MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
Contest - Insanity mechanic
Background
I while back someone ran a Lovecraft/Cthulu contest and a couple of different people had two practically identical mechanics that I really, really liked. (I can't find it now, you if it's yours, speak up)
Qualifying Cards
- must be balanced
- must be templated/worded correctly
- must directly use or clearly interact with the mechanic defined below
Mechanic - Insanity
Insanity is somewhat like poison, in that it's an alternate loss condition based on a number of counters. The key differences are that (1) these counters are on permanents you control, so they may naturally decrease over time unlike poison, (2) you will usually be increasing your own insanity as a drawback rather than as an offensive strategy.
Formally, there is one state-based action, "If the total number of insanity counters on objects a player controls is greater than or equal to 10, he or she loses the game"
You may also use the following shorthands:
- The keyword ability "Insanity X" means "This enters the battlefield with X insanity counters"
- The keyword actions maddens X, or "madden X " to indicate adding X insanity counters to an object.
- Your own keywords, if properly explained.
Note: The mechanic becomes really interesting when there is some level of risk - such as increasing counters, or a random number of counters, or counters based on a trigger. In other words, an "Insanity X" permanent with no implication of how getting right up to 9 insanity counters could backfire on you is not risky - for example, a "strictly better" basic land with insanity 1 => not risky. A Phyrexian Negator like card that takes damage as insanity counters => risky. Since these are very different design spaces, I am creating a separate prize for risky vs non-risky.
Contest Rules
- Max 2 entries per cardsmith - one risky, one non-risky
- First 12 entries all receive feedback
- My judging criteria are creativity, mechanical elegance, and flavor, but due to the nature of the challenge, the emphasis will primarily be on mechanical elegance, and secondarily on creativity, with flavor only playing a minor role.
- I will award one prize for the best risky card and one for the best non-risky card. The prize is a card designed in your honor and 3 favorites.
- Contest ends Monday, March 7th. Prize awarded March 8th.
Edit: Added risky/non-risky categories and changed from one winner to two winners.
I while back someone ran a Lovecraft/Cthulu contest and a couple of different people had two practically identical mechanics that I really, really liked. (I can't find it now, you if it's yours, speak up)
Qualifying Cards
- must be balanced
- must be templated/worded correctly
- must directly use or clearly interact with the mechanic defined below
Mechanic - Insanity
Insanity is somewhat like poison, in that it's an alternate loss condition based on a number of counters. The key differences are that (1) these counters are on permanents you control, so they may naturally decrease over time unlike poison, (2) you will usually be increasing your own insanity as a drawback rather than as an offensive strategy.
Formally, there is one state-based action, "If the total number of insanity counters on objects a player controls is greater than or equal to 10, he or she loses the game"
You may also use the following shorthands:
- The keyword ability "Insanity X" means "This enters the battlefield with X insanity counters"
- The keyword actions maddens X, or "madden X " to indicate adding X insanity counters to an object.
- Your own keywords, if properly explained.
Note: The mechanic becomes really interesting when there is some level of risk - such as increasing counters, or a random number of counters, or counters based on a trigger. In other words, an "Insanity X" permanent with no implication of how getting right up to 9 insanity counters could backfire on you is not risky - for example, a "strictly better" basic land with insanity 1 => not risky. A Phyrexian Negator like card that takes damage as insanity counters => risky. Since these are very different design spaces, I am creating a separate prize for risky vs non-risky.
Contest Rules
- Max 2 entries per cardsmith - one risky, one non-risky
- First 12 entries all receive feedback
- My judging criteria are creativity, mechanical elegance, and flavor, but due to the nature of the challenge, the emphasis will primarily be on mechanical elegance, and secondarily on creativity, with flavor only playing a minor role.
- I will award one prize for the best risky card and one for the best non-risky card. The prize is a card designed in your honor and 3 favorites.
- Contest ends Monday, March 7th. Prize awarded March 8th.
Edit: Added risky/non-risky categories and changed from one winner to two winners.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/loxlorn-king-of-the-abyss
http://cbssports.com/images/blogs/Richard_Sherman_Madden_Curse_Madden_15_Cover.jpg
Funny correlation
Rise of Mayhem
(Updated 3/3/16)
Alright - Just checking. Since, lorewise, it would make sense for the player to have insanity counters too, though "going insane" doesn't mean a loss in the same way that poison says "ur dead = lose", so I was just wondering
(and yes, a random creature, not a random creature you control)
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/give-in-to-the-madness
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/eldrazi-rorschach
In other words, imagine your deck had a single creature with "Insanity 9". Ok, will you ever die from insanity? No, so simply a high insanity number is not risky
So what if instead you had two "Insanity 9" creatures? Still not risky - you would just not play the second one if the first one was out.
Next example, imagine your deck had a land with "{t}, Put an insanity counter on this: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool." Is this risky? No, because short of getting Mindslavered, you will just stop tapping it once you get to 9 insanity counters.
Instead consider if the creature said "At the beginning of your upkeep, put an insanity counter on this." Is this risky? Yes, because if you don't have a sac outlet, this could kill you, where as the above examples, only *you* could kill you. Here, the insanity counters increase without you initiating it.
Phobia Fiend
Here's my take on a Phyrexian Unlife for this mechanic. Feedback would be nice.
risky http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/brain-cogs
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/deranged-seeker
Ya, haha, I was just thinking the same thing LOL!
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/epiphanizing-hallucinator
Insanity would seem well suited for Innistrad. Fun mechanic
It's probably better that there's no mechanic with an X when it comes to dealing with something that 10 of will end the game. It would probably work best when you explicitly write it out. Not every good mechanic needs a keyword. Also, putting the counters on something like a land is way more threatening than a creature or artifact since they are much harder to get rid of.
And for bonus points, since this is the insanity contest, the name of my card stands for WTF.