Community Feedback - Legendary Cards (3/16/18)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

As you may know, the community's feedback is important to us in shaping how the game grows and improves, and we want players to feel like their voice is heard. With this in mind, we are here today to ask you, the community, for your thoughts on something that has recently come to our attention in MtGPQ: There is no difference between Legendary cards and Non-Legendary cards!

Since your feedback has been extremely helpful to us, and this is something that would affect cards retroactively, we wanted to get your take on how we could make this differentiation apparent, if at all. Below are 3 concepts we have been exploring (design-only), as to how we could bring that aspect of tabletop Magic to MtGPQ. Please keep in mind that these are only concept ideas, which means potentially none of them may end up making it into the game, or maybe a new option inspired by them will make it in instead.

The goal of this post is to get your opinion on what ideas we've been thinking about, and hopefully it'll send us in the right direction on how to handle this very interesting aspect of tabletop Magic in our game.

So without further ado, here are the concept ideas:

• Concept A: Deck-Building Restriction
• Only one Legendary card of each card type would be allowed to be added into your deck.
• Most Legendary cards would receive a slight buff to compensate for this new limitation
• Concept B: Special Effect When Reinforced
• Legendary creatures and supports would cost slightly more* for every copy of them already in play. Whenever a Legendary creature or support enters the battlefield, it will trigger a special effect for each time it is reinforced.
• Here are a couple of ideas for special effects:
• Color-Pie-Based effects
• Multi-colored creatures would randomize one effect (of its color) per time it is reinforced
• A general Power/Toughness/Shield boost
• Concept C: Special Effect When Exiled From Hand (Inspired by Grandeur)
• Legendary creatures and supports would cost slightly more* for every copy of them already in play. Exiling a copy of a Legendary creature or support, while another is already in play, will trigger a special effect for each time it is reinforced.
• These effects would be color-pie related. Multi-colored creatures would randomize one effect (of its colors) per time it is reinforced

*The slight increase in cost presented in concepts B and C is meant to balance out the added effects/versatility you would get from the extra abilities.

Hopefully you enjoy the concept ideas we've been thinking of, and have some insightful feedback we can use to bring Legendary differentiation into MtGPQ!

Thanks!

Mburn7

Out of the 3, I think B is the best.  Since I assume this discussion is at least partially a result of the spoilers for Dominaria that are heavily related to legendary stuff, A would create the most issues.  C is a little too much like cycling for my taste.  

Another idea would be much more difficult to implement, but could be interesting.  Legendary cards only have 2 copies spawned in a deck instead of the usual 4, with two other cards in the deck (either selected in deckbuilding or random) have 5 copies each to compensate.  This would be extremely interesting to build around and prevent spamming of epic creatures.  A rule could be added that if multiple legendaries are being used, no card can spawn more than 5 times until all non-legendaries are spawning 5 times. 

jtwood

Idea A feels the closest this game can probably get to the paper equivalent.
Idea B feels like nearly the opposite of the paper rule.
Idea C feels like some sort of middle ground between A and B.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Idea A.

joerginger

You can't be serious.

Corn_Noodles

I'd probably be most comfortable with A.

Tyrannicide

Or, reduce mana cost and buff shield value/spell effect/ power/toughness on all cards instead of trying to add extra effects that will likely end up making them too overpowered. Restricting how many can be in play would be a good idea, but restricting quantities in decks is pointless when decks can go well beyond 40 cards.

Another option, instead of risking making these cards too overpowered, reduce the cost of the cards. From 400 unobtanium to say, 320 for the same odds. As it is short of grinding events in top coalitions in platinum they are nearly impossible to obtain. I've landed 1 in 10 attempts to get them, at 320 I would have had an extra 2 chances. So not much of a creep up in chances for them.

Mburn7

jtwood said:

Idea A feels the closest this game can probably get to the paper equivalent.
Idea B feels like nearly the opposite of the paper rule.
Idea C feels like some sort of middle ground between A and B.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Idea A.

Tyrannicide said:

Or, reduce mana cost and buff shield value/spell effect/ power/toughness on all cards instead of trying to add extra effects that will likely end up making them too overpowered. Restricting how many can be in play would be a good idea, but restricting quantities in decks is pointless when decks can go well beyond 40 cards.

Not sure if A is really that close to paper, since you can cast any number of the same legendary, just not multiple different ones (which is the opposite of paper where you can cast as many different ones you want, just not multiple copies of the same.  Maybe its not clear in its wording?  ( @Brigby please confirm I am interpreting this correctly)

jtwood

Mburn7 said:

jtwood said:

Idea A feels the closest this game can probably get to the paper equivalent.
Idea B feels like nearly the opposite of the paper rule.
Idea C feels like some sort of middle ground between A and B.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Idea A.

Not sure if A is really that close to paper, since you can cast any number of the same legendary, just not multiple different ones (which is the opposite of paper where you can cast as many different ones you want, just not multiple copies of the same.  Maybe its not clear in its wording?  ( @Brigby please confirm I am interpreting this correctly)

Right, but with 3 creature slots, there's probably not going to be a functional way of restricting one copy of that card in play. It would be too much of a limitation. So if they can't limit how many of that card are in play but want the flavor of saying that legendaries come with limits, then saying "you can only have 1 legendary creature, and only 1 legendary spell, and only 1 legendary support in your deck in your deck" seems about as close to paper as you can get.

ZZELKI

I don’t like any of the current ideas. Why not make a Legendary a “true” Legendary? A Legendary should not be allowed to reinforce at all. If a 2nd Legendary of the same card is going to the battlefield, that card is exiled and sure, add some compensating effect if you feel it is really necessary - give some mana back or convert some gems. Also, there should not be any limits to different Legendaries... Legendary characters can’t be friends and go on adventures together?

Krishna

So, the Legendary rule exists in paper MTG because having multiple of that card could be too OP. But in paper, cards don't Reinforce and you would double, triple etc the abilities of said Legendary, which is the reason for the rule. In PQ, with the card only having the 1 effect, theres not really a need to cast deck restrictions, especially when we already have a HUGE deck restriction in having mandatory 4 copies of every card.
 However, If the goal is to mimic paper MTG, then option A seems to be the closest (while at the same time being opposite in a way). The key being to make that Legendary really good. Not sure if thats what you mean by "slightly buffed", since the way it has been used in the era of Oktagon just means +1/+1, more or less. I dont think giving it +1/+1 (or +2/+2) would justify heavy deck restrictions.

For B and C, that Legendary needs to be darn good to justify having the cost of it increased. 

Overall, I feel that the most important thing is to make great, versatile top-tier cards. There is little worse in this game than pulling a trash Masterpiece, cards that are supposed to be the most powerful in the game.

I would love to see more community inclusion in future mechanics and design! much appreciation for that

Mburn7

ZZELKI said:

I don’t like any of the current ideas. Why not make a Legendary a “true” Legendary? A Legendary should not be allowed to reinforce at all. If a 2nd Legendary of the same card is going to the battlefield, that card is exiled and sure, add some compensating effect if you feel it is really necessary - give some mana back or convert some gems. Also, there should not be any limits to different Legendaries... Legendary characters can’t be friends and go on adventures together?

This seems to be option B to me, although I guess B has a reinforce AND effect going off, instead of one or the other.  I would not be opposed to an ability going off in lieu of reinforcing, that is probably the closest flavor-wise to paper we can get.  

GrizzoMtGPQ

Why not make this a poll? We can vote and talk about it. Seems obvious since we're being asked for feedback on a set of choices.

Wafflesauce

As an avid player of paper MTG for the past 20 years and a top-tier MtgPQ player, here's my take:

First and foremost, Dominaria.

The legendary spells from Dominaria in paper MTG require you to have a legendary creature in play. Paper players are going to want to play several legendaries in their decks, and will want them out early. The notion of restricting copies or increasing costs in PQ goes against this notion.

Dominara will have many legendary cards. Dominaria will have many cards that care if you have legendaries out. You will be effectively shooting yourself in the foot if you disincentivise playing with legendaries for this set.

Secondly, There are already many, many cards already in puzzle quest that would be legendary. This would take a significant amount of work to redesign, rebalance, recode, and retest if you make the changes retro-active. If you don't make it retroactive, then the game will feel disjointed and haphazard to players, especially new players.

Third - What does it "Legendary" mean in paper Magic? When legendary creatures were introduced, it was a mess and there wasn't any proper balance. Then came a time where their mana cost and/or stats were slightly better than the average creature in similar brackets. Today? Today most legendaries are similarly costed and similar stats to non-legendary creatures. You can have two different legendary creatures from different times of that character's life, and even your opponent can have the same creature! All it really means in current magic is that the character might be in the story line, and players can use them as generals for their commander decks.

My suggestion?

Add the super-type / subtype to legendary cards, AND NO MORE. Just like if a card checks for a zombie, cards can check for legends. Keep them costed and stats as you normally would. Do not waste time working on old cards just for the sake of being legendary. PLEASE use the time you would spend working on this project to appropriately balance other already existing cards, much like you did for Ixalan. Make Mythics that don't see play playable. Your existing players will thank you for this. They will not thank you for another bug filled, barely tested mechanic while ignoring existing problems.

Thank you for asking us and having a conversation. I hope you do listen and do more in the future!

Waffles of the Phoenix Family of Coalitions

FindingHeart8

A or B are interesting, and this is a cool set of ideas to toss around...however I would strongly encourage this to be a specific event-style mechanic and not a game-changing mechanic that changes the entire game.

wereotter

Brigby said:

• Concept A: Deck-Building Restriction
• Only one Legendary card of each card type would be allowed to be added into your deck.
• Most Legendary cards would receive a slight buff to compensate for this new limitation
• Concept B: Special Effect When Reinforced
• Legendary creatures and supports would cost slightly more* for every copy of them already in play. Whenever a Legendary creature or support enters the battlefield, it will trigger a special effect for each time it is reinforced.
• Here are a couple of ideas for special effects:
• Color-Pie-Based effects
• Multi-colored creatures would randomize one effect (of its color) per time it is reinforced
• A general Power/Toughness/Shield boost
• Concept C: Special Effect When Exiled From Hand (Inspired by Grandeur)
• Legendary creatures and supports would cost slightly more* for every copy of them already in play. Exiling a copy of a Legendary creature or support, while another is already in play, will trigger a special effect for each time it is reinforced.
• These effects would be color-pie related. Multi-colored creatures would randomize one effect (of its colors) per time it is reinforced

In my opinion, option C is possibly the closest we could get to how this mechanic should operate.

However: my opinion also is that many legendary creatures are already more powerful than non-legendary creatures of their same cost and rarity, so I'm not sure that another buff or increase to their power will be good for the game unless legendary creatures can not be reinforced at all, forcing you to use them for concept C.

Concept B seems completely contradictory to the idea of what a legendary creature is supposed to be (unique and one-of-a-kind) by encouraging you to play more of it, and Concept A seems like it would nerf too many of the currently available decks. If I understand it right, it would mean I can't play Captain Lannery Storm and Admiral Becket Brass in the same deck, or can't play Kopala and Kumena together. This also feels to me like a restriction out of step with the intent and feel of deck building in this game. Certain creatures compliment each other very well and should be able to be played together.

So in short, I would say C with the adjustment that they can't be reinforced, but get a benefit when you exile a duplicate copy from hand.

babar3355

I did insightful Waffle's post because it is well thought out.  However, I am not 100% sure that we couldn't have a little more pizzazz while not breaking the game.

Option A seems like a down the fairway move.  If you restrict deck access to legendary cards (1 spell, 1 support, 1 creature) you can make the legendary effects from Dominiria more potent.

Option B actually sounds pretty cool to me. I am not even sure they need to increase the cost.  Imagine the first legendary creature is a 5/5 vanilla. You cast a 2nd copy and he becomes a 10/10 flyer.  A third copy is 15/15 lifelink flyer.  Subsequent reinforcements just add +5/+5 like other creatures.  Alternatively, when this creature is reinforced explore 2... or something like that.   I would say that I DO NOT think they need to pretend the mechanics need to be identical to MTG paper... that's how we get **** like blocking vigilance.

Option C I am wary of this one.  I think the developers need to be really careful with effects that occur outside of the normal gem matching/combat phase.  Otherwise you end up with completely broken stuff like cycling which completely favors the human over the AI.

If I was forced to choose right now, I would pick Option B and would be opposed to Option C.  Perhaps you guys can convince me why I am wrong.

wereotter

Tyrannicide said:

Or, reduce mana cost and buff shield value/spell effect/ power/toughness on all cards instead of trying to add extra effects that will likely end up making them too overpowered. Restricting how many can be in play would be a good idea, but restricting quantities in decks is pointless when decks can go well beyond 40 cards.

Another option, instead of risking making these cards too overpowered, reduce the cost of the cards. From 400 unobtanium to say, 320 for the same odds. As it is short of grinding events in top coalitions in platinum they are nearly impossible to obtain. I've landed 1 in 10 attempts to get them, at 320 I would have had an extra 2 chances. So not much of a creep up in chances for them.

Mythic rare =/= legendary.

You can spot most legendary creatures by the fact that they have names as opposed to titles. So Olivia, legendary. Decimator of the Provinces, not legendary. Though a few exceptions exist. Skysoveriegn is legendary as is Heart of Kiran, and Alhammarret's Archive.

Additionally not all legendary creatures are mythic rare, Bruna, Gonti, Hapatra, Ayli, and Dwynen are all examples of legendary creatures at rare status, and in the upcoming Dominaria set there will be legendaries even down at uncommon level since that's the main set mechanic.

It's good they're addressing this now rather than waiting for the set to drop and revamping all our cards then.

Laeuftbeidir

@brigby could you add the explanation of @wereotter to the beginning of the thread? It all makes more sense to me now (I'm out of paper waaaay too long)

khurram

Perhaps the OP should have clarified. When they say legendaries they don't necessarily mean mythics in MTGPQ? Do they? 

So whatever changes they make it wouldn't necessarily affect all mythics?

Are they talking about a new type of card?

All the options are interesting but only if there were a game mode or event with such restrictions. It won't be received well by the players if they changed how mythics worked all around.

Having said that, if I had to choose one I'd choose option B out of the 3.

Thuran

Option A could cause huge problems:

- Dominaria has several "legendaries matters" cards, that would become worthless. Cards such as "all legends get +1+1" or "when you cast a legendary, draw a card", would become pretty much worthless if you could have only 1 legendary of each type.

- many legendaries give cool effects that rely on synergies, some of those would be lost if you could only run one of them

- it would instantly make a LOT of cards completely unplayable. If you have samut, you have little reason to run other legendaries. Bruna and Gisela would become actually unplayable since they require another legendary creature in order to function.

If one legendary is the vest in that colour, all other legendaries of that colour become worthless as you would never be able to run them.

Want a cool pirate deck? Sorry, not kari zev and lannery storm together.

Want to play dinosaurs? Congrats, you are not allowed to play most of them because you got etail or what its name is

What of something like the kamigawa dragons? Would the 4 of them really have a chance to see play once you cannot have other legendaries if you use them?

Try to consider thus: how huge a chunk of your collection might as well be deleted from the game, if you can only use 1 of that legendary type?

Actually, coming back to dominaria: you woul encourage people to avoid the new set, since they can't use those cards any away, if they want a grishath, samut, baral or other key legedary I .their deck.

This will also decrease sales of bundles for Oktagon: why buy a cool card, if I know mother legendary is better? Once you got Beckett, why would you buy any other black or blue legendary, unless they are so specialised a deck can focus on them? 

A frankly seems to be the absolute worst option and really damaging to the game IMO.

B looks interesting.

C I feel would be too easy, unless you need x mana when you exile it, but without a way to set your own limit on charging them, that could lead to a lot of feel bad

Stormcrow

Option A, as mentioned by others, seems like an absolutely appallingly terrible idea. Maybe as a special restriction or optional objective for certain events/nodes (i.e. "cast 2 or fewer Legends"), but certainly not as a general proposition.

Option B seems....I dunno. Hard to judge without more specifics. Balancing the color-pie effects so they're roughly on par with each other will be a nightmare, and it also seems like a great way to introduce a lot of really hard-to-track-down bugs into the game. It might be workable but I'm not enthusiastic about it.

Option C, well, the good is that I imagine the code would work very similar to cycling, so it should be easier to program and debug, as well as balance. The bad is that the gameplay would also work very similarly to cycling, and cycling's become a terrible, fun-draining mechanic. Which makes me worry that this would, too.

Honestly, right now, I lean towards Option D, do nothing, don't even worry about it. I could probably be persuaded around to another point of view but I'd need more specifics, like some actual hard numbers for the buffs or specific mechanics for the color pie effects.