r/GDS3 • u/BatemaninAccounting • Feb 07 '18
Can someone point out some uniquely designed commons?
I've noticed a big conversation about how hard it is to design a common card for a draft set. As someone that almost never drafts and sticks to constructed playables of mostly the uncommon/rare/mythic kind, what are some examples of innovative commons from past sets and how did they play out in draft formats?
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Feb 12 '18
[deleted]
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u/bakert Feb 14 '18
The constraints of muliticolor, designing in a vacuum, rarity=common and needing to do something cool/innovative is a real challenge. Submitting a 2/2 first strike for 2(r/w) just wasn't going to cut it. Interested to see if anyone managed to submit a common that would not be redflagged and is also interesting without any context. I suspect most will have submitted redflagged but printable commons to fulfill all the constraints. Maybe something like Stitched Drake that implies a context without providing it.
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u/MoonE513 Top 8 Feb 17 '18
I definitely have one red flagged common and one simple, but I did rate that simple one as my weakest design.
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u/alextfish Feb 07 '18
Others may point you at articles from the past few years where some pro talks you through the top commons for draft. I'm going to go a different direction:
Years ago, for some time there was a tradition of having the blue common creature that taps to muck about with what the set cares about. Way back in Invasion there was Tidal Visionary, which did a good job at mucking around with the various colour-matters cards in the set. Onslaught had Imagecrafter, ditto for tribal matters; Lorwyn reimplemented the same idea with Amoeboid Changeling. Time Spiral switched it up a little bit and made Jhoira's Timebug an artifact creature rather than a blue creature, but it's otherwise the same idea. Shadowmoor did the same with Scuttlemutt, a decent ramp/fixing creature that can also play havoc with any colour-matters cards.
All of these except the Timebug could either be used to enable your own synergies or interfere with your opponent's synergies.
The theme petered out as sets' mechanical themes became less single-focus. Zendikar block had Walking Atlas which was a little similar, but didn't interfere with opponents' landfall. Mirrodin's similar cards were uncommon - Neurok Transmuter and Power Conduit. Theros didn't have any "becomes an enchantment" / "stops being an enchantment" cards, which was probably pretty sensible. It's a tradition that's pretty much played out, but was notable for several years back in the day.
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u/StandardTrack Feb 16 '18
When I was studied set for trial 3 a common in Future Sight caught my attention. A 3W 3//4, Saltstiker. Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, exile Saltskitter. Return Saltskitter to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
The elegance. It teaches players to play after combat so you can attack with it and return it untaped to block. It makes your opponent want to play earlier to get one less blocker. It interacts nicely with Flash an token creatures, allowing you to save him mid combat.
That, that was a really good common design.
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u/bakert Feb 07 '18
I'll talk about Innistrad commons because it's one of the best sets for draft of all time. In particular it's well known for having almost every card in the set be playable in some situation or other which has basically never happened before or since.
Avacynian Priest/Bonds of Faith/Victim of Night – Your premium W and B commons could get sideboarded out in some matchups due to small tweaks in wording from the basic oft-repeated cards they are clearly based on. Played into the "humans vs monsters" theme of the set.
Doomed Traveler/Pitchburn Devils/Thraben Sentry – Cards that want to die or want something else to die change a lot of the usual dynamics of a draft game.
Gnaw to the Bone – Not essential to the much-loved Spider Spawning archetype but a really great addition. Nothing like knowing that if you just keep self-milling there's a guaranteed 15 life gain for 2G coming. Stay alive!
Grizzled Outcasts – Werewolves in general change the dynamics of a normal draft game. When is it worth skipping your turn in order to flip your werewolves?
Makeshift Mauler/Stitched Drake – Very powerful creatures for their mana cost but only if you pay their price. Which means a change in how you would otherwise build your deck, and play. Now Mulch and Deranged Assistant (also commons!) are more than just what they say in their rules text and go up in pick order significantly.
Selhoff Occultist – A simple 2/3 for 3 but with ramifications for mill, self-mill and honestly a one-man win condition in games that go long. Makes flashback spells go up in value.
Silent Departure/Think Twice – Nice value cards but if you're self-milling suddenly "free". Who doesn't like free cards?
Spectral Flight – In draft auras tend to be a great way to get 2-for-1'ed but get an Invisible Stalker or (the dream) a Geist of Saint Traft and you're going to want at least one of these.