Saturday, December 29, 2018

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. 

No comments:

Post a Comment