Exploit

Black's View on Privilege

Color pie philosophy question: in DTW#1055 you said black likes systems that let people who have the most drive and work the hardest get the most. How does black see/interact with privilege (i.e., systems that benefit certain individuals by them "being" something and not "having done" something)? Does black reject, exploit or work around it?

If it works to black’s advantage, black’s fine with it.

Black Color Pie Drive to Work Exploit

Mechanic Locale Preferences

Hi Mark! I was wondering if you have data for this. Do players prefer when mechanics strongly tied/introduced on a given plane, stay strictly associated with that plane, making it more likely on returns but less likely in other places? Like, hypothetically, DFC transforming werewolves outside of Innistrad, Energy beyond Kaladesh, or Allies not in Zendikar. I enjoy seeing old mechanics in new places (Exploit in Innistrad, Foretell in Faldorn's deck, Convoke anywhere that isn't the Selesnya Conclave), but does the data say anything about this?

Players expect certain places to have certain mechanics, but players don’t seem to mind when other worlds also have those mechanics.

Ally Convoke Dual Faced Cards Exploit Foretell Innistrad Kaladesh Mechanics Selesnya (G/W) Zendikar

Critique on Crimson Vow Mechanics

Hey Mark, just wanted to leave some feedback. I love all the cards and art from Crimson Vow, but some of the mechanics, for me, don't capture the flavor of the set. Cleave and exploit are I think great mechanics themselves, but could or could not be in any number of sets. And blood tokens, also great, but don't feel like the name matches the effect, I would have guessed they involved gaining/paying life or dealing damage. Appreciate all your hard work! Looking forward to playing

You bring up two different points, so I’ll address each individually. First, more generic mechanics. They’re fun, but they’re hard to match exactly to flavor themes. If we had a rule that every mechanic had to be a slam dunk, we’d never do cycling again. If you had me stack rank worlds where exploitation is highest, Innistrad is high on the list. Are we supposed to wait until we have the world with the most exploitation to use exploit? I’m not even sure we’d no that when we were making the set. This is just a long winded way of saying, that we want to make sure we don’t use mechanics that feel disconnected from the world, but I think we have to let some more generic mechanics slide.As for blood tokens, I did a bunch of research during design asking people what they would expect blood to do in Crimson Vow. The answer was all over the place. The only consensus was that Vampires would want it. There’s just not a commonly agreed opinion on what “blood does” as an item in a fantasy game. So, we leaned on what made for the best gameplay. Life gain or life loss just didn’t do what we needed. It didn’t help with card flow, it wasn’t synergistic with the rest of the set, it didn’t lead to good play patterns. That’s how we got to where we got.

Art Blood Cleave Colorless Cycling Exploit Flavor Game Play Innistrad Lifegain Mechanics Rules Tokens Vampire

Exploit Mechanic Clarification

Mark - if you have a creature with exploit on the battlefield and then cast a second creature with the same name, and exploit, will the effect happen twice? Thanks! We can’t find a convincing answer!

No, it just happens once.

Creatures Exploit Mechanics

Mechanic Choice for VOW

Having seen the mechanics for VOW; I’m a little curious why WoTC chose for the returning faction mechanic to be exploit over spectacle. “Opponent losing life“ was a big part of the theme for BR in Hunt, and a wedding spectacle makes a lot of flavor sense (especially for Olivia), so what led the design team to choose not to use it?

We used Blood counters for the Vampires, so the open slot was for something blue and black for Zombies which spectacle didn’t work for.

Black Blood Blue Exploit Factions Flavor Mechanics Spectacle Vampire Wizards of the Coast Zombie

Decayed Zombie Tokens in Vow

Have you confirmed whether or not decayed zombie tokens will return in Crimson Vow?

There are no decayed Zombie tokens in Crimson Vow. Zombies make use of exploit as they’re focused mechanic. I will stress that the two play great together in constructed formats.

Constructed Decayed Exploit Mechanics Tokens Zombie

Mechanic Similarities: Training versus Mentor

In your teaser you mentioned that a faction mechanic is returning. This is presumably Exploit, DTK Sultai mechanic. Cleave is great, but I'm pretty disappointed in hiding under the name "Training", a new name for a mechanic, "Mentor" mechanic from Boros. It's written the other way around, with target "taking" from higher power instead of higher power "giving" to lesser, but the actual effect is exactly the same in most cases. Conserving mechanics is a good idea, but do not sell them as new.

While training is similar to mentor, it actually plays out very differently in how it plays. It’s not just a renamed mentor.

Boros (R/W) Cleave Dragons of Tarkir Exploit Factions Mechanics Mentor Sultai (B/G/U) Teasers Training

Flavor Connection of Cleave

Out of curiosity, what was the intended flavour behind cleave? I'm having a hard time figuring out the connection between the word and the effect. Like exploit is your creature exploiting the death of something else, but the best I've got with cleave is I'm making my spell better by cutting part of it off, which feels odd to me.

Cleave, like most spell mechanics, doesn’t have a lot of flavor.

Cleave Creatures Exploit Flavor Mechanics

Deathtouch Vs First Strike

Hey Mark, is there a reason why deathtouch works as intended with fight spells, but first strike/double strike don't? Eg. A 2/1 first strike dies when fighting a 2/2

First strike requires a timing window. First works because it does damage during a different time before the other creature deals damage. Fight has all the combat happen at the same time, not using timing windows. It’s one of those things that is easy to grok, but very complicated to make the rules work correctly. Un-cards exploit these type of situations (such as last strike).

Creatures Deathtouch Double Strike Exploit Fight / Bite First Strike Rules Spells Un-sets

Kicker Versus Other Abilities

Buyback, Replicate, Entwine, Fuse, Exploit, Awaken and Escalate are all really just versions of Kicker. Why not just use Kicker so that these abilities could be backward and forward compatable?

1) We value flavor and excitement of individual sets over keyword continuity. There isn’t that many cards, for example, that care about kicker. As I’ve said many times, one of the big drawbacks of kicker is it’s too broad a mechanic. 2) Not having to keyword it as kicker gives us more flexibility on how individual mechanics work. Not every mechanic you named, for instance, is exactly kicker.

Awaken Buyback Entwine Escalate Exploit Flavor Fuse Keywords Kicker Mechanics Replicate

Favorite Mechanics or Cards

I feel like a lot of people who say you’ve only done bad for the game don’t realize you’re probably behind some of their favorite mechanics or cards too. For a change of pace, can you list some beloved mechanics or cards you’re responsible for?

Here are the Magic mechanics I’ve had a hand in creating: Absorb, Addendum, Affinity, Aftermath, Aura Swap, Battle Cry, Bolster, Champion, Changeling, Cipher, Companion, Contraptions, Crew (Vehicles), Dash, Deathtouch, Delve, Dredge, Embalm, Energy, Entwine, Evoke, Exert, Exploit, Fabricate, Fateful Hour, Fateseal, Ferocious, Flashback, Flip, Forecast, Fortify, Frenzy, Gotcha, Graft, Gravestorm, Heroic, Hexproof, Host/Augment, Hybrid Mana, Imprint, Infect, Intimidate, Kicker, Landfall, Lifelink, Living Weapon, Madness, Manifest, Mentor, Modular, Monstrosity, Morbid, Morph, Multikicker, Mutate, Ninjitsu, Phyrexian Mana, Poisonous, Populate, Proliferate, Prowl, Raid, Rally, Reach, Recover, Reinforce, Retrace, Ripple, Shroud, Soulbond, Splice, Split Cards, Split Second, Suspend, Transfigure, Transform, Typecycling, Undying, Unearth, Vanishing and Wither.

Absorb Absorb Addendum Affinity Aftermath Aura Swap Battle Cry Battle Cry Bolster Champion Changeling Cipher Companion Contraptions Crew Dash Deathtouch Delve Dredge Dredge Embalm Entwine Evoke Exert Exploit Fabricate Fabricate Fateful hour Fateseal Ferocious Flashback Forecast Fortify Fortify Frenzy Graft Gravestorm Gravestorm Heroic Hexproof Hybrid Imprint Infect Intimidate Kicker Landfall Lifelink Lifelink Living Weapon Madness Mana Manifest Mechanics Mentor Modular Monstrosity Morbid Morph Morph Mutate Ninjitsu Phyrexian Poisonous Populate Proliferate Prowl Raid Rally Rally Recover Reinforce Retrace Ripple Shroud Soulbond Splice Split Cards Split Second Suspend Suspend Transfigure Transform Undying Unearth Unearth Vanishing Vanishing Vehicles Wither Your Hand

Planeswalking Exclusivity

The in-universe mechanics of planes walking is some sort of weird science that certain objects, like the Weatherlight/Planar Bridge/Phyrexian Portals can exploit to traverse planes. Sometimes that object is a living thing and maybe has some perks along with it. Doesn't seem too hard to grasp or get all controversial over. Boy planeswalking with dog is cool in my book.

In order to make planeswalkers special (as they are the core of our IP), we want the ability to walk between planes to be exclusive to them. That’s what The Mending was all about, optimizing our IP to make planeswalkers central to it.

Controversies Dog Exploit Mechanics Phyrexian Planar Bridge Planes The Mending Weatherlight

Exploit in RNA

When planning RNA, how heavily was Exploit considered for Orzhov?

It was maybe on a list of possible returning mechanics. That’s about it.

Exploit Mechanics Orzhov (W/B)

Old Template Consideration

A while back there was a question as to whether you could bring back the old O-ring template for products targeted at more enfranchised players, because they're more likely to enjoy the 'bug' of being able to permanently exile a card. Was that something you thought about for Modern Horizons and decided against?

That’s not a bug we want to exploit.Also, we try to stay consistent with our templates.

Experienced / Enfranchised Players Exploit Modern Modern Horizons Templating The Exile Zone

Hierarchy of Flash Color

You said green is second color for Flash. Which would be the third color? White had quite some flash cards (and I'd even say there might be as many or even more flash cards in white). Black and red seam like underdogs on the flash territory but strangely the faries from Lorwyn provided support for playing spells on your opponents turn. And Flash feels like something black Assassins could exploit.

Blue is primary in flash, black and green are secondary, and white and red are tertiary. Flash is one of the evergreen keywords we use more than most the rest (with flying being #1).

Assassin Black Blue Colors Exploit Flash Flying Green Keyword Actions Keywords Lorwyn Primary Red Secondary Spells Tertiary White

Appreciation and Thanks

Mark, I want to say thank you. I love the competition in magic, I love to brew my weird modern Decks, but more than that I LOVE to expand what you can and can't do in magic, exploit weird rules case, and having a silver border to play is more than I could ask. I feel a shiver down my spine every time I think I'll play this think (Ok, only day 16, shipping got stuck in Brasil). But More than that: You are a amazing guy in every time I see your statements. Keep the good work. Thanks for all.

Thank you for the kind words. Seeing the great response to Unstable makes the years of fighting t get it made all worth it.

Appreciation Appreciation Exploit Modern Rules Un-Magic / Silver Border / Acorn Un-sets Unstable

Changing Card Names

Can I use More or Less to change a card's name? Say, "Gimme Five" to "Gimme Four", or "Better than One" to "Better than Two"? "The Countdown Is At Two"? "Four-Headed Goblin"? I have no idea why anyone would want to do this, since it doesn't change the rules text in any way, but I'm sure I'll find a crazy exploit somehow.

You can and it does matter; there are numerous silver-bordered cards that care about qualities of the name.

Better Than One Card Names Exploit Gimme Five Goblin More or Less Rules

Exploit or Bolster Choice

Exploit or Bolster?

Bolster.

Bolster Exploit

Exploit in Ravnica

I realised earlier that when you asked us if, in another Ravnica return, we wanted returning mechanics, you never really specified only-guild mechanics. Could the DTK ability Exploit work for the Orzhov guild?

Any mechanic could return not just a guild mechanic.

Exploit Mechanics Orzhov (W/B) Two Color

Sliver Knowledge Retention

You say "The only abilities they gain is from sharing knowledge most often how to shapeshifting a useful body part. They cannot share anything other than knowledge." To that I ask: is there a story reason as to why slivers cannot retain the knowledge when going to far away from the sliver that gave that knowledge? (I definitely get the mechanical reason)

In the Tempest story, it was the weakness the Weatherlight crew could exploit to defeat them.

Crew Exploit Sliver Story / Lore Tempest Weatherlight