4/9 Blog 2: Another one bites the dust

 Well i think its time for a ...

This week I kept my nose to the grindstone as I feverishly attempted to come up with a theme for my second deck. at first i wanted to keep a mono colored theme because that would be easier to manage, but then I realized "where is the fun in that", the answer to my question, of course is the fun part is not doing math, and working out a coherent theme, apparently.

Inspiration struck me however, on a late night legacy (a magic format) stream by ThrabenU, someone in chat asked for feedback on a card they thought up, 1 blue, instant, target player shuffles their library, draw a card. so i set out to make a few cards based on shuffling

My inspiration (personal mock up)

My first Attempt

A second yet also futile Attempt

Now I submitted 3 commanders for feedback, and the wonderful people at r/custommagic got back to me, and I learned 2 things first, there is a direct correlation between number of expletive's in a comment, and the grammatical accuracy of said comment. and 2, that shuffling is a bad mechanic to build around.

why is shuffling a bad mechanic to build around? well from a game design perspective, shuffling takes time, and an excess amount of shuffling is taking time away from the game. people generally prefer to play the game rather than wait for an opponent to finish shuffling for the 82nd time.

In a rules perspective there are complications take Lilly Silverspear up there for instance, if I cast a Timetwister, does it activate, and when. these issues are likely to confuse the new players this product would be aimed at. and so i decided to scrap that idea

 

This first game design hiccup was caused by something i expected. an older player looking at something, saying "That's So Cool" and then jumping head first into a pile of flaming bricks (fyi. don't jump into a pile of flaming bricks, it may be cool but the hospital bill for 3rd degree burns wont be). I now need to look at some more basic ideas, and simple interactions. time to refocus and move on

guess it is time for a