Devs - mana costs

Plastic

I'm really curious what the process is for determining the card costs in MtG PQ from their paper originals.

Is there a basic formula used and then abilities of the card add to it after?

knthrak

alextfish

knthak basically has it right.

The mana cost bears no relation to the original MtG mana cost. And that's as it should be. Mana in MtG is the aspect of the game that's the most different to MTGPQ. A cost of 3 in MTGPQ is much lower than it is in MtG, because your baseline off-colour match makes 3 mana. *But* mana is saved up between turns. In MtG, if last turn you cast a 7-mana card, the expectation is that you'll be able to cast another 7-mana card or an 8-mana card this turn. In MTGPQ things don't work that way at all.

They also adjust the costs for the different values of certain effects in MTGPQ (although in my opinion most commons and uncommons are rather overcosted). For example, a spell that draws you a card is awesome in MtG, but worth very little in MTGPQ, because mana is so much harder to come by in MTGPQ, and most decks will be running with a 6-card hand most of the game.

It's also just hard to make small creatures relevant. With the 3-creature limit, the way reinforcement works, the huge life totals and the huger creature sizes, small cheap creatures are useless compared to cards with bigger numbers on. (That's why they've had to give huge distortions to power and toughness of rare creatures to make them any use, because a 2/2 in MTGPQ is awful no matter what stage of the game, in strong contrast to MtG where 2/2s win games.)

That said, there's a separate issue which is that the costs of most commons and uncommons are painfully overinflated, compared to what they'd have to be to make them playable in an MTGPQ environment.

Hibernum_JC

To answer the question clearly, I use formulas.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but basically everything on a card has a budget that depends on the card's color and rarity. Some colors, for example, have removal at a much cheaper "price" than other colors.

I enter data into a spreadsheet I made and it spits out the card costs.

As for commons/uncommons being overpriced, it's something I'm looking into to make sure the baseline costs are good, but I just want to point something out - if we print a lot of cheap cost commons with low power/toughness, the problem we run into is it makes card draw ridiculously strong. During development, I tried not setting card budget based on rarity and solely on card power, and when we did that we ended up with decks with cheap commons and loads of card draw (this made Nissa incredibly strong with her card draw power) and all you would do is every single turn you'd end up playing your entire hand and refilling it. The way we work with decks (4 copies of every card that automatically refreshes once it's empty) this made even small creatures incredibly powerful in the end. To that end I started budgeting based on rarity so that this couldn't really be abused.

The game is in constant motion, however, and if needs be I will reevaluate card budgets for commons and uncommons.

As an aside, one thing people often mention is that Defender and Reach are massively overpriced, especially for commons and uncommons. Defender and Reach scale in budget with the creature's Toughness - a 1/11 with Defender, while being pretty bad, also deserves to cost a lot more than a 6/6 with Defender, for example, because of two things. First off, it's much harder to deal 11 damage than 6; while the 1 Power won't really remove creatures, it'll also stick on the board for longer and make you much safer. A 6/6 will remove opposing creatures, but will also die much quicker. The other point is the Reinforce mechanic, which will turn your 1/11 into a 2/22, which is arguably a incredible threat, and going to 3/33 and 4/44 is absurd. Defender and Reach absolutely need to scale with Toughness, and in so doing are much more expensive on some creatures than others.

Rootbreaker

Hibernum_JC wrote:

To answer the question clearly, I use formulas.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but basically everything on a card has a budget that depends on the card's color and rarity. Some colors, for example, have removal at a much cheaper "price" than other colors.

I enter data into a spreadsheet I made and it spits out the card costs.

As for commons/uncommons being overpriced, it's something I'm looking into to make sure the baseline costs are good, but I just want to point something out - if we print a lot of cheap cost commons with low power/toughness, the problem we run into is it makes card draw ridiculously strong. During development, I tried not setting card budget based on rarity and solely on card power, and when we did that we ended up with decks with cheap commons and loads of card draw (this made Nissa incredibly strong with her card draw power) and all you would do is every single turn you'd end up playing your entire hand and refilling it. The way we work with decks (4 copies of every card that automatically refreshes once it's empty) this made even small creatures incredibly powerful in the end. To that end I started budgeting based on rarity so that this couldn't really be abused.

Do you intentionally push cards, expecting them to see more play like they do in the Magic card game, or is this strictly a by the spreadsheet method? There are a few common and uncommon creatures that have much better rates than most of the others. Maybe its just that your formulas undervalue certain mechanics.

The game is in constant motion, however, and if needs be I will reevaluate card budgets for commons and uncommons.

As an aside, one thing people often mention is that Defender and Reach are massively overpriced, especially for commons and uncommons. Defender and Reach scale in budget with the creature's Toughness - a 1/11 with Defender, while being pretty bad, also deserves to cost a lot more than a 6/6 with Defender, for example, because of two things. First off, it's much harder to deal 11 damage than 6; while the 1 Power won't really remove creatures, it'll also stick on the board for longer and make you much safer. A 6/6 will remove opposing creatures, but will also die much quicker. The other point is the Reinforce mechanic, which will turn your 1/11 into a 2/22, which is arguably a incredible threat, and going to 3/33 and 4/44 is absurd. Defender and Reach absolutely need to scale with Toughness, and in so doing are much more expensive on some creatures than others.

It really isn't much harder to deal 11 damage than 6 against a 1/11. Most creatures that see play these days in level 60 quick battles are in the 4/4-6/6 range. These creatures only take one more hit to kill a 1/11 than a 6/6, and stay alive against it instead of dying. I don't think anyone would consider a 2/22 an incredible threat unless it had deathtouch. If they're reinforcing, chances are I can too, and the 2 power isn't particularly relevant. A 4/44 is a joke against a 24/24 (a 6/6 reinforced the same number of times).

Really deathtouch is the only thing that could make such a creature a real threat, even defensively.

HomeRn

Hibernum_JC wrote:

To answer the question clearly, I use formulas.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but basically everything on a card has a budget that depends on the card's color and rarity. Some colors, for example, have removal at a much cheaper "price" than other colors.

I enter data into a spreadsheet I made and it spits out the card costs.

As for commons/uncommons being overpriced, it's something I'm looking into to make sure the baseline costs are good, but I just want to point something out - if we print a lot of cheap cost commons with low power/toughness, the problem we run into is it makes card draw ridiculously strong. During development, I tried not setting card budget based on rarity and solely on card power, and when we did that we ended up with decks with cheap commons and loads of card draw (this made Nissa incredibly strong with her card draw power) and all you would do is every single turn you'd end up playing your entire hand and refilling it. The way we work with decks (4 copies of every card that automatically refreshes once it's empty) this made even small creatures incredibly powerful in the end. To that end I started budgeting based on rarity so that this couldn't really be abused.

The game is in constant motion, however, and if needs be I will reevaluate card budgets for commons and uncommons.

As an aside, one thing people often mention is that Defender and Reach are massively overpriced, especially for commons and uncommons. Defender and Reach scale in budget with the creature's Toughness - a 1/11 with Defender, while being pretty bad, also deserves to cost a lot more than a 6/6 with Defender, for example, because of two things. First off, it's much harder to deal 11 damage than 6; while the 1 Power won't really remove creatures, it'll also stick on the board for longer and make you much safer. A 6/6 will remove opposing creatures, but will also die much quicker. The other point is the Reinforce mechanic, which will turn your 1/11 into a 2/22, which is arguably a incredible threat, and going to 3/33 and 4/44 is absurd. Defender and Reach absolutely need to scale with Toughness, and in so doing are much more expensive on some creatures than others.

Great insight here - just one thing I find rather... odd. Why does a 1/11 defender cost more than the 6/6? The reinforce mechanic is one thing - but all it takes is one card with a destroy or bounce effect and there goes your reinforced creature (bouncing is arguably worse since you only get ONE copy of the card back and it's cheaper to bounce in the majority of comparisons!). That and removing said threat is usually better than stalling out the threat in MtGPQ - especially since we cannot get "decked" in this game.

Rootbreaker

Another thing the game doesn't seem to take into account: The only things that matter for your second copy of any given creature for the most part are the stats, the mana cost, and enters the battlefield triggers. Most static abilities don't take advantage of multiple copies of the same card. Reinforcing a Blessed Spirits in my Starfield of Nyx deck is a tiny portion of its power, compared to what I got for the initial investment. It can often get to 20+ power without any reinforces or direct pumps.

Hibernum_JC

Rootbreaker wrote:

Do you intentionally push cards, expecting them to see more play like they do in the Magic card game, or is this strictly a by the spreadsheet method? There are a few common and uncommon creatures that have much better rates than most of the others. Maybe its just that your formulas undervalue certain mechanics.

I occasionally push cards, but I prefer not to unless there's a major issue. I normally just adjust the card's abilities/statline so that it matches up with the cost expectations. The commons/uncommons with better rates typically are a result of ability costs, but it also might be due to color differences.

Rootbreaker wrote:

It really isn't much harder to deal 11 damage than 6 against a 1/11. Most creatures that see play these days in level 60 quick battles are in the 4/4-6/6 range. These creatures only take one more hit to kill a 1/11 than a 6/6, and stay alive against it instead of dying. I don't think anyone would consider a 2/22 an incredible threat unless it had deathtouch. If they're reinforcing, chances are I can too, and the 2 power isn't particularly relevant. A 4/44 is a joke against a 24/24 (a 6/6 reinforced the same number of times).

Really deathtouch is the only thing that could make such a creature a real threat, even defensively.

A 1/11 is incredibly devastating against anything that can't push damage, and even then if you put down your 1/11 first, it will buy you turns quite a bit. I've also done tests with this, and initially Defender and Reach were a static cost instead of a scaling cost and it was crazy overpowered with creatures with high Toughness. The Catacomb Slug was essentially so OP in early game that it was an auto-include in every single Black deck, even at high level, because it would be so cheap (for example). Our internal QA was incessantly asking for nerfs about it (and that's just one example).

HomeRn wrote:

Great insight here - just one thing I find rather... odd. Why does a 1/11 defender cost more than the 6/6? The reinforce mechanic is one thing - but all it takes is one card with a destroy or bounce effect and there goes your reinforced creature (bouncing is arguably worse since you only get ONE copy of the card back and it's cheaper to bounce in the majority of comparisons!). That and removing said threat is usually better than stalling out the threat in MtGPQ - especially since we cannot get "decked" in this game.

Big creatures are inherently weak to Bounce and Destroy effects, and that's by design. You need answers outside of creature removal to have some variety. Destroy is better since it has no requirements (outside of specific cards) while Bounce removes a portion of the damage temporarily (although, in the rare case of Akoum Firebird, bounce is much better than Destroy!)

Rootbreaker wrote:

Another thing the game doesn't seem to take into account: The only things that matter for your second copy of any given creature for the most part are the stats, the mana cost, and enters the battlefield triggers. Most static abilities don't take advantage of multiple copies of the same card. Reinforcing a Blessed Spirits in my Starfield of Nyx deck is a tiny portion of its power, compared to what I got for the initial investment. It can often get to 20+ power without any reinforces or direct pumps.

There's a reason for that, too. Stacking abilities is something we discussed heavily internally, and we determined it was far too strong, as anything that could stack (anything that's activated by anything other than entering the battlefield) is typically powerful and more importantly reusable - if something had, say, "Landfall: Draw 1 card" if you stacked 4, you would draw 4 cards is far too strong. Essentially anything that you can trigger more than once cannot stack because if it did I would have to make these abilities significantly worse. Rally is the one big exception, and even then there's a reason why there's very few Rally cards that trigger something you could theorically want more than one-ofs in a turn (Veteran Warleader is the bigger one).

Arguably, the only other trigger that could stack would be On Destroy effects, but then we run into problem #2 with stacking: visual representation of a stack. Everything we tried ended up looking messy and made the game more difficult to read for little effect.

Rootbreaker

Yeah, I'm aware that there are some cards that would be too strong if reinforcing stacked abilities (although I'm not sure drawing cards is one of those abilities). My point, is that it seems like a lot of cards are balanced as though reinforcing was not a thing. When you're paying extra for an excellent ability on a small body, paying the same cost again to slightly increase the size of that body is less appealing.

Maybe it seems like you overprice card draw because I own two of the best Mythic Rare drawers in the game: Alhamaret's Archive and Day's Undoing, but don't have one of the best mana generators in the game: Animist's Awakening. I find that mana is far more often the limited resource to continue playing spells rather than the number of spells in my hand that I want to cast.

Hibernum_JC

Rootbreaker wrote:

Yeah, I'm aware that there are some cards that would be too strong if reinforcing stacked abilities (although I'm not sure drawing cards is one of those abilities). My point, is that it seems like a lot of cards are balanced as though reinforcing was not a thing. When you're paying extra for an excellent ability on a small body, paying the same cost again to slightly increase the size of that body is less appealing.

Maybe it seems like you overprice card draw because I own two of the best Mythic Rare drawers in the game: Alhamaret's Archive and Day's Undoing, but don't have one of the best mana generators in the game: Animist's Awakening. I find that mana is far more often the limited resource to continue playing spells rather than the number of spells in my hand that I want to cast.

That's the downside to reinforcing. It's a decision we had to make when we were initially developing the game, since we didn't want to handle stuff like 20 creatures on the battlefield (that felt too weird and unreadable). Unfortunately it came with the downside to where we couldn't stack abilities, partly due to readability problems and due to balancing. The one upside to reinforcing a creature with an ability is that you make it harder to kill, therefore having the possibility of triggering the ability for a bit longer, but I understand your point. It's one of the problems you run into when you develop a game like this - you have to make concessions. And I can't balance around the fact that reinforcing isn't a thing, because I can't assume a card will be reinforced, ever.

And card draw is a strange beast. The problem is that depending on your deck type and Planeswalker, it's either incredibly effective or incredibly useless. I was running balance tests on Koth to see how I want to fix him earlier today, for example, and I was running a very low-cost Goblin deck with Zada Hedron Grinder in it (which needs a bug fix, btw!). I know a lot of players complain that Koth is unplayable because of his mana gains, but the deck I was running had a single Rare in it (Zada) and everything else was cheap goblins and cheap buff spells. My hand would empty ridiculously fast and I really needed card draw (which is the point for red aggro decks), and that deck wins incredibly fast, but card draw would be incredibly effective. On the other hand, playing with Jace or Gideon, often enough I don't really need all the extra card draw and it's much less effective for him. It really depends on your deck and playstyle.

Plastic

Hibernum_JC wrote:

[ I was running balance tests on Koth to see how I want to fix him earlier today, for example, and I was running a very low-cost Goblin deck with Zada Hedron Grinder in it (which needs a bug fix, btw!). I know a lot of players complain that Koth is unplayable because of his mana gains, but the deck I was running had a single Rare in it (Zada) and everything else was cheap goblins and cheap buff spells. My hand would empty ridiculously fast and I really needed card draw (which is the point for red aggro decks), and that deck wins incredibly fast, but card draw would be incredibly effective.

While we're slightly off topic with Koth, are you planning to make him more reliant on cheap cards? I don't want to feel pigeonholed into running a weenie deck or not be able to utilize higher cost cards because of his mana bonus issues.

Hibernum_JC

Plastic wrote:

While we're slightly off topic with Koth, are you planning to make him more reliant on cheap cards? I don't want to feel pigeonholed into running a weenie deck or not be able to utilize higher cost cards because of his mana bonus issues.

Not necessarily, but we really like the concept of being very reliant on a single color. I'm experimenting with various solutions right now to see what the best outcome will be.

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I was running balance tests on Koth to see how I want to fix him earlier today, for example, and I was running a very low-cost Goblin deck with Zada Hedron Grinder in it (which needs a bug fix, btw!). I know a lot of players complain that Koth is unplayable because of his mana gains, but the deck I was running had a single Rare in it (Zada) and everything else was cheap goblins and cheap buff spells. .

I would think that it's very difficult to balance when players don't have equitable card access. In paper Magic, balance is challenging, but any effects of card restrictions/bans affect everyone equitably.

However, in MPQ, that isn't the case. If, as an example, you run a Koth/Zada deck that is both fast and successful, that will necessarily impact any balancing decisions being made. However, for the vast majority of people who do not have access to Zada, and have no way to ensure acquisition, any compensatory measures or restrictions that are part of the balancing process are necessarily skewed against said majority. In other words, "I can't do X because Zada" doesn't do anything to solve the problems of the people who don't own him and likely never will, and simply want a viable planeswalker.

span_argoman

Hibernum_JC wrote:

And card draw is a strange beast. The problem is that depending on your deck type and Planeswalker, it's either incredibly effective or incredibly useless. I was running balance tests on Koth to see how I want to fix him earlier today, for example, and I was running a very low-cost Goblin deck with Zada Hedron Grinder in it (which needs a bug fix, btw!). I know a lot of players complain that Koth is unplayable because of his mana gains, but the deck I was running had a single Rare in it (Zada) and everything else was cheap goblins and cheap buff spells. My hand would empty ridiculously fast and I really needed card draw (which is the point for red aggro decks), and that deck wins incredibly fast, but card draw would be incredibly effective. On the other hand, playing with Jace or Gideon, often enough I don't really need all the extra card draw and it's much less effective for him. It really depends on your deck and playstyle.

I went to build this goblin Koth deck you mentioned and tested it out in Story mode. I tried to simulate your experience using:
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Goblin Piledriver
Chasm Guide
Subterranean Scout
Goblin Glory Chaser
Fiery Bloodlust
Sure Strike
Turn Against
Demolish
Sword of the Animist
Hope it's close enough. I initially had Titan's Strength instead of Demolish but swapped it when I was getting (disgracefully) murdered by the story opponents' supports.

My feel was that the deck was succeeding *in spite of* Koth's limitations rather than due to his mana distribution. Yes it is decently fast, but it is also extremely fragile. It dies against any enemy deck with Iroas's Champion/Consul's Lieutenant/Knight of the White Orchid/decent creature with First/Double Strike. It also dies against decks with Berserkers cause your buffs mostly last till the end of the turn and then you're left with paper foil. And really the biggest achievement it has is to make Koth's mana limitations feel less bad, but it's still there.

His first ability contributed to the damage, but is no better than Embermaw Hellion's ability (considering Embermaw triggers every turn and doesn't turn your creatures Berserk). But Embermaw can't be played by Koth cause its mana cost is too high to be reliably summoned by him. His third ability is nice, but works just as well with bigger creatures. Sure, proportionally the small creatures gain more but you are stuck with the low damage until you manage to store up 30 loyalty and make red matches. Low-cost creatures 'suit' Koth only because his mana gain is unpredictable and low compared to the other planeswalkers. If anything, the deck just shows how ridiculous Zada can be.

Koth has to be compared to the other red planeswalkers, specifically Chandra since Ajani gains mana like nobody's business. Sure Koth gains +4 on every red match/cascade against Chandra, but he has a -2 on every non-red match/cascade compared to Chandra. And I'm pretty sure the ratios of red:non-red matches are in favour of Chandra here. The point isn't that Koth doesn't have a viable deck; there may be one or two more out there. But that same deck idea can be done better by Chandra, so I dare say there is no deck that needs or even prefers to use Koth.

On a side note, I want to clarify that I don't disagree on the usefulness of card draw depending on your deck. I currently run a Garruk deck that would love to have Nissa's Revelation or some other good form of card draw aside from Alhammarret's Archive. But the case you stated for Garruk is really more of restricting the deck in order to fit Garruk's limitation.

UniQ_77

I tried similar deck with koth

Goblin glory chaser
Subterranean scout
Lavastep raider
Goblin piledriver
Zada hedron grinder

Fiery impuls
Fiery conclusion
Infectious bloodlust
Demolish

Sword of the animist

The deck surely needs tweaking, but i find it incredibly fast and pretty decent with suprisingly good mana gain. I even got multiple fights in which i could use koths 3 ability early on in the game.

I say there is potential in a good koth /goblin deck

UniQ_77

span_argoman wrote:

It dies against any enemy deck with Iroas's Champion/Consul's Lieutenant/Knight of the White Orchid/decent creature with First/Double Strike.

I've met them several times in battle and if if you use zada in the right moment, they are no problem at all

knthrak

The way we work with decks (4 copies of every card that automatically refreshes once it's empty) this made even small creatures incredibly powerful in the end.

This is new (and useful!) information to me. I knew there was some kind of card limit happening, due to some tutor effects "missing", but this makes things more useful.

if we print a lot of cheap cost commons with low power/toughness, the problem we run into is it makes card draw ridiculously strong.

I agree with the if/then statement you have. I don't agree with the implicit choice made (card draw over cheap creatures). I would argue that you should print the cheap cards, and make card draw more expensive. Currently, I think it's only a Jace issue.

Stated otherwise, I would not play a 0 mana 1/1 in any deck, except for Jace. I would play it in Jace because of the absurd card drawing power available with Sigiled Starfish (uncommon) and Artificer's Epiphany (common). Post BFZ, I rarely end up discarding cards in any of my decks, except for Jace. Pre-BFZ, I only played a 3 mana 2/1 (Bonded Construct) in decks because I didn't have a lot of great low cost options at all, and Bonded Construct was often the least bad.

I might play a 0 mana 2/2 in non-Jace decks. I'm not sure though. 6 mana is definitely too much.

I enter data into a spreadsheet I made and it spits out the card costs.

A spreadsheet / formula is an excellent start, but if the formulas consistently generate cards that are over or under costed, then there is a problem. Either the formula needs to be adjusted, or (more likely) the numbers need to be adjusted by hand afterwards.

1/11 with Defender, while being pretty bad, also deserves to cost a lot more than a 6/6 with Defender

Why does it "deserve" to cost more? I think it should cost less. Both power and toughness are important on defenders. Either of low power or low toughness makes a defender pretty bad, or at least narrow. I have a preference of a 1/11 defender over an 11/1 defender, but I'd rather not play either. I'll play the 6/6 defender over either if they are equally costed, and probably be happy about it (yay Skysnare Spider!).

EDHdad

Suppose you have a choice between a 1/11 defender for 10 and a 6/6 defender for 10.

Now suppose you get 4 mana per turn, that this card is the only card in your deck, you always cast the card as soon as it's powered up, and your opponent does not interact with you in any way.

Scenario #1: You start the game facing a level 60 Ob Nixilis with 119 life.

In this scenario, the 1/11 defender kills Ob Nixilis on turn 25. The 6/6 defender kills Ob Nixilis on turn 11.

Scenario #2: Your opponent has a 12/12 Outland Colossus in play.

In this scenario, it would take 30 turns to kill the Outland Colossus with the 1/11 defender. The 6/6 defender would kill the Outland Colossus in 5 turns.

Offensively, the 6/6 defender kills Ob Nixilis 14 turns faster. Defensively, the 6/6 defender kills Outland Colossus 25 turns faster. The 6/6 defender is absolutely better than the 1/11 defender. This is why Skysnare Spider is one of the best creatures in the game.

span_argoman

UniQ_77 wrote:

span_argoman wrote:

It dies against any enemy deck with Iroas's Champion/Consul's Lieutenant/Knight of the White Orchid/decent creature with First/Double Strike.

I've met them several times in battle and if if you use zada in the right moment, they are no problem at all

That's assuming:
1. You drew and summoned Zada.
2. You have another Goblin around to kill the target creature.
3. You have at least one spell charged up to use on Zada.
4. You have the first ability charged up. (This is the easiest of the requirements)
5. Your Zada is not in the same slot as the creature you need to kill (unless you have enough toughness, and Sure Strike for Iroas).
6. Your board wasn't constantly being cleared by an already present Berserker (Iroas/Embermaw).
Individually these are not difficult to fulfil. But when you need all those altogether, it may not be that easy or frequent.

The only thing in your deck that accelerates loyalty gain is Sword of the Animist. So while there may be times that you hit 30 loyalty early in the match, I wouldn't consider it to be something one can expect.

I can only say fast is a relative term.

UniQ_77

Most of the rounds i had my hand fully loadefdwith mana , so yes i had already played a zada and goblins and had a fully loaded inf.bloodlust. or played it that round. I also use fiery conclusion, with a cost of one it turns every creature in a 5 damage card, with enough option to have a new creature o the table the same round.

But yes speed is relative, nissa decks tend to be faster sometimes and its not easy getting the control back if there are 2 or 3 very large creatures on the opposite side.