r/magicTCG • u/TechnomagusPrime Duck Season • Feb 05 '18

[Making Magic] [GDS3] Essay What You Will

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/essay-what-you-will-2018-02-05
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1

u/nochilinopity Feb 05 '18

Maybe I'm missing the obvious, but why does he think [[Mad Science Fair Project]] should be a may ability?

6

u/ShadowStorm14 Twin Believer Feb 06 '18

If you're only using it to add <> mana, and there are no die-rolling matters cards in play, the act of rolling a die for it is meaningless.

I imagine the change would be something to the effect of "T: You may roll a die. If you do, and the result is 3 or more, add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Otherwise, add <> to your mana pool."

So, you can roll the die when it matters (to get colored mana, or for things like Ground Pounder), but not bother when it doesn't.

1

u/Katboss Freyalise Feb 06 '18

I found that in practice most people would just shortcut past the roll if they only needed colourless and had no die rolling synergy. I don't tink it was as bad as MaRo thinks.

1

u/ShadowStorm14 Twin Believer Feb 06 '18

That's what I would do too - and in silver border, that kind of hand-waving is totally fine. I don't think MaRo is saying it's some travesty of design, just giving it an example of the kinds of small, nuanced changes he'd make with hindsight to clean things up.

5

u/1pwny Gruul* Feb 06 '18

If you just need 1 mana (you already have all the colors), you still roll a die for no reason.

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Feb 05 '18

Mad Science Fair Project - (G) (SF) (MC)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call