Costumes and Personas

[Juancu]

I try this mechanic occasionally, so here is another try to celebrate the new boards. This time I'm using colored artifact technology, since Maro said "it's the future for artifacts".

Beastly Attire 3G
Artifact - Equipment Costume
(When this enters the battlefield, create a 0/0 colorless Persona creature token and attach this to it. Exchange two Costumes attached to Personas you control anytime.)
Equipped creature gets +3/+4.

This is just a 3/4 Persona creature. But if you control two personas, you may switch their costumes anytime! It's like your opponent can't tell who is who.

Bird Attire 2U
Artifact - Equipment Costume
(When this enters the battlefield, create a 0/0 colorless Persona creature token and attach this to it. Exchange two Costumes attached to Personas you control anytime.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has flying.

Attack with Bird Attire, and after blockers are declared, change it into a 3/4. Your opponent Shocks your bird? Change it into a 3/4.

[void_nothing]

(First, a side note: I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what Mark said about colored artifacts. I don't think what was meant was "all artifacts will be colored from now on"; instead it seems like merely the most pushed artifacts or the ones with abilities that are otherwise heavily associated with one color will require colored mana. We still will need colorless mana rocks for mana fixing and colorless filler creatures for Limited and other such artifact role-filler things.)

I personally like Costumes but a) I think they could do with a specific keyword to take that ability rather than tying it to the Costume subtype and b) making the exchange into a static ability is both grokkable and sometimes hard to understand. A 0-cost activated ability would be easier to understand all around but would also cause problems of its own (turning off via Stony Silence effects when it probably shouldn't, infinites with Crackdown Construct...). Ultimately I would use this mechanic after playtesting if it weren't consistently misplayed.

[Morpic_Tide]

Subtypes with mechanical weight in their own right are near-entirely abandoned by WotC (I think Sagas are the only exception), having erratad that away for Walls and Legends in the past and moving to universally-present keywords with Equipment. So it needs to be keyworded in some way, perhaps triggered by targeting by an opponent in some fashion to avoid any loops, and if it's tied to a creature subtype, that subtype should be something reused in other places, so that it isn't just Changelings getting the shenanigans (granted, it would be hillariously flavorful for exactly that to be the case)

If Costume is its own subtype, you could have some Enchantments with it, using Glamor as the name for the Enchantment version, alongside the Artifact Attires.

[barbecube]

In addition, if these are Equipment, they need an equip ability.

[Morpic_Tide]

In addition, if these are Equipment, they need an equip ability.

Not necessarily, given the Persona mechanic. The Equip mechanic isn't inherent to the Equipment subtype like the Legendary Rule was when it was the Legend creature subtype, so one could have the Costumes be an alternative to the Equip keyword, and it does make them synergise with the back-catalogue of equipments in the game, giving some ways to attach them outside the Persona shuffling.

[Cardz5000]

If it's tied to a creature subtype, that subtype should be something reused in other places, so that it isn't just Changelings getting the shenanigans (granted, it would be hillariously flavorful for exactly that to be the case)

I think I actually like the idea of it creating shapeshifter tokens with changeling better (and letting the swapping happen between shapeshifters)

[wizyard]

couldn't this work as an ability for creatures?

Shifty Guy 3G
Creature - Shapeshifter
Shifty (At any time you may have this creature and another creature with shifty each become a copy of the other until end of turn.)
3/4

Shifty Bird 3U
Creature - Shapeshifter
Shifty (At any time you may have this creature and another creature with shifty each become a copy of the other until end of turn.)
Flying
2/2

[void_nothing]

Could it? I suppose. But I think JuanCu has tried similar things and frankly the solution of using Equipment is a lot easier and more comprehensible than the alternatives.

[Juancu]

Yeah, the problem with that version is the confusion caused by the cards. The card that you see as a 3/4 beast is a 2/2 blue bird and the card that you see as a 2/2 blue bird is a 3/4 green beast. If those were the only cards involved, ok, but when you mix it up with marked damage, enchanments, other creatures with the ability, +1/+1 counters....

Still, it's very similar to my first try, in silver bolder: Pause the game, then you take the objects and replace each with the other. Unpause the game.

[user_938036]

How would you handle the board slowly filling with unworn costumes? Imagine if ever creature you played left behind a corpse when it died. The corpse doesn't do anything on it's own but other cards can care about it in various ways. This makes creatures better because they have use after they die. I don't think this is something you want happening.

Also why go with +x/+y rather than is a x/y? It would make more sense that a costume completely change you rather than simply add on.

As a side note I don't get the flavor here. I'm wearing a bird costume but oh look it's actually a bird costume. The thing inside hasn't changed only the outside, the part you see has changed. How does this work? It seems to be the opposite of the troupe of hiding identities.

[Krishnath]

Subtypes with mechanical weight in their own right are near-entirely abandoned by WotC (I think Sagas are the only exception), having erratad that away for Walls and Legends in the past and moving to universally-present keywords with Equipment. So it needs to be keyworded in some way, perhaps triggered by targeting by an opponent in some fashion to avoid any loops, and if it's tied to a creature subtype, that subtype should be something reused in other places, so that it isn't just Changelings getting the shenanigans (granted, it would be hillariously flavorful for exactly that to be the case)

If Costume is its own subtype, you could have some Enchantments with it, using Glamor as the name for the Enchantment version, alongside the Artifact Attires.

They have no problem with (non-creature, non-basic land) subtypes, but they need to actually have mechanically significance. Deserts were brought back in Amonkhet because they made the type have mechanical significance. Sagas were created to allow a subset of enchantments to work with Historic (and make fun enchantments with built in turn limits). Gates were brought back (and expanded upon), to allow for easy mana fixing in the resent Ravnica blocks, and got support in the form of cards that cared about the subtype. If OP creates a number of cards that care about the Costume subtype (say for example a fetch spell that allows you to search your library for one), then he'd be fine. New subtypes can create new deck archetypes that weren't thought of before.

[user_938036]

Subtypes with mechanical weight in their own right are near-entirely abandoned by WotC (I think Sagas are the only exception), having erratad that away for Walls and Legends in the past and moving to universally-present keywords with Equipment. So it needs to be keyworded in some way, perhaps triggered by targeting by an opponent in some fashion to avoid any loops, and if it's tied to a creature subtype, that subtype should be something reused in other places, so that it isn't just Changelings getting the shenanigans (granted, it would be hillariously flavorful for exactly that to be the case)

If Costume is its own subtype, you could have some Enchantments with it, using Glamor as the name for the Enchantment version, alongside the Artifact Attires.

They have no problem with (non-creature, non-basic land) subtypes, but they need to actually have mechanically significance. Deserts were brought back in Amonkhet because they made the type have mechanical significance. Sagas were created to allow a subset of enchantments to work with Historic (and make fun enchantments with built in turn limits). Gates were brought back (and expanded upon), to allow for easy mana fixing in the resent Ravnica blocks, and got support in the form of cards that cared about the subtype. If OP creates a number of cards that care about the Costume subtype (say for example a fetch spell that allows you to search your library for one), then he'd be fine. New subtypes can create new deck archetypes that weren't thought of before.

Morpic_Tide isn't talking about sub type support like tribal support. They are talking about Rules baked into Subtypes. Sagas and Auras are examples of such subtypes. Because a card is an Aura if it isn't attached to an appropriate card it goes to the graveyard. Because a card is a Sage it gets a counter ever turn and disappears eventually. Subtypes with actual baked in rules baggage are rare nowadays.

[Morpic_Tide]

Morpic_Tide isn't talking about sub type support like tribal support. They are talking about Rules baked into Subtypes. Sagas and Auras are examples of such subtypes. Because a card is an Aura if it isn't attached to an appropriate card it goes to the graveyard. Because a card is a Sage it gets a counter ever turn and disappears eventually. Subtypes with actual baked in rules baggage are rare nowadays.

Pretty much this, yes. It's not that subtypes rarely matter, they're pumping out subtype focuses more frequently than usual, it's that the mechanics are usually not actually part of the subtype itself. Again, I point to Equipment, where it's never had the effect as part of the subtype as part of deliberate deign choices by Wizards of the Cost to move away from subtype significance. It's also why Legendary became a supertype and why Walls have Defender, having previously been given the mechanic as a fact of the subtype.

Perhaps have the effect phrased like this (using Shifty because it's the only keyword suggested so far):

Shifty (when a creature with Shifty is blocked by a creature or targeted by a spell or ability not controlled by the same player, its controller may have another creature with Shifty they control become blocked or targeted instead)

Subject to a wording pass, this is just the first way of phrasing it that came to mind. Makes it reactive to the usual cases where it'd matter to swap, but doesn't allow you to just do it whenever you wish, it has to be "revealing" when someone who wouldn't inherently know does something to it. Fixes the infinite loops, outside Mindslaver stuff.