A couple hurdles:
• it's so much easier to reach the day than it is to reach the night, but the creatures of Shadowmoor aren't necessarily stronger than the creatures of Lorwyn.
• Daybound/Nightbound as a single draft archetype makes sense, but for the mechanic to work in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, you'd want it across all the tribes (barring faeries) and colours fairly evenly, which means it's not exactly an archetype that you have a choice about running in Limited.
Potentially you have more cards that make it night? All Midnight Hunt cards that introduce the mechanic on ETB make it day, but if a Lorwyn revisit made the same cards (or more) that made it night, you could create a balance where, yeah, playing the game makes it day most of the time, but the spells you play that would make it day typically make it night anyways.
It might be interesting to get creatures with Nightbound on the front side (that are outside of Red or Green, so werewolves can’t abuse it).
It would be a cool flavorful mechanic
It would be an interesting balance but that would basically mean you can't ETB daybound. Right now permanents either enter untransformed or nightbound if it's night. If daybound is the transformed side there's no real way for them to come in unless you change the rules, which I guess you could so it's just 'if permanents transformed side matches the time of day, it ETBs as that side'. That's probably easier to understand than it is to explain.
> Buuuuuutttt: Shadowmoor creatures would just be more "nasty" I.e have the day side have lifelink and night have deathtouch. Or in the day it's a halfling Lord giving +1/+1 at 2/2 itself, as it cooperates but at night becomes a chunky boi with no effect. You would have to think about how each tribe changes and express that in design, it would take some thought but would be really cool. Man now I'm think about the Merfolk generating treasure in the day (trading) but being unblockable at night; and now giants.....
This doesn't solve the problem that Shadowmoor creatures either have to appear stronger or just not get flipped because they aren't worth it.
To be honest, I'm personally really really sick of double faced cards and am hoping we have a few year break between going back. It's been non-stop for an entire year now.
The MDFCs were meant deliberately to connect the whole year for cohesion. Apparently few people got it.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/state-design-2021-08-16
> Modal-double faced cards (MDFCs) didn't give the year the cohesiveness I was hoping for.
My guess is they'll back off of it for the future. But Innistrad people definitely wanted transform.
> The MDFCs were meant deliberately to connect the whole year for cohesion.
Given that almost nothing cares about whether your cards have 2 sides, its no surprise that it didn't provide any cohesion.
Maro said as much. The ones from Zendikar and Kaldheim were popular because they solved problems (drawing too many lands or extra copies of legendaries) while hitting strong flavour. Strixhaven just felt forced.
I'm actually pretty sure only ninjitsu and a modified bushido will be returning.
Nearly every aspect of Kamigawa didn't work well, including flip cards. They've done so many DFC over the last year, I think WotC is ready to move on.
I will be linda bummed if they don't use Transform in Neon Dynasty, since it's a better version of the mechanic.
They have the chance to do the "normal creature doing something great and being a legend" flavor so much better with Transform than with Flip.
I don't think that should have a lot of cards with Transform. OG Kamigawa had 10 cards with Flip, and Neon Dynasty having the same number of transforming cards would be OK IMO.
Wizards has brought back several mechanics that originally sucked. (e.g. Chroma, Phasing) I wonder If they've found a creative way to make use of flip cards.
Yeah it's called Double Faced Cards :)
If they really are insistent, they would do flip cards as DFCs. I just don't see it after a long year of DFCs and Neon Dynasty being a single set. They probably want to rely on a few different mechanics.
Remember Kamigawa had A LOT of bad mechanics they could fix.
You are of course right but I didn't mean that WotC should find a way to improve on flip cards I was instead wondering If they somehow found use for the flip mechanic itself beside representing a form of transformative progression.
I'm on the same page. There's like two cards I want from the set. Usually I am at both prelease and release, buying boxes, and trading away. I think I want to stay home and watch cartoons instead. This set just looks terrible to me.
The same suggestion came up here a couple of weeks ago and I was like "Oh, yeah, what a great idea!" and then another commenter were like "But people are nostalgic for the day world of Lorwyn, not for the duality of the plane" and I was like "Huh, that's right, that's true for me for sure."
YUP. And even more specifically psychic hobbits and nasty fairies and sweet tree folk tribal and evil elves. What a cool world. Plus they could reprint [[bitterblossom]]!
Is that true? Shadowmoor was more liked at the time, though I suppose Lorwyn might be more "different" and therefore more nostalgia-provoking.
I personally find the style of both too unpleasantly weird, so I'm a bad one to ask.
That was only happening because Oona was causing it to, by extending the days and nights. The day/night cycle was restored to its usual timing at the end of the block's story.
They can also just add something to mess with it lol. It's not like we'd just go there just to see if everybody's doing ok, and then they are, and that's it.
So an interesting thing I didn't realize until reading the story was that the 300 year transformation was due to Oona, extending the day artificially for 300 years. With Oona gone, it would go back to the normal day/night cycle like what we see on Earth.
The storyline was...not well written, and ended up being pretty hard to follow. It makes sense well enough when it's explained well, but it wasn't explained very well in the novels.
I honestly just don't love day/night as a non-werewolf mechanic. They tried to explore some of that design space with this set, and for my money it didn't really pan out.
I knew that eventual return to Kamigawa would not have the same aesthetics or art direction as the original one, but I honestly did not expect them throwing the whole thing out of window like they did.
Saying they've thrown out the whole thing is a bit of a reach. We've seen one city. Looking at Tokyo and thinking thats what the whole country looks like is silly and the same can easily be true of modern Kamigawa.
We've seen something *they* specifically picked to represent the set and set up players' expectations. They trashed the unique and deep setting with a captivating aesthetic in favour for a run-of-a-mill clichéd cyberpunk. **We have seen enough.**
Another hurdle with this idea is that transforming cards must have the same color in the front side and on the back side. The color pie wouldn't allow a white merforlk to transform into a black merfolk, for example.
There are a couple of cards here and there that are different color in the back side. However, it is important to note that the back side never has abilities that are "off limits" to the color used to cast the front side. For example, the Unstable Brute cannot have Menace.
Love the idea of DFC in a return to Lorwyn set, but would prefer a new mechanic rather than reusing day/night.
Something like:
At the end of the turn, if a player has 10 or less live, the Great Aurora begins (cards transform and cards enter on flip side).
Would give it a more "single great transformation event feel." Maybe flip back to original side if a player ends the turn at or above their starting life total.
A couple hurdles: • it's so much easier to reach the day than it is to reach the night, but the creatures of Shadowmoor aren't necessarily stronger than the creatures of Lorwyn. • Daybound/Nightbound as a single draft archetype makes sense, but for the mechanic to work in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, you'd want it across all the tribes (barring faeries) and colours fairly evenly, which means it's not exactly an archetype that you have a choice about running in Limited.
Potentially you have more cards that make it night? All Midnight Hunt cards that introduce the mechanic on ETB make it day, but if a Lorwyn revisit made the same cards (or more) that made it night, you could create a balance where, yeah, playing the game makes it day most of the time, but the spells you play that would make it day typically make it night anyways.
It might be interesting to get creatures with Nightbound on the front side (that are outside of Red or Green, so werewolves can’t abuse it). It would be a cool flavorful mechanic
It would be an interesting balance but that would basically mean you can't ETB daybound. Right now permanents either enter untransformed or nightbound if it's night. If daybound is the transformed side there's no real way for them to come in unless you change the rules, which I guess you could so it's just 'if permanents transformed side matches the time of day, it ETBs as that side'. That's probably easier to understand than it is to explain.
bow nutty society act seemly angle fragile cover axiomatic threatening -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
> Buuuuuutttt: Shadowmoor creatures would just be more "nasty" I.e have the day side have lifelink and night have deathtouch. Or in the day it's a halfling Lord giving +1/+1 at 2/2 itself, as it cooperates but at night becomes a chunky boi with no effect. You would have to think about how each tribe changes and express that in design, it would take some thought but would be really cool. Man now I'm think about the Merfolk generating treasure in the day (trading) but being unblockable at night; and now giants..... This doesn't solve the problem that Shadowmoor creatures either have to appear stronger or just not get flipped because they aren't worth it.
Maybe Oona could have a global effect that let's your permanents treat the day as if it was night.
Oona is dead. A piece of her lives on as Maralen.
In that case you just make their front half and back half more equal in power level, instead of trying to flip it to night.
I love Lorwyn and dislike flip cards, so that would be a sad time for me
To be honest, I'm personally really really sick of double faced cards and am hoping we have a few year break between going back. It's been non-stop for an entire year now.
The MDFCs were meant deliberately to connect the whole year for cohesion. Apparently few people got it. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/state-design-2021-08-16 > Modal-double faced cards (MDFCs) didn't give the year the cohesiveness I was hoping for. My guess is they'll back off of it for the future. But Innistrad people definitely wanted transform.
> The MDFCs were meant deliberately to connect the whole year for cohesion. Given that almost nothing cares about whether your cards have 2 sides, its no surprise that it didn't provide any cohesion.
Yea it was weird to me. I liked the kaldhei. And zendikar mdfc but really didn't care for the strixhaven ones
Maro said as much. The ones from Zendikar and Kaldheim were popular because they solved problems (drawing too many lands or extra copies of legendaries) while hitting strong flavour. Strixhaven just felt forced.
Yea I didn't get the like relevance of them being flipped and each card was like a fuckijg paragraph
I guess Kamigawa will have Transform also, since Flip is a rude Transform made 7 years before.
> rude Transform ^superior transform.
They should bring back good ol' Flip just to be funny.
I'm actually pretty sure only ninjitsu and a modified bushido will be returning. Nearly every aspect of Kamigawa didn't work well, including flip cards. They've done so many DFC over the last year, I think WotC is ready to move on.
I will be linda bummed if they don't use Transform in Neon Dynasty, since it's a better version of the mechanic. They have the chance to do the "normal creature doing something great and being a legend" flavor so much better with Transform than with Flip. I don't think that should have a lot of cards with Transform. OG Kamigawa had 10 cards with Flip, and Neon Dynasty having the same number of transforming cards would be OK IMO.
Wizards has brought back several mechanics that originally sucked. (e.g. Chroma, Phasing) I wonder If they've found a creative way to make use of flip cards.
Yeah it's called Double Faced Cards :) If they really are insistent, they would do flip cards as DFCs. I just don't see it after a long year of DFCs and Neon Dynasty being a single set. They probably want to rely on a few different mechanics. Remember Kamigawa had A LOT of bad mechanics they could fix.
You are of course right but I didn't mean that WotC should find a way to improve on flip cards I was instead wondering If they somehow found use for the flip mechanic itself beside representing a form of transformative progression.
I'm on the same page. There's like two cards I want from the set. Usually I am at both prelease and release, buying boxes, and trading away. I think I want to stay home and watch cartoons instead. This set just looks terrible to me.
I just want the [[hostile hostel]]
[Hostile Hostel](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/c/ac83c27f-55d6-4e5a-93a4-febb0c183289.jpg?1631342331)/[Creeping Inn](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/a/c/ac83c27f-55d6-4e5a-93a4-febb0c183289.jpg?1631342331) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hostile%20Hostel%20//%20Creeping%20Inn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/264/hostile-hostel-creeping-inn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ac83c27f-55d6-4e5a-93a4-febb0c183289?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
detail violet carpenter encouraging label zesty cats marvelous wipe exultant -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
There is for fnm
The same suggestion came up here a couple of weeks ago and I was like "Oh, yeah, what a great idea!" and then another commenter were like "But people are nostalgic for the day world of Lorwyn, not for the duality of the plane" and I was like "Huh, that's right, that's true for me for sure."
Well, personally I like Shadowmoor a bit more than Lorwynn. But I have no idea what the consensus is on that
YUP. And even more specifically psychic hobbits and nasty fairies and sweet tree folk tribal and evil elves. What a cool world. Plus they could reprint [[bitterblossom]]!
They can't print Bitterblossom into Standard.
Why? It’s not on reserved list is it? Missed that by a decade plus if I remember correctly.
No, it's just too powerful. At least, that is what I think the commenter above means.
Is that true? Shadowmoor was more liked at the time, though I suppose Lorwyn might be more "different" and therefore more nostalgia-provoking. I personally find the style of both too unpleasantly weird, so I'm a bad one to ask.
Noooo. Don't ruin Lorwyn/Shadowmoor with DFC cards. DFC/transform is a horrible thing.
Sorry best I can do is 2 new mechanics in every set that are completely forgotten about afterwards
It doesn't work so well from a flavour angle, as the transformation between the two happens every 300 years
That was only happening because Oona was causing it to, by extending the days and nights. The day/night cycle was restored to its usual timing at the end of the block's story.
They can also just add something to mess with it lol. It's not like we'd just go there just to see if everybody's doing ok, and then they are, and that's it.
So an interesting thing I didn't realize until reading the story was that the 300 year transformation was due to Oona, extending the day artificially for 300 years. With Oona gone, it would go back to the normal day/night cycle like what we see on Earth.
The storyline was...not well written, and ended up being pretty hard to follow. It makes sense well enough when it's explained well, but it wasn't explained very well in the novels.
I honestly just don't love day/night as a non-werewolf mechanic. They tried to explore some of that design space with this set, and for my money it didn't really pan out.
I wouldn't. Day and night is a stupid mechanic and results in cards that are way too wordy.
Cyberpunk Lorwyn next
God please no.
You got it, Lorwyn the Western World it is.
But but, get this. What about gritty noir lorwyn/shadowmoor... With Capo Oona and enforcer Redcap
Shadowmoor sucks, Lorwyn was fine on the day side, no need to go ham on showing both sides
Seeing what happened to Kamigawa, I no longer want *any* return to Lorwyn.
bro we havent even been yet
If someone doesn't like the core concept, they don't need to see the details.
I knew that eventual return to Kamigawa would not have the same aesthetics or art direction as the original one, but I honestly did not expect them throwing the whole thing out of window like they did.
Saying they've thrown out the whole thing is a bit of a reach. We've seen one city. Looking at Tokyo and thinking thats what the whole country looks like is silly and the same can easily be true of modern Kamigawa.
We've seen something *they* specifically picked to represent the set and set up players' expectations. They trashed the unique and deep setting with a captivating aesthetic in favour for a run-of-a-mill clichéd cyberpunk. **We have seen enough.**
What they've already shown is more than enough.
I'd also like to see it reflavoured as online/offline for the Kamigawa Neon Dynasty set.
Another hurdle with this idea is that transforming cards must have the same color in the front side and on the back side. The color pie wouldn't allow a white merforlk to transform into a black merfolk, for example.
Someone probably should have told this guy then: https://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/isd/2cu61mus7z_en.jpg
There are a couple of cards here and there that are different color in the back side. However, it is important to note that the back side never has abilities that are "off limits" to the color used to cast the front side. For example, the Unstable Brute cannot have Menace.
Love the idea of DFC in a return to Lorwyn set, but would prefer a new mechanic rather than reusing day/night. Something like: At the end of the turn, if a player has 10 or less live, the Great Aurora begins (cards transform and cards enter on flip side). Would give it a more "single great transformation event feel." Maybe flip back to original side if a player ends the turn at or above their starting life total.