It’s Friday the 13th, kids, but luck is on your side. After all, you get to see this spicy little nugget:
In the words of Shawn Carnes from the original Pro Tour I videotape, “That’s Armageddon, baby!” We’ve made several variations on that old favorite 3W sorcery in the past few years (Anyone remember Global Ruin? Epicenter? Myojin of Infinite Rage?), but here’s one that can finally claim to be in the same league as the original. And in some ways, it’s even better. Somewhere, Zo-Zu is drooling.
Every third set needs a new twist—Mark hinted at this on Monday and will expound further this coming Monday—and Saviors’ is that “hand size matters,” a mechanic we’ve nicknamed “wisdom” (as in the iconic Weatherlight uncommon Gerrard’s Wisdom).
There were a lot of issues with getting this theme into shape, most of which were centered on bad or annoying play experiences. It’s easy to keep track of how many creatures or permanents your opponent has in play—just look at the table. Your opponent’s life? Just keep track of it yourself on your scorepad. But the number of cards in your opponent’s hand? That’s usually difficult to determine without asking him directly (unless you play on Magic Online, where these issues don’t really apply).
When we played with Saviors during development—especially in limited games, the following exchanges were often heard.
Player A: “How many cards in your hand?”
Player B: “Four.”
[Player A attacks.]
Player A: “How many cards?”
Player B: “Dude, still four.”
[Player B blocks.]
Player A: “Hmm… Four cards?”
Player B: “What do you think? Seriously.”
With all this somewhat irritating information-gathering going on, we had to make sure that hand size mattered enough to be worth it. In other words, the cards had to be interesting enough to counterbalance any negativity generated by suddenly having to micromanage the number of cards in hands all over the game. To that end, there are several of each of the following types of cards:
* Permanents that care about the number of cards in your hand.
* Permanents that care about the number of cards in your opponents’ hands.
* Permanents that care about the relative sizes of both players’ hands.
* Spells that care about the number of cards in your opponents’ hands.
* Spells that care about the number of cards in your hand.
* Spells that care about the relative sizes of both players’ hands.
Thoughts of Ruin falls into group number five on that list (spells that care about the number of cards in your hand), which is my favorite. You never need to ask anyone anything when playing with this card. You know how many cards are in your own hand, and that number only matters once. You never need to suspiciously ask the dreaded “Cards in hand?” question.
The card started out in design with your hand sizing in a very different way. Originally it forced each player to sacrifice all lands except for a number equal to the cards in your hand. From Multiverse:bs 6/7: supposed to be "sacrifice down to"
RB 6/10: No, team prefers to maintain the stance of always rewarding you for having lots of cards in your hand.
As you can see, designer Brian Schneider commented that the card’s original intent was to replicate Armageddon once your hand was empty. The problem with that card, as lead developer Randy Buehler noted, was that just about every other “wisdom” card in the set rewarded you for having many cards in your hand. The original version just didn’t fit into that scheme.
Design’s original version rewarded what I like to call “pants-down” play. You’d deploy a stream of permanents early in the game, probably cheap creatures and maybe some mana artifacts, and then once Thoughts of Ruin was the last card in your hand, assuming you had actually managed to get superior board position, you could simulate Armageddon. You’d end up no lands and no cards in your hand—hence “pants down”—leaving you pretty vulnerable if your opponent had been anticipating this play.
That card sounds kind of fun, but that wasn’t what the set was after. Cards in hand are good in this world, and the block already has plenty of stuff to enable that, such as the Moonfolk and Ninja, as well as individual cards like Sensei’s Divining Top, Gifts Ungiven, and Sosuke’s Summons. The newer (printed) version of “Hand Size ’Geddon” is a lot more complex and subtle card than the “pants-down” version.
The idea with Thoughts of Ruin is to craft the perfect setup. Either get more lands in play than your opponent and ’Geddon for a number equal to his lands but less than yours (similar to playing Wildfire), or hold extra lands in your hand and ’Geddon for a number equal to your opponent’s lands but hopefully significantly more than yours. Either way, the goal is to cripple your opponent and leave yourself in a much better position to recover.
引用元
TALK TO THE HAND Posted in Latest Developments on May 13, 2005
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/talk-hand-2005-05-13
《荒廃の思考/Thoughts of Ruin》のプレビュー記事です。
《世界の荒廃/Global Ruin》《震央/Epicenter》《激憤明神/Myojin of Infinite Rage》に続く、《ハルマゲドン/Armageddon》のバリエーションの１つと紹介されてます。途中で色が変わっているのは、色の役割の変遷を表していると言えるでしょう。
また、『神河救済』のテーマである、知恵カード（手札の枚数を参照するカード）でもあります。このテーマが導入された理由の１つは、第三セットであることから、これまでのセットとは違った方向性を打ち出すことでした。無色のアーティファクトがテーマのミラディン・ブロックで、第三セットの『フィフスドーン』では真逆とも言える多色テーマ（烈日）だったのもそれと同様でしょう。神河・ブロックの流れで、手札の枚数に着目した経緯は不明ですが、ムーンフォークや忍者や転生や連繫など、手札の枚数を維持・増加させるメカニズムは少なくないので、相性がいいのは間違いありません。この点では、先述のミラディンにおける多色テーマとは対照的です。
さて、手札の枚数を参照するメカニズムを作るにあたって、参照するのは自分か対戦相手か、枚数は多い方がいいか少ない方がいいか、あるいは差がある方がいいか、など参照の仕方は多数ありえます。《荒廃の思考》は元々、自分の手札が少ないほど効果を発揮し、特に０枚の時にハルマゲドンと同様になるようデザインされていました。しかし、自分の手札が多いと効果を発揮する方が好まれるだろう、と言う意見の方が優勢だったようで、現在のようなデザインになりました。
手札が多いほど嬉しいのは確かでしょう。しかし、最も《ハルマゲドン》を使いたいであろうアグロデッキは、なんなら手札を捨ててでも攻めたいものです。そういう点から、あまり噛み合っている効果とは言えません。初期案通り、手札が０枚でハルマゲドンの方が、噛み合っています。しかし、それは、条件を満たしやすく強すぎるとも言えるでしょう。実際、この調整されたバージョンであっても、構築において実績があります。マナクリーチャーやドローエンジンのあるクロックパーミッションのシー・ストンピィ、ドローエンジンを積んだ土地破壊デッキのオウリング・ボアなどです。噛み合っていないようで、いい調整だったと言うのは面白いところです。
コメント