Equivalent Costs

[shmewe]

I was contemplating what would make a new fetchable dual-land worth coming into play untapped by Modern standards, in a way that has not been done before. It got me thinking about equivalent costs. For instance, to play Blood Crypt untapped, we all agree it is generally worth the two life. So, I started down a rabbit hole by asking myself "How much is two life actually worth?" By phyrexian mana standards, it's worth one mana. When you compare Read The Bones ( to Scry 2, Draw 2, Lose 2 life) to Night Whisper ( to Draw 2, Lose 2 life), one could reasonably assume that most players would consider Scry 2 equivalent to 1 mana, and therefore 2 life. Many players would also equate Scry 2 to drawing one card.

That being said, we arrive at the following all being (roughly) equal:
Scry 2
Pay 2 Life
1 mana
Draw a card

Going back to the Read The Bones vs Night Whisper example, do these cards retain both playability and their power when we start swapping these out? For instance, if Read The Bones suddenly lost Scry 2 AND Lose 2 life, cancelling each other out, would it still be worth the cost of ? I think so. 3 mana for 2 cards is not unheard of, nor is it necessarily broken.

Now, what if we take that, and add back in the Scry 2 and life change, but on the other side of the board? As in "Draw 2. Target opponent may Scry 2 and Gain 2 life." Although we equate both to 1 mana, I think it becomes broken at a cost of for sure. But that brings in the other side of the question: How much different is it to gain something than it is to gift it, especially with a resource such as life, which is limited? Paying 2 life ourself and allowing an opponent to gain 2 life are nowhere near the same when you are sitting at 5 life. So the act of gifting an ability diminishes it's value, as opposed to gaining it ourselves. To demonstrate this, at a cost of , does our new Read The Bones (Draw 2 cards. Target opponent may Scry 2 and gain 2 life) equate to Night Whisper (Draw 2 cards, lose 2 life)? It's hard to say which of those is preferable, as it's largely situational as to which is the better card.

But I DO believe it shows the above equivalency to be true.

There are many directions this topic can take, so feel free to take it away. This is simply one example of equivalency, and I'd be interested to see what other abilities people would equate to a certain cost.

To circle back to my original example, I ended up settling on the cost of a fetchable dual land coming in untapped at giving an opponent the ability to Scry 2 and gain 1 life.

[Tahazzar]

Scry 2 is definitely not worth drawing a card. That was basically my whole premise with Gitaxian Hindsight; drawing a card makes it so your card can be card disadvantage neutral or even card advantage positive - scrying for 2 on the other hand might not even really do anything if you just keep the top two cards of your deck right there as they are. In such cases repeats matter even less.

The thing is that scry is unable to off-set card disadvantage. If there's a card that only scries, no matter how much it scries, it will still be card disadvantage - even if it orders your whole library. This actually leads to another topic where 1-cost card draw effects have some small chance always to see constructed play. If you have a 1-cost card that only draws, I think the general conclusion I've come to is that it should as a sorcery scry like 5 or if instant then 4. Obviously scrying for more than 4 has its own time concerns but that's another topic.

Drawing a card and 1 mana are sort of close I suppose. Like Lotus Petal is pretty broken and if you just had an artifact that straight-up drew a card that it would likely be as well. Currently only the slow-trip 0-cost artifact cantrips exists and those are sort of playable (urza's bauble & mishra's bauble).

Life means like nothing - it's the classic lesson of the Necropotence and Channel; only the last point of life matters. If you format that as more so "deal 2 damage to opponent" then maybe.

On that note, scrying and paying life are not too far from each other in that you can pair the two effects, say ie. in the vein of Doom Whisperer or so. However if you turn that surveil/scry 2 into a "draw a card" instead then you hit the Yawgmoth's Bargain danger zone and you'll likely have bans. You need that mana payment there ala Greed, Life just won't do, or at least you need to be going for 4+ like Sylvan Library and even with Library the right choice is often to pick the cards for 4 life.

... Looking at your rationale, I start to see where you prolly went wrong. Phyrexian mana as a mechanic is pretty broken so that as a starting point is not the best idea if you ask me. Night's Whisper is a card that still sees some legacy competitive play where as I doubt that Read the Bones will never ever see any legacy play - it certainly hasn't so far. So that seems like another bad leap of logic there.

The cycle with Temple of Deceit could be pretty strong - say legacy+ playable - if they scried for 2 instead of just 1 on ETB. However, if that type of cycle instead drew a card on ETB, that could be format warping since it eliminates much of the actual cost of lands - that being that you need to play lands as a card that spends card advantage.

On the dual land idea of it entering untapped if letting opponent scry, I designed this card for a contest on No Goblins Allowed some years ago:

Fairing Everglade
Land — Forest Island (R)
(T: Add G or U.)
As this land enters, you may have an opponent scry 1 twice. If you don't, this land enters tapped. (To scry 1 twice, look at the top card of your library and you may put that card on the bottom of your library, then repeat this process once.)

So again I think you are onto something when it comes with life and scry as those are like nice side effects/payments. Drawing and producing mana are on a whole another level though as those are the fundamental resources that define the whole game (the main representatives of card advantage and tempo).

You could maybe suggest 4 life and scry 4 as being somewhat comparable to draw/mana but it gets really messy as scry isn't exactly linearly usefully when doing repeatedly or doesn't really do anything other than give you some knowledge that might not help you and with life really only the last point of life matters. That practically means for decks abusing heavy only-life costs that if you know you are at that moment out of the burn range, you pay out all but those last bits of life and then combo win right on the spot.

Doing the reverse with life where you give life to opponent as a cost is a no-go basically for several reasons. One being the various synergies it enables and other being that certain decks don't care at all if opponent gains life so it isn't a cost at all. Most extreme example being mill decks which is why I think Wall of Shards saw/sees some constructed play.

[wizyard]

here are my complete rambling thoughts on the equivalencies topic-

when im trying to balance a design, i prefer to be pretty strict about the principle that one mana of any color = 2 generic mana.
also, i have some internal sense about what the ideal power level is for me, and try to keep well within that range

sometimes really creative designers can have a pretty loose sense of proper costing, which i guess could be part of why there's a division between design and development

it's all relative tho.

vaguely agreed upon existing standards reinforce themselves. even the power creep over the years is contained in some elastic boundry. im not sure what that is or what i mean......

what if lightning bolt had been shock instead in the beginning when alpha established the baseline? what effect would weaker burn levels have on for example--- say, the power to cost ratio of summons

all that being said (if anything even was said), i could live with these equivalencies: 4 mana = 1 card = scry / surveil 4

Vexing Devil seems to suggest 4 direct to the face damage for one mana and a card is still just at the cusp of some sweet spot.
which is interesting...

we might all agree that
Lava Axe for
Sorcery
This spell deals 5 damage to target player.

is so well beyond the pale, we wouldn't even think to consider that,
but why then does

Lesser Lava Axe for
Sorcery
This spell deals 4 damage to target player.

feel like it could almost be printed? why does it feel like there's such a big jump in plausibility
strangely, this exact level of no frills face damage as a sorcery doesn't exist, unlike 5 and 3

Lava Spike Was Played Competitively R
Sorcery - Arcane
This spell deals 3 damage to target player.

arguably, the arcane type is upside enuff to hint at this as an instant without arcane type
i guess we also have Boltwave now from Foundations. that's sorcery without the arcane, but the potential to hit multiple opponents is still enuff of a real upside to still hint at Lava Spike at instant...

could lightning bolt split into two be acceptable today?

Lightning R
Instant
This spell deals 3 damage to target player.

Bolt R
Instant
This spell deals 3 damage to target creature.

this brings up the question of why there are still so many unfilled slots/ unprinted baseline cards? probably because both designers and players want new toys, and are more inclined to explore upwardly over building out

another rule of thumb or equivalency idea is how
a nonland basic land can be to equivalent to a cost artifact,
as in Thought Vessel / Reliquary Tower,
and pain lands / the mirrodin talismans

i like that one, it's fun. helps me make mana rocks, using nonbasic lands as reference points / precedents

[user_938036]

The problem with adhering to such a strict equation for equivalence is that it doesn't hold up to scaling. Look at the simple scenario of Ponder vs Divination. Drawing a card has long been considered not even worth the 1 mana, allowing extra abilities to be tacked on. While drawing a second card has essentially always cost not only an additional full mana but the extra left over from the first mana and a bit more, disallowing a simple 2mana=2cards.

Also, the cost of options and choices is fairly complex. For instance, your Vexing Devil idea. One red for 4 damage is unreasonably powerful, but because Vexing Devil gives the choice to the opponent, it isn't even worth as much as Lightning Bolt.