Landwalk

Landwalk Mechanism Explanation

What's the rationale behind landwalk creatures being not able to block each other?

It’s a cleaner mechanic without it.

Creatures Landwalk Mechanics

Landwalk Mechanic Evolution

Are planeswalkers the reason why landwalk isn't a thing?

No, we moved away from evasion that had such high variance between opponents with no natural way to play around it.

Evasion Landwalk Mechanics Planeswalkers

Landwalk Ability Explanation

Hey Mark, you probably wouldn’t template it this way, but *theoretically* - islandwalk means “can’t be blocked if defending player controls an Island”. So could artifactwalk mean “can’t be blocked if defending player controls an artifact”? Or is the way the ability worded means it needs to be tied to lands of some kind?

Landwalk is an ability word (meaning it doesn’t have any inherent rules meaning, it’s a label), so we could make landfall as an ability word if we so desired.

Ability Words Artifacts Landfall Lands Landwalk Rules Templating

Snow Landwalk Possibility

If/When: Snow Landwalk

If. We’ve (mostly) retired landwalk, so it’s a high bar.

If/When Landwalk

Nonbasic Landwalk Trivia

It's my birthday today! The cool new Merfolk we've seen so far this week are a great early present, all of them look playable in one format or another. May I also have some trivia on nonbasic landwalk? It seems like an underexplored mechanic which could help reign in greedy mana in larger formats.

We decided that landwalk didn’t have enough interplay. Once you have the relevant land, there is very little you can do about it. Also, punishing someone for using any nonbasic land hurts a lot more than just mana greedy players.

Birthday Lands Landwalk Mana Mechanics Merfolk

Old Keywords in Commander

One thing I appreciate about Commander design - especially Universes Beyond where there's a huge number of new designs and capturing the flavor is of utmost importance - is that there's a willingness to use older, retired keywords. Things like Shadow, Horsemanship, Landwalk, Fear, etc are incredibly evocative flavorfully, but were removed because of play pattern concerns, particularly for Limited.

A small use of that resource can be powerful.

Commander Fear Flavor Horsemanship Keywords Landwalk Limited Shadow Universes Beyond

Variant Landwalk Ideas

Could we ever see a variant of landwalk that wasn’t for lands? “legendwalk”, “treasurewalk”, “planeswalker-walk”(that last one is a little clunky). All serve a similar purpose to landwalk, punishing specific things, but aren’t broadly punishing a color; but rather act as counterplay specific decks.

The issue is not having good counterplay.

Colors Lands Landwalk Treasure

Alpha Duals' Types

Do you know if the alpha duals' having basic land types was intended as a downside thanks to landwalk?

I don’t believe it was seen as downside.

Lands Landwalk

Meld and Landwalk Return

What are the chances of you bringing back 2 of my favourite underused keywords, Meld and Nonbasic Landwalk?

The former has a much greater chance than the latter.

Keywords Landwalk Meld

Kappa Cannoner Balance

another angle to consider for people wondering about kappa cannoneer: rn its balanced around the idea that its not ever being blocked (barring some humility shenanigans) which is a consistent target to hit. but if instead it were balanced around "its being blocked some unknown proportion of the time because it says "cant be blocked except by x", now r&d is in a lose-lose situation. either assume cannoneer is being blocked a lot and buff it, which creates the landwalk situation again. or instead, assume cannoneer basically reads "cant be blocked" and make a wordier, more confusing card for very marginal benefit. if cannoneer said "cant be blocked except by cats" (2 of which are in neo) its not actually a more interactive card. its just unblockable with extra words and extra mental load for no reason.

Good points.

Cat Game Design Humility Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Kappa Cannoneer Landwalk Shenanigans

Mechanic Special Weakness

"While I agree the flavor is cool, it would do something we don’t like which is make the utility vary greatly based on what color the opponent is playing. I could see it as useful on a particular card, but am skeptical it would be something we do at large." This is the opposite of the "landwalk" situation though, right? It's not calling out a special immunity, it's calling out a special weakness. Doesn't that make gameplay *better*?

No, it’s the same basic problem.

Colors Flavor Game Play Landwalk Mechanics

Card Interaction Variation

For example, look at Kappa Cannoneer in Legacy. Right now it just reads "cannot be blocked", which is uninteractive. I still love the card, but wouldn't it be better if there were *some* things that could block it? You say that you don't want mechanics to vary wildly in strength against different colors, but when it comes to mechanics that are inherently un-interactive isn't allowing *some* things (even if more prevalent in X colors) to actually interact the fundamental bedrock of the game?

No, that was the lesson of landwalk. Having decks vary from “can easily block it” to “can’t ever block it” was problematic. It’s why we changed to menace which has answers most decks have access to.

Colors Kappa Cannoneer Landwalk Legacy Mechanics Menace

Plainswalker Possibility in Un-Set

Could a planeswalker with plainswalk be in an un set?

It could be in any set if we wanted to make it. I don’t believe we are inclined to do so though as we’ve both stopped doing landwalk and the confusion between the two words is probably not worth the comedic value.

Humor Landwalk Planeswalkers Un-Magic / Silver Border / Acorn Un-sets

Potential Nezumi Swampwalk Card

Might we see a creature a Nezumi with creature can't be blocked if defending player controls a Swamp writen out? Since its technically not Swamp walk it could be used correct?

If we don’t think landwalk is good gameplay, we also think landwalk written out isn’t good gameplay.

Creatures Game Play Landwalk Swamp

Potential for Colored Ward Costs

Returning to colored costs for Ward: could an X or Y condition (e.g Ward 2/B or something like " Ward B or pay 3 life") be an option?

Many things are possible. The question is will it lead to good gameplay? Hybrid ward costs, as an example, reward an opponent for playing a particular color. The reason we stopped intimidate and landwalk was because we didn’t like that gameplay.

Colors Game Play Hybrid Intimidate Landwalk Ward

Obsolete Mechanic's Color Pie

Since fear and intimidate and landwalk are no longer supported, are they gone from the color pie entirely?

They’re where they’ve always been. If a Modern Horizons set decides to do a one-of callback, it would be in an appropriate color.

Color Pie Colors Fear Intimidate Landwalk Modern Horizons

Potential for Retired Abilities

Would there ever be a time a Standard set might have a one of of a retired ability a singke creature with Fear, or Landwalk, Provoke, Intimidate or Regeneration? Or would that create more expectations even if announced a single one time only event style thing ?

It’s unlikely, especially in a premier set.

Creatures Fear Intimidate Landwalk Premier Sets Premier Sets Provoke Provoke Regeneration Standard

Returning Landwalk Mechanic

What informed the decision to bring back landwalk? I thought it was retired for being too narrow and noninteractive. Does this mean fear/intimidate has the potential to come back as well?

Modern Horizons is allowed to use retired mechanics/card types (landwalk, tribal, etc.) as one-of’s for flavor. They’re not coming back.

Card Types Fear Flavor Intimidate Kindred / Typal Landwalk Mechanics Modern Horizons

Fate of Landwalk Abilities

Where are landwalk abilities on the Storm Scale? Is there any variance between them or are they equal in scoring?

R&D has decided to basically retire landwalk (all versions) as it has too much swing based on the opponent with no ability to play around it.

Landwalk Storm Scale

Preventing Multilands with Landwalk

In a format where all the multilands had the basic land types (triomes, shock lands and the like), would land walk abilities (mountainwalk, islandwalk, etc) be away to prevent five color good stuff decks?

We dislike the gameplay of landwalk, so I think we’d look elsewhere.

Colors Game Play Lands Landwalk