Un-Becoming: Grixis Elimination

[Pygyzy]

I didn't realize I'd be writing a dissertation on Magic but this is the culmination of everything I've worked on so far, including and hopefully resolving the innumerable problems as best I can to actually make a set everyone can enjoy that still has the feel I was going for originally. Everyone that gave feedback I tried to use your input as much as I could. If not for y'all I wouldn't have made as much headway as I did so thank you. Also if it sucks I accept no blame and it's y'all a fault. I just wanted a card that's also a banana, and you wouldn't let me have it, now nobody gets one.

SPOILER

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I think I've finalized the major mechanics so y'all can vote for your choice of the two worst mechanics and two best mechanics then I'll eliminate the least popular two. The eliminated will compete to not be absolutely eliminated forever and I'll do 1st best for main mechanic. I'm going to explain each mechanic and core concept, as well as the important criteria to keep everything from blowing up.

Overall concept
It's like a riddle. When is a door not a door? When it's ajar. When is English not English, when it's magic. How many of you have looked at a card, read it, understood all the words in it's text, but then not understand what it does? "If you have book burning..."?

Most recently, just the second smaller name on the Godzilla cards confused the hell outta me at first glance because I had no clue why it was there and I had no frame of reference for it. "Why is Godzilla this card but also this one but they're both two different creatures...what?" I didn't know they were alternate art. I literally thought "It's two creatures I guess? Maybe it's like Partner. I wonder what the other one is. Bet it's pretty cool. Oh it's just alt art? Really?". But if you had told me before hand, "Oh it's alt art" I immediately get that.

Magic is similar in that you can look at it and go "Oh I know what target means" or "I know what Ice Cauldron does". But how many people have said, "Oh I didn't realize I couldn't target that" or "Ice Cauldron is a comprehensible card also I'm a liar.". Technically yes everyone knows target, but also plenty of us have heard, " Oh I didn't know I couldn't target my shroud creature.", or, "I didn't know I couldn't target that unless I pay 2.". Target didn't change, but it also doesn't do what it say it does. It's pedantic, but that's not the point.

Rather than make a faction based on my playstyle, instead I'll make it my think-style. I like to take an idea, flip it on its head so that the reverse is true and then try to argue from that perspective to prove a point the opposite point. Otherwise known as satire. Magic does satire already but what they haven't done is, what I'll call The Thri-Angle of the Magi, The text, the rules, and Magic itself.

So I tried to turn it on it's head. In my eyes, Magic cards typically don't really say what they say. That's not really accurate because they do. So why do I assume they do? That's how it feels. Magic feels complex. Is it? It's not. So if thats true, are there simple cards that are complex? Yes. A signpost French vanilla uncommon could have one word in it's text but still be complex because of the skill decisions involved.

What about complex cards that are simple. Ice Cauldron. You're probably thinking I'm crazy. How is Ice cauldron simple if it's nearly incomprehensible. What does Ice cauldron do? You store mana on it to cast a spell later. I don't know what Ice cauldron says and I promise I didn't look it up. But I know what it does.

What about the signpost uncommon. Well you see you take this guy early in the draft so that... and I've already picked a different card.

That's not a fair comparison. Its just a 2/2 haste. Ok 2/2 haste is ok if that's all it does but what it really does, what makes it really good, is signal a player to choose a archetype. That's not even written on the card. I'm stretching a little but I'm trying to make a distinction. Ice cauldron doesn't care about signals or draft archetypes or what your friends think of you. It just puts counter, stores mana, casts spells stored on it, and makes your friends wonder why they invited you.

So I thought well can you have a card that is simple, with no words even, that's actually complex and doesn't do what it says. Like Infinity Elemental without the reminder text. Likewise could a card like Ice cauldron, which is definitely complex and makes my eyes cross reading it, actually be simple and do what it says it does even when it very much obviously does not.

The elevator pitch. It's completely arbitrary but it's perfect for what I'm trying to do. This will all make sense below I promise.
A card is simple if it fits in an elevator pitch. It's complex if it takes a lengthy explanation. Ok so the signpost uncommon in my example doesn't fit that criteria. Right so I had to fix that. And I think I did.

What even is Magic if cards don't do what they say or aren't what they even are? I actually have an answer for that and it came from of all people Batman.

Who is the Batman? Bruce Wayne is the Batman. But Batman is not Bruce Wayne. That doesn't make any sense. It makes perfect sense.
Bruce Wayne is who Batman is, Batman is what Bruce Wayne does. Batman wasn't born but he can die and Bruce Wayne can be dead but Batman is still alive.

What's the point of all this?
At its essential, Magic is the rules and the cards. But I'd argue that the rules are Bruce Wayne, who Magic is, and the cards are Batman, what the game does. You could play a game of magic without the cards (wouldn't be fun but ou could) however you could not play a game of Magic without the rules. You play with cards. You don't play with rules. Wanna play a rule game? (That's actually how I describe Magic.) But you could! It would just be like playing dungeons and dragons where everyone flips thru rulebook and has to be that guy.

Because of the "un-logic" I've designated above, I'm able to work in a grey are that'll allow me to bend the rules but not snap them. It will all be clear soon.

It's cards vs rules, literal vs jargon, complex vs simple, so pay attention and get fancy for some nonsense because it's a brawl to see who is the Most Literal Un-Magic: The Satirizing card of them all. For no glory and a waste of time.
I gotta take a break so build some suspense yourself. Stay tuned for when I actually do what I said I was before I wrote an essay.

You're here. I'm there. This is that. You've reached The Satire Zone.

[Pygyzy]

Gonna start off crazy and it's only gonna get crazier from here. I thought type counter were crazy what about rules tokens? In exile???

Number #1: Rules baggage

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Number 1: Rules baggage (This card starts the game with it's rules token in exile.)

Overly-Talkative Neighbor W
Creature — Human Neighbor Buddy
Rules baggage
0/1

Overly-Talkative Neighbor's Rules Token
Rulebook — Game Rules Token
777.77.C — Overly Talkative Neighbor can't be blocked by Rats, Cats, Birds, Squirrels, Insects, Spider, did I say Birds? I did say Birds. Birds.
Overly-Talkative Neighbor can't block Ox, Fox, and Lizards.
0/1

Cards always come with their rules baggage. I've actually already doing this for full art cards.

This is an example of a card that has 2 words but is complex. But also pretty dang simple. Also I don't know it it can be explained in an elevator pitch. But that's part of the point.

Numero Dos y Dos Dos: Text Heavy v1 and v other 1

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#2eww: Text Heavy V1

Esperantosaurus 6UUU
Creature — Dinosaur Teacher
(Text heavy — This card costs 1 less for each letter in a exiled non-rulebook word with the most letters.)
6/6

Or

Text Heavy Other V1
Esperantosaurus 6UUU
Creature — Dinosaur Teacher
(Text heavy — Eating sentences can help cast this spell. To eat a sentence, put that nonrulebook sentence into your graveyard from your exile until end of turn. This spell costs 1 or one mana of the sentences color you ate.)
6/6

Or what about
(Text Heavy — Your nonreminder sentences can help cast this spell. For each sentence you tapped, this spell cost 1 or mana of the tapped sentences color. Tapped sentences are nonsense.)

Yes, they're intentionally in parentheses. The reason is that I'm breaking another rule that reminder text isn't rules text(but it's Un so I'm gonna try to get away with it.), except when it is. However this card's text box is empty and words can't be eaten from it. Also introducing eat, "your exile", sentences moving zones and being put into a graveyard and I think that's it o ya sentence color. Sentences can also be in zones, even if they're not on cards.

Tres Leches: Uh oh type counters oh no

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Meme Generator B
Sorcery
Exile target sentence from a creature. Gain control of that sentence. It's black. Put a type counter it. You may type sentences with type counters. (Sentences that have type counters can be typed in text boxes.)

Just moving sentences between zones as one does. Does that mean text box is a zone now?

Quattro Sink-0: Pay it Forward

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Vicar of Child-Like Wonder 7R
Creature — Grandchild Buddy Advisor
Pay forward 7: Eat up to seven food and food cards or create up to seven artifact Food tokens for each mana you payed forward.
10/4

Loved affinity? I bet your opponent did too and now they can again with Pay it Forward. Do something nice for your opponent for once by paying for their spells. Same rules as assist but you can just do it because you can afford the mana and it's the right thing to do. And also you get to eat a bunch of food since you control the pay it forward ability and can pay any amount. If you want to try to get an opponent to help that is totally fine. You can also offer to pay. Pay it forward will change the world.

And the other ones which I won't be getting to tonight. Goodnight. Let's do this. How about out of these four 2 best/2 worst?

Ok last one

Literally a Caterpillar G
Creature — Caterpillar God
(Nonsense (Text that doesn't make sense is nonsense.)
Literally— Complex (Complex cards can't be pitched. Follow instructions literally.))
If you do, draw a card.
Proof of design.
2/1

[user_938036]

This is a very interesting concept but I feel you have executed it incorrectly. Rather than have the "Rules Tokens" function as extended "Text Boxes" you should turn it into an A/B mechanic where certain cards creature "Rules Tokens" while other cards take advantage of them.

Added Addendum UG
Instant
Draw a card, then if you control a creature with power 4 or greater draw a card.
You gain Rule 732.1a

Rule 732.1a
Rule
This creature gets +1/+1 for each card in your hand.

Shameless Opportunist BU
Creature - Human Rogue
Rules Baggage Creature(This card has all additional rules between 730 and 740.)
Whenever this creature attacks and is unblocked draw a card.
0/1

[Pygyzy]

Oooh see I did try out something like that early on but I wasn't sure it would work. That is awesome. As a thank you for the tip I'll make sure to foil your card front and back with extra-heavy-duty-foil. Reynolds Wrap ok?

This type of mechanic is the "cards vs rules" mechanic. Or "Batman vs Bruce Wayne."

Quick break from the cards to discuss design criteria to keep everything from exploding, the metaphorical duct tape and gum:

Grixis Affliction

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Starting this project I didn't conceive of all the problems I would have. I knew my ideas were out there and probably wouldn't work but every time I thought I plugged one hole, two more sprung up in it's place. Like I'm on Apollo 13 and I have to make a square peg go in a round hole before I suffocate.

Magic follows very strict rules for good reason. It's your spaceship. You don't just go around hammering away at your spaceship. Unless you got a lot of duct tape and bubblegum. It's like the joke. If duct tape can fix anything, why not just build stuff outta duct tape? You can with NASA-grade tape in the right places. That's what Un is. It's flying a ship made mostly outta duct tape and bubblegum to the moon and back. And if you did it right, you don't suffocate everyone on board.
Just bring a few extra square pegs for the inevitable round hole.

In general, the things I thought would be least problematic, ended up the most. What I thought would be most problematic, sometimes just worked. The factional identity of the grixis faction, Mustache Twirling Villians Anonymous was the former. What seemed pre-set ready to go, turned out to be wax fruit for dinner. As usual, I was pretty close on concept but off on execution.

As the set is concepted as semi-real-world, Roger Rabbit-esque, MTWVA is satire of just the worst traits of all the stupidest villians. Dr. Evil, that guy that cut you off in traffic yesterday. Maybe he had somewhere to be. Nah he's just a (redacted) for fun.

This is perfect for me seeing as how I get way more enjoyment outta watching my opponent squirm than I should. Even if I pains me, if it pains them more, worth it. Like bringing a stasis deck, getting the lock and not putting any outs in your deck. If I could play magic by saying "Nanananaboo you can't catch me" the whole time I would. But only if an opponent agreed to let me taunt them for half an hour. The card says "Taunt an opponent for half and hour then just die" and you said ok. It's not fun for me either but less for you so net gain. I'm using hyperbole.

Functionally, it's about bad choices for your opponent. But this would lead to feelbad play since that's literally what it's about. Magic is a game of mutual involvement to be fun. Nobody likes the guy that brings a RDW to multiplayer, kills one person then dies. When you exclude others, you're also excluding yourself. Don't be the guy that cuts people off in traffic.

The theme of grixis, I'm extrapolating a bit, is justifiable whimsy. "I had to test my death ray, you were the first person I saw." "Hey I didn't make the rules in this hellscape, so get into the organ grinder, we need your Vis to summon demons, Clarence." It's cheating at golf by using a homing-golf ball but you're in the National Cheater League. It's a Rube Goldberg machine that is supposed to kill a random person, but you don't know if it will or when. Maybe it works exactly as you wanted or maybe it does something else entirely.

So I let everyone in on the fun. The Joker and Bane, their henchmen, people that just wanna PARTY!, Clark Griswold on his way to Wally World. You have a goal, and you're gonna do it, you just didn't realize this is how it was gonna go.

And now for another short break before we return to designs.

Part 2 Returns Back Again for more right now, like now now:

Everythings up

Terminological

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This is the real nitty gritty and working on this is what made me start to think I might be in over my head. It's another one of those things that I thought would be simple but wasn't. And like most things that run outta control, the answer came while working on something entirely unrelated.

The problem came about while trying to make cards that are literal. Here's an example of the problem.

Im Calling The Police B
Sorcery
Destroy target player's library.

It's 4 words but not since "I'm having your baby" have 4 words carried so much weight. But what about this card.

Mono-Blue Lives Matter U
Sorcery
A player of your choice moves all cards from their deck of cards to their discard pile, face up.

It's not pretty but it get the job done and you don't have to worry that someone will try to actually destroy your deck. The 1st one is technically printable, but would never see print, the second one is more or less already printed (It's 99% Jaces Ultimate) but is basically unprintable, not because of power level but because it's not even really a magic card. Their intended effect is almost 99% the same, but they're almost polar opposites. Why?

Terminology. The terminology is the glue that hold everything together and why every card that uses the word target doesn't include the actual comprehensive rules entry for it. But I needed to mess with it to make a few things work. That's like crossing out parts of the dictionary and writing whatever you want then expecting people to know what you mean.

My first solution seemed to make more or less enough sense but that's not enough. This is the dictionary. Have you read the rules questions forums on the WOTC site? It's like looking into the hellmouth. The misinterpretation of seemingly innocuous wording is honestly pretty impressive and in rare cases they actually kinda make sense. I mean, there was a time you could cast spells between turns or while a spells resolving. Wild.

This was gonna require a lot of precision, but all I have is duct tape and bubblegum. This took most of it. How can I make something that does the exact same thing a magic card does, but doesn't use magic terminology and isn't an unsightly monstrosity? The answer was in the problem.

While working on Pay Attention!, folding_music suggested an idea using the term "interpret". I hadn't thought of that and it was a step in the right direction. But it felt a little familiar and I wasn't sure why. I've never made a card using interpret then I remembered. I have used something before that's very similar to interpret; instruct. Instruct had solved a few problems I had before. It has a very cut and dry application. I don't see how it can be misinterpreted. Could I use it again? I didn't have a choice.

This might be a bit of a sticking point for some of the rules gurus out there and I 100% understand why. It's almost like reskinning the game, calling it Mlargic: The Gathering, and using all the same cards. But what is something that's the same but is different. Not rip-off. For words. Synonym. Ohhhhhh.

That just might be the right kinda duct tape. So for a lot of the words I've replaced magic terminology with synonyms. This allows me to get away with a few things I wouldn't otherwise. And it's necessary to get things to function properly. I'll post the list and an example card in a bit. This is the last piece of the puzzle to fall in place so it's the least implemented but it will solve a majority of my problems.

Choose, search, target, shuffle, reveal, name, draw. That's what I have so far but I'm sure I'm missing some.
Replacements: Pick, look, recite the name, randomize, show, recite the name, take a card.

Drunk Recall U
Instant
Take the top 3 cards of your deck of cards and give them to a player that's not you. Shut your eyes. They hide those cards under face up cards on their play area. Open your eyes when they say, "Ready.". From your chair, recite the names of up to three cards you think they're hidden under. For each correct recitation, take the hidden card. Eliminate the other cards permanently.

Elevator Pitch

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Elevator Pitch is my way of drawing an arbitrary line in the sand to delineate what is and what isn't complex. It has no basis on a cards actual complexity but only acts as a signifier so that I can have a baseline for what is and isn't complex.

Complexity isn't a rule. There's not a rule that says "if you don't know how something works, good luck I guess". But I can define complexity within the rules. The pitch synergizes so well with a lot of the mechanics while simultaneously defining some mechanics. This is like an Un-Version of kicker in the sense that if I wanted to I could make everything complex. But this way I can define what is and isn't complex. That's the trick.

Between Terminology and Pitch, they make up the bulk the rules-bending need to achieve my goals. So, if something's complex, it's unpitchable. Simple cards can be pitched. Yes it's a Meta-Comment but come on you have to admit it's pretty clever.

The pitch is gonna be tricky to land tho because it will require ALOT of finesse. Will post cards soon.

Sell Me 3R
Enchantment
At the beginning of your end step, pitch a creature you don't control. If you do, gain control of that creature until end of turn. It gains haste. Untap it. You have an additional combat step after your end step. Only the creature you pitched can attack. (To pitch a card, recite it's instructions in ten words or less.)

Literally Literally

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Is it possible to make a card that can be read literally and actually work? It's a ridiculous question and I love answering ridiculous questions. I don't know. Let's find out.

This mechanic is intended to work as a counterweight to complex cards because what's more simple than obvious. Literally. This mechanic is the one that I have the highest hopes for simply because the concept is too amusing. However strangely enough, for being a counter to complex, it's really complex and hardest to execute properly. I guess thats the joke.

The majority of terminological synonyms will be found on literal cards as they were necessary to get them to function.

Metaphorically UU
Instant
Literally — Move a card of your choice, that was just now almost put onto the play area face up, onto it's player's discard area. It's instructions are nonsense this round of play.

Non-sense

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Nonsense is R&D's Secret Lair, the mechanic. Like complexity, nonsense isn't a rule you can break. But when you're messing around with text and things that will inevitably do some strange things, you're gonna need bubblegum. This is the bubblegum. Similar to Complex, this less a mechanic and more a patch.

Nonsense will allow me to rewrite some of the text that would cause problems. I'm basically writing a legal loophole in the rulebook for myself that says what rules I can break. Because it's satire, it's actually the nonsense that's keeping things making sense.

World's Best Designer UBR
Legendary Creature — Horse Designer
(Nonsense (Instructions that don't make sense are nonsense.))
Copy target spell, you may choose new targets for the copy. For each discarded card, draw a card. When that player does, deal two damage to them.
3/3

Only one more round left.

[Pygyzy]

Round 2 up. Have a card.

Clark Griswold, Family Man 3UBR
Legendary Creature — Human Horror Dad
Whilst Clark Griswold, Family Man is placed in your play zone face up, recite a card title with land or world in it's instructions.
During your round of play, whereupon the first time you take a card off your deck of cards, you could show it. Contingent on the previous recitation matching its title, take two more cards off your deck of cards.
T: Recite a title without land typed on it. Change a cards zone that has both Grandparent and your previous recitation typed on it, from the play zone onto it's player's discard zone.
4/4

Round 3: The Final Four

Pay Attention!

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Jargon

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Jargon

Colloquial

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Colloquial

Wildcard

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Wildcard

[spacemonaut]

Overall concept
It's like a riddle. When is a door not a door? When it's ajar. When is English not English, when it's magic. How many of you have looked at a card, read it, understood all the words in it's text, but then not understand what it does? "If you have book burning..."?

When I first read this part, I thought: very rarely. Like, maybe when a new mechanic comes out in preview season I won't fully understand it yet, but that's because it's a brand new mechanic—I check the reminder text and/or the preview articles and then we're peachy.

Then you mentioned Ice Cauldron and I thought, well, yeah, if you're digging through early/mid 90's cards there's lots of incomprehensible cards. That's the era of Camouflage|LEB, Illusionary Mask|LEA, Chains of Mephistopheles|LEG and others. The folks developing the game were still experimenting with what it could and should be and were pretty much in unexplored territory and made a lot of bad decisions. As a side effect they produced a lot of cards that were borderline incomprehensible, and some like Animate Dead got hit with the ugly stick by Sixth Edition rules changes that introduced the standard templating we know today. (Before then, "templating" didn't really exist and cards just did whatever.) They even introduced Banding in this era ('95-'96) which is the poster child of incomprehensible mechanics.

That said, R&D learned its lesson twenty years ago about making cards that were incomprehensible or needed a flowchart for people to use them correctly. They learned that difficult-to-comprehend cards are a bad experience for everybody. Nowadays they aim that every card is comprehensible when you look at it, because that creates good gameplay. You mentioned the Godzilla cards—Ikoria is a deliberate experiment to test the lessons they learned and see if the playerbase can work with a slightly higher level of complexity (specifically a variety described in there as evocative design) and what you saw is directly part of that experiment.

I'm not sure satirising something that was a problem twenty years ago with a set where the joke is that you introduce tons of difficult-to-comprehend cards (pointedly avoiding conventional templating and terminology, formatting actual rules text as reminder text for a gag, etc) will be the winning move you seem to think it might be.

Maro's talked about constraints and defaults: constraints are rules that can't be deviated from, and defaults are rules that can be deviated from. He talks about how experimenting with the rules of the game helps them understand whether they're rules or defaults. "Can we put a card face on the back of the card?" was an experiment that lead to double-faced cards, and showed us "cards don't have anything on the back" was a default, not a constraint. But some rules are constraints, like not printing burn spells in blue, because those rules are foundational to good gameplay and breaking them generates poor gameplay.

You're looking to subvert the game rules, but I don't think you're paying enough attention to what's a constraint vs what's a default as you do that. "Cards should be comprehensible" is a constraint that is the way it is because it makes games fun, and breaking it causes bad gameplay. Even Silver Border wants to present comprehensible cards. I think you should aim to design with MtG's conventions a lot more and learn to master them, because I think you're missing or under-valuing the importance of why they exist and the utility behind their presence.

As void_nothing mentioned in another thread you've got great creativity when it comes to cards, but you should be funneling it within constraints—including constraints of actually leveraging conventional game terminology and templating to deliver cards that focus on maximizing comprehension, not subverting comprehension as much as possible. Identify defaults and bend and subvert those while you do that.

[void_nothing]

Even Ice Cauldron ("Put a down payment on a spell for later!"), Camouflage ("Make it so your opponent doesn't know what attackers they're blocking with what!"), and Illusionary Mask ("Hide your creature until you use it!") are relatively simple ideas - let's include one of my legitimate favorite cards, Raging River - ones the early designers thought would make for interesting additions to the game.

Unfortunately, they found out these ideas are difficult to put into the structure of Magic's rules in a concise way, partly because those rules are written how they are, and cards are templated how they are, and the game uses the terminology that it does, for a good reason. As more and more cards were released, there was a movement in the rules towards decreasing ambiguity culminating in the Classic Sixth Edition changes, the rules which are the firm basis of today's game and which have only seen minor changes in single aspects of play such as mana burn, the legend rule, and combat damage since then.

The elimination of ambiguity means this: Even in a game with tens of thousands of unique pieces, any given number of those pieces interact in a precise way every time, and even if a player doesn't necessarily know the more complex interactions it can be looked up relatively easily. That's why it's possible to have a Rulings forum. These are all good things.

I need to say this all as a prelude to this: Silver bordered cards are outside the purview of Rulings, but they still need to conform, in essence, to Magic's rules, and that means they must make sense under the actual Comprehensive Rules (at least the parts covered by them, and everything else should be spelled out and common-sense such as what the steps to the Hokey Pokey are), and relatedly that they must be worded in a way that players know their function.

I don't mean to condescend, but going to the first principles of Un-cards may help. What do all silver bordered cards have in common, and more importantly what do the best ones fun-wise have in common?

1) There is a funny joke encapsulated by the card. The joke can be "inside" insofar as it requires investment in the greater lore of the game, but it still has to stand on its own.

For example, Target Minotaur is funny insofar as it's amusing to see the stoic Minotaur weathering all kinds of magical effects in the exact same way across four card arts, and the repetition of "Not again!" in the flavor text is an effective punchline.

There is even a subversion in one of the arts in which he's finally bothering to do something about the negative magic effects, but all it is is hold up an umbrella to protect him from the (acid) rain. This humor is appropriate, and indeed exclusive, to silver-border even though this was one of the cards with a completely normal black border-ish effect put in Unstable to facilitate Limited play.

2) There is an effect of the card that is not possible within normal Magic rules, either because it's not covered such as talking to people outside of the game, doing a little dance, or physically manipulating some real-world object, or because it's actually forbidden by the structure of the game, such as X going into the hand of a player other than its owner.

These effects offer either the amusement of doing something offbeat and making yourself look silly so that you and others laugh, or the thrill of the "forbidden" that is breaking the possibilities of the normal game in a way that still resembles it and that can be understood through the game mechanics that you'd be playing with regardless.

There is a third aspect to Un-cards as of Unstable and later, which is being a "laboratory" - the hosts and augments of Unstable were clearly the earlier form of Ikoria's mutate. It was actually seen earlier than this: The Cheese Stands Alone was directly functional-reprinted as Barren Glory and was in fact ironically the first "serious" alt-win card (nobody would suggest Amulet of Quoz is serious in any way).

But designing these cards comes, I think, more as a side project of trying effects in black border that can't work yet. Super-Duper Death Ray did become Flame Spill in a mere couple of years.

[Pygyzy]

Valid points.

@spacemonaut You aren't being condescending at all that's very helpful. You're dead on. Un is magic with a joke twist and anything beyond that is outer space. The former is my target landing zone. I'm trying to get there I just keep overshooting the landing.

I went a little overboard on the synonyms I meant to have them only be for keyword actions with rules baggage I intend to subvert for that card that is on. Also I forgot to include a signifier such as "Synonym" or something to clue people in.

Using the lessons ya'll taught me, if I'm able to get away with it at all, it'll be on 1 maybe two 2 cars max. And only if it's entirely unambiguously clear. And has a mechanical use for being on the card.

I'm not planning on reskinning the game. Only in very particular circumstances for particular cards will I be subverting the rules using nonmagic terminology to achieve an otherwise unachievable play function. I'll cut back the things that are too much and bring them back to reality.

@void_nothing Your points reinforce spacemonauts so I agree I'm gonna try to move them closer to that spot. Right now they're still a little out of bounds.

I was supposed to start working on the other factions but I felt like I had gotten everything close to a good spot that I could sorta beta test it. But I need to get my mind off it and work on the others so I'll just finish the last 4 mechanics post then start on The League of Extraordinary Asses then come back to this once I've finished everything.

Thanks again.