v1.6.0: The Keyword Update

Patch is not out yet, putting the notes out early to get community feedback. (itch really needs a people with the link can view feature)

Keywords!

This patch formalizes the keywords.

Keywords are persistent buffs to creatures.

From this update onwards, Haste is an ability of creature cards, not creatures. As such, it's not considered a keyword.

Frozen is not a buff. Therefore, it's not a Keyword.

The keywords as of this patch are:

Lifelink - Already Introduced in a previous patch. No changes.

"When this creature strikes, heal its owner equal to the damage dealt."

Sweep - The name of the ability already printed on cards such as E4, A9, and E12. No functional changes. Sweep will now be explicitly printed on all cards that have it.

"When this creature attacks, it attacks all enemies. Purge power modifications on this creature after attacking."

Double Combat - A renaming of the ability granted by cards such as True Conviction and Priestess of Moments. This is a functional change this time - multiple Double Combat effects no longer stack.

"When this creature would attack during a combat phase, it attacks twice." Note that this does not affect attacks made not during a combat phase, such as the one given by Natural Fury and Priestess of Vengeance.

UI

[Class] card from Expansion is gone. Now, classes are shown via watermark, and each expansion has an icon, which is pixel art by yours truly.

Keywords on creatures have new UI, featuring icons stolen from MTGA until I find my own.

A creature might be a Keyword, or have a keyword. These are different things!

If a creature be a keyword (printed on the card, or "modified with"), then it will have that keyword. However, a creature can also have a keyword due to an effect such as an aura. For clarity, a creature that be a keyword has it shown in a white background, while a creature that has a keyword without being that keyword will have it shown in a red background.

Templating

Some of these new wordings won't fit on a line. I'm not worrying about typesetting them for now, because I plan to soon release a patch with better creature text box display.

Therefore, the goal of this patch is to write the units with the proper templating without care of whether the text actually fits on the screen.

(By the way, the itch.io devlog editor is worse than useless, every time I paste the text of a card in here I have to manually remove the code block itch.io adds that I don't want.)

All cards that used to attack all enemies now have "Sweep."

(W9): "Your other creatures have Haste." -> "Your creature cards have Haste."

(actually, I cba removing all the code blocks, go blame itch)

(A1): 

"Your spells have +1 attack." -> "Your spells have +1 power."

(F12):

"Your spells have 1.5x attack (rounded up, applied after adders)." -> "Your spells have 1.5x power (rounded up, applied after adders)."

Astral Drake:

Attack equal to your lowest mana. Playing your core has no effect. -> "Sweep. I have additional power equal to your lowest mana. Playing your core has no effect."

Supreme Elemental:

"Attack equal to your highest mana." -> I have additional power equal to your highest mana."

Phoenix Hydra (Expect this to be retemplated again soon...)

"+1 attack per health bar I have lost" -> "Sweep. I have additional power equal to 99 minus my lives."

Spirit of Air

"+1 attack per enemy creature" -> "Sweep. I have additional attack equal to the number of enemy creatures."

Priestess of Storms

Removed from the game. (It was bugged in the current patch. While the bug is trivial to fix, the card is not particularly interesting.)

Monument to Rage

"Your creatures attack an additional time each turn. They also strike me." ->  Your creatures have Double Combat. When your creature attacks: It also strikes me.

Priestess of Moments

"Your creatures attack an additional time each turn." -> "Your creatures have Double Combat."

Trig:

"Before opponent's action: Burn their aether. Cap other mana at 6." -> "Sweep. Before opponent's action: Reduce your opponent's basic mana to 6 and their aether mana to 0."

True Conviction:

"Creatures you control have lifelink and additional attack." -> "When charged: Creatures you control have Lifelink and Double Combat."

Bonescythe Sliver:

"Aether creatures you control attack an additional time." -> "Aether creatures you control have Double Combat."

Codex of the Overlord:

Creatures you control have haste. Start frozen with 2 less aether. -> Your creature cards have haste. Start frozen with 2 less aether.

Dev comment: Tokens are still considered your creature cards. They're simply not in your hand.

Balance

Once more a bot had to find a busted combo because it didn't occur to any of my players that 1 mana to put 6 power on board is a bit sus.

The busted combo in question is Codex of the Overlord + Skeleton Army, Rank 1

Codex of the Overlord: [37] -> [36]

Skeleton Army, Rank 1/2: Now has a -2/-1 life adjustment.

New Cards

When I introduce mechanics, the first cards I like to make are designs I couldn't make before the update.

Liquid Shadow (Restorer 2)

@ ally. Modify it with Lifelink.

The Other Double Attack (Chronomancer 3)

@ ally. Modify it with Double Combat.

Flurry (Chronomancer 6)

@ ally. Modify it with Sweep.

Sweeping Sliver (8)

Aether creatures you control have Sweep.

3/19

New Ability: Magnetic

From this patch forwards, some creature may have the Magnetic ability. The rules:

- Magnetic, like Haste, is an ability of a card in your hand. It is not a Keyword.

- A magnetic creature may be played in an empty lane as normal. In this case, the Magnetic ability will be ignored.

- Alternative, a magnetic creature can be played on top of a creature you control. This counts as playing a card, but not summoning a card. As a result, on-play effects (lava mentor, rifleman, ! ability) will trigger, but on-summon effects (codex of the commander) will not.

- If the on-play ability of a magnetizing card refers to "me", it refers to the card being magnetized to.

- Magnetizing a card modifies it with the power and keywords of the magnetizing card. All other characteristics of the magnetizing card are ignored.

This may be confusing, so let's explain with an example (this is a also a new card in this patch):

Zilliax (Restorer 6)

Haste. Magnetic. Lifelink.

3/21

You can opt to play this as 6 cost 3/21 Haste Lifelink, ignoring the Magnetic Keyword.

If you choose to play this on a creature, it will be modified with +3 power and Lifelink. Note that the Haste and 21 toughness will be ignored in this case. Don't underestimate this usage - while you are "wasting" the 21 health, one can easily imagine a scenario where putting this on a hydra gains you 25 life right away.

As a rule of thumb, I've balanced the magnetic cards so that either mode might be used depending on the scenario.

If you are wondering why Zilliax costs 20% more than you expect him to, blame inflation. Maybe next time you'll elect a leader that actually fixes the economy.

(By that I mean, I really wanted him to cost 5, but even a spell with "Modify target creature with +3 power and lifelink" was too good at 5, so I had to make it cost 6 and give the creature mode enough toughness to also sometimes be worthwhile for 6.)

Since I want to print more than one magnetic unit this patch, here's some more:

Wargear (5)

Magnetic.

5/20

A simple Magnetic unit. Strictly worse than the vanilla creature when used as a body, but the option between using this as a body or a buff makes it perhaps a worthwhile include in your deck.

Magnetic Wall (4)

! I strike all enemy creatures.

Magnetic.

0/40

This card showcases the potential of a magnetic creature. It can be used as either a 0/40 or an AoE. These uses may seen unrelated, but a wall is best used when the creature its blocking is irrelevant or dead when the wall dies, and an AoE effect helps with the later. Players might try comboing this with cards like Blackrock and Roll to get some value out of the AoE effect even when playing this card for the body.

Ritual Shard (Banisher 7)

! Destroy me. Deal damage equal to my toughness to all enemy creatures.

Magnetic.

0/11

This is a reference to Blood Ritual from the original Spectromancer. 

Sweeper Armament (10)

Haste. Magnetic. Sweep.

5/15

This card can always be used as a queen, at 10 neutral instead of 9 evoker. But on occasion, you'll find a good opportunity to use the magnetic ability of this card.

Hanging Gardens (4)

R: +1 Fire. +1 Air. +1 Earth.

0/12

This card is completely vanilla, but Punf keeps telling me to add something from Res Arcana.

Icely Patching

Thanks toIcely for helping suggest these changes.

Emissary of the Quorum 1/17 -> 1/13. Dev comment: This was overperforming in bot testing.

Eternity Vessel: Effect is now: "Save your life as charges, or use saved charges to restore your life to that point." [42]->[45] Dev comment: 100-turn games with the old version of this card was infuriating.

Statue of Ice (Chronomancer 9)

R: Freeze opponent.

0/10x2

end of patch notes (i need to include this sentence so itch.io's editor doesn't cuck me while i'm writing these notes)