the parmanent leaves the battlefield? For example, you have a creature that has "{t}: Cache the top card of your library." You activate that ability, and the top card is sent into you cache. Then someone kills that creature before your next draw step. Then you can no longer look at your cache nor put a card from your cache into your hand. Because those parts are written as a static ability of the killed creature. That's why my idea gives abilities to cached cards.
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon
    I don't think WOTC would shuffle those cards. Once again, the only reason Jeskai Infiltrator and Ghastly Conscription shuffle those cards is because of manifest. The whole point of face-down creatures is that you don't know what they are, which is why those cards exceptionally shuffle piles. In the case of cache, I don't understand why you would shuffle them, can you give me an example of what you're worried would happen if we didn't shuffle? To me, I don't see a significant difference in gameplay between knowing the opponent has Creature A in its cache and knowing the third card of their cache is Creature A. The only thing I can think of is if you happen to cache another Creature A, and you accidentally put it in your hand before the first copy so your opponent has slightly more information about your cache (but less about your hand, in a way). That's very little upsides mechanically. On the other hand, there is a significant downsides in playability if you add systematic shuffling to your mechanic, is it really worth it?

    Ah you're right, it is "If" and not "When".
    The last part about giving the ability to the cards themselves so you still have access to your cache without permanents keeping the mechanic active it a bit more technical. It we follow the templating of cards like Thief of Sanity, the correct way of saying it would indeed be something like this:

    "Exile this card face-down into your cache. For as long as it remains in your cache, you may look at it and, if you would draw a card, you may put it into your hand instead."

    It is slightly wordier though, so what I've done is a bit different. I'm defining a new zone with its own rules instead. Basically, the cache would have its own rules and kind of always exist in the game, like how the Monarch rules and contraptions rules are always true in every game even when there are no Monarch or contraptions. It's the rules of the zone itself that define that you can look at cards in it and replace your draws with cards from it. Which is why my reminder text above doesn't say "You may look at that card at any time for as long as it remains in your cache" but "You may look at your cache at any time." I'm just giving your the reminder text for a global rule of the game that's always true. This is purely for length reason ^^
  • edited April 2019
    Removed.

  • edited April 2019
    @sanjaya666
    Thanks for submitting 3 cards. I like (They are 2/2) reminder

    @ningyounk
    Like I said to Faiths_Guide, if you are ok with not shuffling the cache, then it's fine. Everything works on rules, I guess.
    You asked for an example of why I don't like that, so here it is:
    I cache the top ten cards of my library and all(10) cards in my graveyard. You know what 10 cards are among those 20 cards. You want to know which card I put in my hand. But all of them are face-down. So what would you do? Use sticky notes? Or ask me to move very slowly every time I interact with cache zone and try not to forget which cards are where? If I want to win, that's what I would do. That's so frustrating and dull. I don't think that's a realistic design from the viewpoint of gameplay. Magic is not about taking notes or remembering face-down cards.
    So I suggested Faiths_Guide to make the mechanic say turn the known cards face up, or simply shuffle the cache. I would choose shuffling. It makes the texts wordier, and I don't like that, but better than being unrealistic.

    Anyway, there's a way that you can make that text less wordier.
    Before-
    (Exile it face-down into your cache. For as long as it remains in your cache, you may look at it and, if you would draw a card, you may put it into your hand instead.)
    After-
    (Exile it face-down into your cache. That card gains "You may look at this card and choose to put it on top of your library any time.")
    New suggestion(In case you want to shuffle your cache)-
    (Exile it face-down and shuffle it into your cache. For as long as you have cards in your cache, you may look at it and put a card from there on top of your library any time.)

    Skipping the next draw to put a card from your cache to your hand and putting a card from your cache on top of your library are basically the same, except that the later is less wordier.
  • @sanjaya666
    Oops, I didn't look at that card carefully. The challenge is about sending cards to exile face down, so that card doesn't count. Sorry!
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon Okay, gonna change that then.

    Possibly also gonna change one of my other entries too.
  • edited April 2019
    Changed my latest entry.

    image
  • edited April 2019
    @Tomigon
    Ah yes, I understand your worry better, it's a good point. You're right that the players can't end up in a spot where you have known cards and unknown cards mixed in the cache and you could know which one are which by counting the cards.

    I looked at the comprehensive rules, here's rules 400.5:

    The order of objects in a library, in a graveyard, or on the stack can’t be changed except when effects or rules allow it. The same is true for objects arranged in face-down piles in other zones. Other objects in other zones can be arranged however their owners wish, although who controls those objects, whether they’re tapped or flipped, and what other objects are attached to them must remain clear to all players.

    So yes, order could be a problem, and that would require a solution. Here are two ideas, for @Faiths_Guide to consider:

    • Use shuffling as suggested before. There might be short ways of doing it like, for instance: "Cache a card. (Shuffle it in exile into your cache. As long as it's exiled, you may look at it. If you would draw a card, you may put it into your hand instead.)
    • Make the cache a new zone and not just a pile of cards exiled face-down. This way you can decide that the cards in your cache can be arranged like your hand. Here's an example of templating, which importantly does not exile so you can be flavourful about it: "Hide a card into your cache. (If you would draw a card, you may put a card from your cache into your hand instead.)" and the reminder token would give more information about the zone itself, for instance: "The cache is a hidden zone without order, like your hand. If you would draw a card, you may put a card from your cache into your hand instead."
  • @ningyounk
    I’m glad to see we agreed on most points ;) As usual, you did an excellent job of elaborating.

    Making the cache a new zone (like your hand) is roughly how I was thinking of it, but I wasn’t sure we wanted to do it in a full-blown way like that or not. I suppose that it sounds like a reasonable solution, I’d be more inclined to just use “put” instead of “hide” though.

    @Tomigon
    I’m still sure that we don’t want to add abilities to face-down and exiled cards. WotC tried to avoid these odd permanent effects on cards that inevitably end up in your graveyard anyway, and we don’t want to introduce the strangest version of that issue yet.


  • @Faiths_Guide
    Adding abilities to face-down permanents is possible. Adding abilities to exiled cards is also possible( https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=delay ). So I believe adding abilities to exiled face-down cards works, and I don't see any issues in it.
  • You know, I was hoping to someday create an entire set of "Tomes" based around Mangara's Tome's effect, so I guess that's something I'll do in the upcoming days
This discussion has been closed.