My Comments On GDS2 Episode 1

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/117z

Ethan Fleischer

+1/+1 counters as a resource seems neat.

Evolve: Simple but flavoful mechanic.

Mischiveous Monkey: Artifact bounce doesn’t seem right for green. This should just be a Mox Monkey variant.

Velociraptor Pack: I’d say Raptors belong in red, but otherwise it’s a fine card.

Nature’s Sacrifice: Nice spin on Nature’s Claim.

Heavy Shell: This should be uncommon. Do you want Troll Shroud and Regenerate all over Limited?

Jon Loucks

New version of Illuminate seems too complicated and the forced nature of it seems unfun. Geez stuck on two land Example: Stuck on two land but want to kill your Birds Of Paradise with Piercing Beam. Illuminate the top card of my library…it’s a land. That I wanted to draw next turn. That I have to exile now. UGH.

Living Reflection seems like too much of a memory issue, especially at common. One shot creatures like Refracted Runner might be okay (but 4 abilities on a common seems too much) and even a CIPT 1/1. But when you get into funky P/T combinations like Lavaskin Thragg I think you’re entering a land of confusion.

Speaking of Flashbomber: terrible name as he neither has Flash nor blows anything up.

Steamdriller: Does red get 4/4s at common? I still like Dig as a Cycling variant.

Shawn Main

Forsake: Cycling from play! MaRo will approve. Certainly becomes more “fair” without combat damage on the stack.

Blight seems neat. More token generation than usual works nicely with it, the sacrifice effects like Forsake provide a way to fight it, and the ‘goes to graveyard’ triggers like Bloodlust work nice with it. All around smash hit I think.

Devon Rule

Devon really goofed on reprints: Giant Cockroach AND Snuff Out, plus Tavern Sellsword is a functional reprint (Krovikan Scoundrel and Dakmor Scorpion).

Gold counters seem very interesting and I like his take on Mercenaries.

Jay Treat

Commune: So it’s just Kinship with a trigger for when you reveal? Not sure how fun that is.

I understand what he’s trying to do with the “two or more creature types” vs “less than two creature types” but I don’t like it.

Tale Of The Lazy Cat: seems like a mess – an Enchantment with a static ability while it’s in play targeting a creature that enters the battlefield when it’s in the graveyard. I think you have to just word it as a triggered ability that mirrors the static ability to make this work under the rules, but too many of these could be a pain to deal with. Probably doesn’t belong at common.

The only reason I see for Morph to still be in the set is allowing for the surprise factor of “I have no creature types” turning into “I have 2+ creature types”. Which is a lousy reason.

Scott Van Essen

Essence Thief: Lifelink and Swampwalk together on a common? Dislike.

Like the use of +1/+1 counters. Similar concept to Fleisher, but I think I like Van Essen’s better.

Daniel Williams

New version of Showdown seems better, but I feel like it still needs some tweaking. Not sure how well it works at Common. Clash was okay at common because you didn’t have cards changing zones and the decisions were simpler.

Good choice keeping Revelation.

Bringing back Aurochs = awesome. They don’t need to be in large numbers, just common.

I feel like the mechanics still need some hammering out, but the awesome flavor keeps showing through.

Jon Woodward

Erupt feels out of place in the set. Swarm encourages creatures. Incarnate and Favored encourage Auras. But Erupt wants to you to play Instants and Sorceries. Pulls in too many directions! Either this needs to be ditched entirely or turned into a set where mechanics are divided by color: Swarm and Favored in G/W, Erupt in U/R, and I’m not sure about B. (With Incarnate still across all 5 colors.)

My Rankings For This Round (Best To Worst)
Shawn Main
Devon Rule
Daniel Williams
Jon Woodward
Scott Van Essen
Ethan Fleisher
Jay Treat
Jon Louck

My Comments On The GDS2 Top 8

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/115z

I read through the submissions for the Top 8 for Great Designer Search 2. Here are my comments:

My thoughts on the Top 8:

Ethan Fleischer

• Really liked the idea of removing the ability to cast spells and activate abilities during the end step. Does remove some neat tricks with "at end of turn" abilities but those tricks can be kind of confusing to some players anyway.
• Really disagree with his Fetchlands complaint, except maybe that they are too good (but that is a DEVELOPMENT issue not Design).
• Like the idea of returning to Rabiah and mechanically playing off "there are actually 1001 Rabiahs".
• Pleased to see my Muraganda get some use with Thunder Lizard, Primal and Provoke.
• Not a fan of Equipment tokens - too many memory issues.

Jonathon Loucks

• Given that Jon has already been a professional game designer I would say that he's easily the front runner to win GDS2.
• Like moving Shade ability to Green. It is a little redundant to the Rootwalla ability, but I always hated that ability (because it is only once per turn).
• Ditching the Maximum Hand Size is okay. It makes a few cards like Spellbook complete blank (unlike removing mana burn which simply made some cards very narrow/bad). Also, I think most card games have a maximum hand size.
• 'dual Tribal' idea seems terrible, at least in Lorwyn. Maybe it would work better in a setting with different creature types or with all the multi-type spells involve Class instead of Race?
• The Light vs Dark theme seems pretty cool, especially it's use of Morph and face down creatures. There might be a rules issue with some of the cards involving non-creature cards being face down creatures (which is currently illegal).
• Equipment tokens again? Ugh.

Shawn Main

• Dislike removing the Upkeep step, but I agree with the crux of his argument: "stop punishing people who automatically start each turn by untapping and drawing." Soooo many new players want to draw before they do anything else. I've somewhat seriously talked about getting a shirt that lists "Untap, Upkeep, THEN Draw" because of how often I see people screw it up. I think it needs to be changed somehow.
• Token set is a fine idea, bringing back Convoke works great with it, and I like Swarm in general. Seems like this would be a very aggressive Limited format like Zendikar. But also seems a bit bland.
  

Devon Rule

• Agree that having an empty library should cause you to lose the game as a SBA because it how it syncs up with all the other losing the game SBAs.
• Agree with his hate for Dawnglare Invoker.
• Yay for returning to Ulgrotha, but I'm not sure that's the appropriate place for a Wedge themed block.
• Pretty nifty Enchantment block.
• Idealism is such simple yet awesome card, especially in context of Enchantments & Enchantment Creatures set.

Jay Treat

• Someone else who wants to end End Step shenanigans.
• I also second the "mana pools only empty at the end of turn" change. I didn't propose this on my GDS2 essay, but when word leaked out about mana burn changing this was the changed I expected at the time.
• I don't think Devour was terrible, but I think Jay makes good arguments about what's wrong with it.
• Jay designs with Hybrid look pretty sweet.
• Huzzah! Another Muraganda!
• Someone else putting non-creature cards as face down creatures.
• I think Approaching is a really neat mechanic.
• "Bind Familiar" (essentially "Mount") is great flavor and seems to be implemented well, though it will lead to weird flavor situations and seems weird to implement creatures riding other creatures as separate cards after 17 years of that not being done. I guess it could overcome those hurdles like Equipment did but at least at first it just tastes wrong.

Scott Van Essen

• "rule 305.7...lands which are changed to a basic land type lose their abilities generated from rules text" <- I agree this rule sucks. It has merits but those could be overcome by extra rules text on specific cards and the effect is not intuitive.
  
• More people playing non-creature cards face down (Cloak of Invulnerability)!
• Creatures flipping into Planeswalkers is a neat concept but feels like a text space nightmare.
  
• Prison world seems like a nice concept but the cards feel clunky with a whole bunch of different kinds of counters.

Daniel Williams

• Major props for creating a bunch of mechanics that work with each other. This is 7th person I've read but the first one that made me really go "WOW".
• I'm not sure so much card revealing would be fun to actually play. The whole thing feels like some kind of rules variant of MTG rather than an actual set. Still, great job swinging for the fences.

Jonathan Woodward

• Moving enchantment removal from White to Black makes some sense, but I don't like it especially with discard. If anything, I would get artifact removal completely out of white (but not give it to anyone else). Now you have Red with shatter affects, White with Demystify, and Green with Naturalize (Shatter or Demystify). I think that's got nice flow.
• We already saw Swarm as a "attack with as many creatures as possible" mechanic (I hope one of the two Swarm guys changes the name to avoid confusion) but this version is more like a fixed Banding.
• Incarnate is essentially Manifest.
  

Things that surprised me: lots of people want to go back to Ravnica, lots of people like Equipment tokens, lots of people like facedown non-creature cards. Surprised at the amount of overlap in general; I was expecting a more mechanically diverse selection of worlds.

How I'd rank the Top 8:
Devon Rule
Jonathon Loucks
Ethan Fleischer
Daniel Williams
Shawn Main
Jay Treat
Jonathan Woodward
Scott Van Essen