Suppress Iteration 2.0

There are some definite rules questions about the most recent wording of suppress, particularly in the terms of what counts as an "external" modifier. In this set, mutate inherently gives creatures +1/+1 counters, and players are likely to see those as inherent modifiers to the creature, not external. But the point of suppress is deliberately to weaken mutate, so I needed to rethink the wording a bit.

Here's how it looks as I'm working with it:

So what's being specifically left out of this batch are abilities, whether they're activated, triggered, or passive. It's not going to shut down a firebreathing ability or an anthem effect on a creature. It's a deliberate choice both to give suppress itself a weakness, and also to work around what happens when you have a creature with an innate ability that determines its base power and toughness. If you suppress the abilities of Cognivore, for example, then it has an undefined power and toughness, causing all sorts of rules problems.

There is, however, another potential point of confusion I need to work through. The effect of suppress is intended to persist even if new buffs (or penalties! This also shuts down black's -X/-X stuff!) are applied. And that tends to go against how players perceive power and toughness alterations. 

How dangerous are these cards?

Over at Goblin Artisans I've got a series of "Here's what I learned" posts focused on the game design of Guilds of Ravnica (a set I really, really like).

In the entry on Izzet, I delve into how much work goes into creating a "spells matter" thematic identity that is draftable and competitive in limited environments. The lesson here is that it's a LOT of work and it's hard to do in sets that are designed around 10 color pairings being draftable. 

So, working through that is making me think about the challenges of trying to make spells matter in one way in U/B but scrying mattering in R/U and then reave in R/B and whether it's possible to design it all. I'm thinking of dumping the scrying matters concept (I'm actually thinking of dropping attempts to design for enemy color pairings entirely). 

I have thought about bringing flashback in to make U/B work better. But if I do that I'm giving the two colors way too many mechanics compared to the others. I could take mutate away from black. I might do it anyway. The color just doesn't seem to want to play with it and flavorwise, fecund is actually a better tool to show how disease and plague are being spread.

But rather than flashback, I thought about more ways to interact with the reave kicker to make and black and blue identity without bringing reave into blue.

Are these cards too powerful in the limited environment of Overgrowth?

These would be utter trash outside the game environment of Overgrowth. But it feels like they're really powerful within Overgrowth itself. Maybe they need to be uncommon? What I won't really know until playtesting is how frequently a player will be exiling a card from the graveyard.

Iterating U/B Cephalids

So as I'm designing and thinking about rarities and power levels I'm realizing the U/B cephalid identity of playing spells from outside your hand just isn't a coherent concept that can be contained within a set. Essentially much of what those types of decks do and how they win are just too powerful to represent at common. And that essentially makes U/B mostly undraftable within set. It's a constructed deck concept.

I started thinking about reave and how the mechanic interacts with blue. The reave kicker mechanic will not itself appear in blue. However, blue at all rarities is able to interact with the graveyard, particularly where instants and sorceries and sometimes even artifacts are concerned. At common it can return them from the graveyard (expensively). At higher rarities it can exile and play them. So there is some good mechanical overlap between blue and black and reave that's can be combined to encourage a style of deck where you're rewarded when sorceries or instants leave your graveyard. A couple of commons that can help set things up:

I made the trigger here a sacrifice to present the cephalids as a dark and desperate race.

Very simple, obvious reave card for common.

And the new signpost uncommon:

So both of the above cards can trigger Blightcoast Reaver's additional ability. Oh, I just now realized he has "Reaver" in his name but he doesn't actually have reave. I'll have to rename him.

I'm probably going to do some more iterating of Xirn, too. I essentially gave him the same ultimate as Jaya in order to make the old U/B dynamic work. What I need to do is give him a graveyard exile engine as his + power to help this concept.