Attrition

Unfinity Draft Archetypes

Hey, Mark. Did my first Unfinity draft last night, and this set is...not for me, but I was wondering: are there archetypes for draft? Certain cards card about certain aspects, sure, but beyond the color pie I didn't feel that there was any designation. As a result, the games felt samey to me and I didn't enjoy the actual gameplay experience.Was this something I missed, or was the generic nature intentional?

There are archetypes. White/Blue - Names/Name Sticker Evasion (caring about names enabling evasion)Blue/Black - Dice Control (manipulating dice rolls to get the result you want)Black/Red - High Roll Build Up (cards that get better as you roll high rolls) Red/Green - Attraction Mid Range (rewards you for rolling a lot of dice)Green/White - “Ability Stickers Matter” Go Tall (make your creatures stronger using ability stickers)White/Black - “Hats Matter” Recursion (caring about hats with a string recursive element) Blue/Red - “Art Stickers Matter” Tempo (using art stickers to gain you tempo advantage) Black/Green - Attraction Attrition (get rewarding for opening/visiting a lot of AttractionsRed/White - Clown Robot Aggro (attack with an army of Robots)Green/Blue - “Power/Toughness Stickers Matter” Ramp (ramp into mana and tickets to make your creatures huge)

Army Art Attractions Attrition Azorius (W/U) Black Blue Boros (R/W) Clown Color Pie Colorless Creatures Die Rolling Dimir (U/B) Draft Formats Evasion Game Play Golgari (B/G) Green Gruul (R/G) Izzet (U/R) Mana Orzhov (W/B) Rakdos (B/R) Red Robot Selesnya (G/W) Simic (G/U) Stickers White

Speed and -1/-1 Counters

I find it funny that one of the biggest things R&D doesn’t like about -1/-1 counters is that they slow things down too much. The last set that used them Amonkhet was one of the fastest limited formats ever.

The biggest issue is actually the attrition.

Amonkhet Attrition Game Design Humor Limited

Drawbacks of -1/-1 Counter Sets

"R&D has really soured on -1/-1 counter sets. It creates gameplay incentives that we don't like and makes sets harder to balance." Would mind elaborating on that?

+1/+1 counters lead to creatures getting bigger over time while -1/-1 counters lead to creatures shrinking and dying. R&D has found this additional attrition problematic when trying to craft an overall environment.

Attrition Craft Creatures Game Design Game Play

Attrition Card Design

I love attrition cards like manabarbs. My favorite is spiteful visions, which won me a game tonight. What limits us from getting more of these?

We’ve do with them what we do with anything we know is loved but only by a small segment of the audience - we make them infrequently, but when we do make them we try to make sure they will be something that subset will enjoy.

Attrition Manabarbs Spiteful Visions Visions

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