Awaken - can it be fixed?

Gun Bunny

Preface: Yes, I know paper magic is different from MtGPQ

Now that that's out of the way, can we please turn awaken into a voluntary cost? Planning it so that you don't overshoot the base cost of an awaken spell is maddeningly frustrating, especially when it's something like rush of ice with a base cost of one. In paper magic, awaken is an entirely voluntary cost, but if I want to cast a non awakened version in MtGPQ, I lose whatever surplus I might have had built up.

I would say the same for converge, but I really can't imagine of a way around it, given how mana is generated.

Awaken, however, could have a trigger to dump all (or even part, if banking becomes an issue) of the accumulated mana back into the rest of your hand. Being able to have a choice of the two versions when you have the full cost paid for the spell would be gravy, but I could live without it. Alternatively, can we turn off awaken when the card is in our hand, like we do for not auto-casting spells?

shteev

It strikes me that there a a *lot* of voluntary, or alternate costs in mtg. Having a look through a list of keywords I found Bestow, Buyback, Cycling, Dash, Entwine, Evoke, Forecast, Kicker, Multikicker, Miracle, Morph, Overload, Replicate... there are also Split cards (maybe with Fuse), pitch cards like Force of Will, and probably more. More keywords are introduced to the game with every new block.

And this list is leaving aside cards with optional costs which would probably be very difficult to implement in the game of MPQ, like Delve.

Awaken *can* be largely fixed by introducing alternate states to the card in your hand, rather than just On and Off. This solution would lay the groundwork for implementing many other Magic keywords into MPQ.

Plastic

I was thinking about an awakening change earlier that would be able to potentially bring the costs down and make so many cards usable.

Make the effect summon land tokens with haste still but are destroyed at end of turn and don't make them take up a dedicated creature slot. Make them have slightly less total attack power if necessary. But as it stands, most awaken cards are too slow for the current quick battle meta IMO.

majincob

Plastic wrote:

I was thinking about an awakening change earlier that would be able to potentially bring the costs down and make so many cards usable.

Make the effect summon land tokens with haste still but are destroyed at end of turn and don't make them take up a dedicated creature slot. Make them have slightly less total attack power if necessary. But as it stands, most awaken cards are too slow for the current quick battle meta IMO.

I don't like this idea, I like being able to stack tokens together and build up a decent sized creature from multiple different spells. Of course I also like playing Kiora Mana Ramp so...

Gun Bunny wrote:

Awaken, however, could have a trigger to dump all (or even part, if banking becomes an issue) of the accumulated mana back into the rest of your hand.

I like this idea. If the awaken cost isn't fully charged all surplus mana goes back to your spells so you don't lose mana, and you needn't ask whether or not you actually want the creatures so as to avoid extra menus.

andrewvanmarle

what about a dialogue asking if you want to play the spel or not? (when the spell cost is filled) and if you select no then it fills the awaken cost.

jogamundo

i think a simple on/off for the awaken would solve a lot of problems.

you turn off Awaken, it no longer pumps mana into the spell.
you turn off Awaken, it won't cast the awaken portion even if you have adequate mana in the spell already

everything else with the cards remains the same.

turning on/off Awaken looks to me to be a big change to the interface though.
yeah it functions the same as on/off for auto casting a spell.

other implications are how does the AI handle Awaken spells?
Does it awaken them all the time?
Does it only it do it for some story modes?
etc.