>>362140
The restriction to blue was cited in the main quest thread at >>/quest/408904, not here. That was what I was quoting- sorry, should have linked it.

On the topic of stalemates- I'm not sure that we can manage them. The lack of a functional draw mechanic means that we feel rather vulnerable to quickly burning through our stock of countermagic, at least to me. If we don't win relatively quickly the enemy could simply attrition us out of counters and then have an open field. That might just be paranoia on my part, though, since we haven't run a battle in this system yet.

>>362141
I'm not a fan of planeswalker cards in terms of the flavor inherent in them- to me, calling on Jace would be a major story element that would effectively come out of nowhere right now. Planeswalker cards are supposed to represent other planeswalker contacts helping you out, right? How would we get a Jace card without actually meeting Jace? We should be getting a Nicole card.

That's hardly a mechanical objection, though.

Well, a big creature like Harbor Serpent (we can use him, we're only have islands as our mana base), Stormtide Leviathan or even Frost Titan would be nice, I just don't see us using them that often. Our max life being 12 means that we'll probably be pitted against at worst someone with max 16 life, and we have the means of locking them down quickly.

So my vote is Lord of the Unreal. We're probably going to use those bears all day erry day, so something that helps them helps us.

>>362142
We're about to go to sleep, you honestly think we aren't about to have some pretty trippy dreams? I wouldn't be surprised if he and Alexi have already passed notes about us since two new planeswalkers, at least one of whom seeming to be friendly, would be headline-level news.
And awww fuh... no cool cards for us. :(

Stormtide Leviathan would be a really good thing to turn Serpent of the Endless Sea into a non-wall. It also would be good to have for when we multicolour to guarantee we have full blue mana possibilities.

I don't like Lord of the Unreal that much because it's most useful to protect a bunch of one-drops we'll likely use as sacrifices anyway. Yes, they're pretty potent one drops and this halfway removes their *particular* vulnerability, but they're still 2/2 critters. They have no special abilities and can be killed by most normal means once they're hexproof. Also, if LoUie, another mostly-vanilla 2/2, kacks it they get those vulnerabilities back anyway. Plus hexproof does not protect them from going boom if we ever cast unstable mutation or anything else enchantment on them. If we were to get Adaptive Automaton and add illusion to his creature types our bears would go poof.
Cheap one drop is cheap one drop, don't invest too much in da bears. We need card draw or mana base or more creatures that hit more than we need to partially fix a flaw in a one-drop card. We'd be better off with those water servants.

>>362147
I don't see Lord of the Unreal as a booster for the Bears so much as I see it as a step on the path to going full-on illusion tribal.

That said, I'm inclined toward Redirect if Leyline is being nerfed to crap. Do you have specific objections to it? Most enemy decks are likely have at least some targeted spells worth hitting with it, although I'll admit that Redirect only works when we have Counterspell/Mana Leak as another open option. Fortunately, we do.

Excuse me, if I'm reading correctly here I was specifically wrong about the bonuses from Adaptive Automaton, but the bears still are lacking in flexibility to use with other spells and abilities that do target things.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/comprules/MagicCompRules_20120501.txt

>>362149
It is potentially very powerful, and potentially useless, depending on the opponent. As it is we could stand beefing up against either red/black burn or green/white stompy. This helps with one of the two mostly. One case I'm thinking is a green player casts giant growth, and we only have bears out. That would be a cause for much cursing because we really don't want them to get it on their own guy and we really don't want to blast our own critter with a targetted boost spell that would just make it go pop. It's also a one-drop spell so we don't really want to spend a counterspell on it because they can do so much more with the rest of their mana we may want to wait to see what else there is to counterspell.

Would Rite of Replication be a decent choice?

>>362151
Hrm. What I'm hearing is that you think it's too conditional to use right now, because we don't have a solid enough base to add things that might be dead cards. Valid objections.

Thoughts on Phantasmal Image? It strikes me as cheap, fairly reliably decent and potentially very powerful.

>>362152
Choices are limited to the Magic 2012, Magic 2011, and Magic 2010 sets for this spell. Rite of Replication isn't available.

>>362154
Fragile, any ability that targets them in any way at all makes it go pop. Something that changes its colour, something that taps it, anything. That's worth living with in a 2/2 one-drop.
For B/U to get it in a 4/4 that may be worth living with also, but we continue to get more vulnerable to chump-removal, miscellaneous abilities and red or black burn even as we get more guns to use against everybody if we pick it. I'm watching a 4-strength hurricane wipe out everything if the green player tricks us into using it on our genie.
Let me go over the options again to see if there's anything else I've missed that's worth it. Jace Memory Adept is something I specifically like because he can give us more casts when we need it or go right for milling opponent spells into nothing, but he is much more expensive and may not manage to be played because of that.

>>362131
Calculating probabilities for whether or not the Leyline would be in a standard opening hand or its first mulligan: 45% chance in a standard 40/20 deck in the first hand, 67% within first two drawn hands.
A potential rule for whether or not it would start in play would be flip a coin. Am I reading your thinking here correctly that you are using this variant format specifically to get rid of chance that would cause chance-dictated can't-win situations? Are you also specifically trying to get rid of these cards because you don't want to build decks with them for NPCs and work out how they'd use them as well? Please help sort out the reasoning behind this decision so that we can run this more smoothly in future.
Also, if you are having trouble running truly open choices from entire setlists you may want to consider instead sourcing us spells from shortlists specific to the teacher/situation they would be gained from, to cut down on trying to manage unintended interactions.

Does this quest take place at present date, and are things basically the same as in reality (aside from the mages that just showed up or other hidden magic)?
For instance, if Erica goes public as a mage before anyone else, can she claim the million dollars from http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html ?
And if she really get on the bad side of the government, does she have to worry about predator drones or carpet bombing?

*sigh*
At this point I'm considering Tome Scour. Can we have word on how large decks will get eventually or is that too much of a spoiler?

Unless we get word that Leyline of Anticipation becomes non-useless I think I'm holding my nose and voting for the Phantasmal Image. But I don't like this: I'd rather hold this round's draft pick for a better field of prospects if we can do that.
If we're continuing to bend rules around can we have another set of Mana Leak or Phantasmal Bears perhaps?

>>362156
I didn't single-handedly come up with this system, I'll admit that right out. We as a group felt that the ability to have any of the leylines just popped out for no cost made things too back-breaking for those not suited to deal with them, and adding that much of a random element is just begging to get killed at the worst possible moment.

>>362159
More or less, yeah. The year in Erica's world is 2014, and she could make a claim if she wanted to go public with that sort of thing. On the opposite end of the scale, she'd have to worry less about predator drones and more about Agent Smith wannabes in unmarked black vans.

>>362190
No mage can have more than 48 spells in a casting pool. This is a hard cap, not even a god-like being such as Nicol Bolas or Yawgmoth can exceed that. Since mill and discard spells won't touch lands, this should give you a rough estimate of how much mill will do.

MrTT 2012/05/07(Mon)21:04 No. 52397 ID: 3734f6
File 133644984932.jpg - (17.75KB , 200x285 , 98952bc3c0fff8479d63d5bd3cfb653d_w200.jpg )

Fuck walking. Lets get this spell.

So, how do we learn a new spell?

http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1506

>>362195
Okay, yeah, I can see it. It's a low-popularity mechanic, and even though most of the things the leylines do is small it's a small thing that costs deck slots instead of mana like it normally would. The green "no dispelling creature summons" one basically ruins most of what blue can do against most green players too, so you could justify it by saying, "The leylines aren't balanced against each other and generally wreck the game so we're restricting the part of them that makes them particularly game breaking." That's a conscious and considered decision to say no leylines, which I can work with.
This goes for all "opening hand" abilities like Gemstone Caverns and the chancellor cards, yes?

How about library arrangement things like "scry" and such; do you know how to handle that mechanic yet? They're not exactly tutors but cards with such abilities being useless suddenly makes a large chunk of what blue does useless. On one hand this is a good thing because it's a complicated mechanic for managing the randomness of shuffled cards which we don't have in this format. On the other... poof, lots of cards lose their meaning.

Also, please confirm it's a no-go on extra bears/leak or saving the pick for a later choice.

>>362197
What? That card is terrible, and not within the specified choice limits. It would be nice for Erica to be able to cast it outside of combat reliably but without something stupendously huge like darksteel colossus or bigger to use it with that card's a terrible waste of mana.

>>362199
In order: chancellors I haven't made a decision on but will likely be the same. They won't come up for a bit though.

Scry and other library manipulation spells work similar to tutor spells, but a bit differently. When you scry, at the beginning of your next turn you will get a single casting of a spell chosen at random with the same mana cost (including colors) of the scry spell. You will have to pay that card's mana cost if you cast it, but you can use it at any time. (compare to tutors, which force you to cast a random spell next turn, but do so for free)
I hope that makes sense. If it's still vague I can try to make a more visible example.

No, you won't be able to get extra castings of the bear or mana leak. I will let you guys save the pick for another time if that's what you think would be best. Note that if you guys come to an agreement on a spell while Erica is in a duel, she won't get the spell until the duel's conclusion.

>>362201
About the example: Please do, I'm trying to work it out in my head and I'm seeing us paying twice to cast a spell next turn that we could cast this turn for less instead.

For everyone else: Can we get a roll-call on votes now that we know Leylines are right out of the running (without a mana engine or something)?

The choices, in the order of how good I think they are: Hold the draft pick, take Phantasmal Image, Jace Memory Adept.
I think these are bad choices, from bad to worse: Time Warp, Lord of Unreal, Telepathy, Redirect, Twincast, ?Mind Control?

>>362200
I was not talking about the combat card choice.
I was talking about out of combat spell casting.

>>362202
Leylines is out. With what we have right now, it shouldn't even be considered.

>Holding the draft pick
Makes sense. M10,11,12 for blue is large creatures, illusion/merfolk tribal, a few counters and Jace. None of which fit well in our deck.

>Phantasmal Image
Not a bad choice, I figure its for copying bear or enemy creatures as we don't want to copy genie. We could go for Illusionary Servant to subtitute for Genie later if we're going full illusion.

>Jace
I'd rather not get him right now without an in-character reason to meet him. But it might not be too hard to meet him on the planes, Jace is very curious and new planeswalkers may attract his attention.

>Time Warp
Too slow. For later.

>Lord Of the Unreal
If we go Illusion tribal, we need him

>Telepathy
Not really that useful, we have counters to what the enemy plays.

>Redirect, Twincast
Blue doesn't really need twincast unless you're talking about Tolarian Academy/Stroke of Genius shenanigans. Redirect is slightly better but why not counter.

>MC
Nice but with Phantasmal Image, we should be fine.

I'd be satisfied if we went for one of these three; Holding the pick, Lord of the Unreal or Phanstasmal Image.

>>362208
If you're considering trying to get cards for pulling engine and quasi-engine tricks we should talk about Ornithopter: 0 cost 0/2 with flying, uncommon.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=206331

>>362209
Scratch that, artifact, not available.
(Apologies, messed up password so I don't know how to delete it.)

>>362208
What exactly would holding the pick do in this context?

Anyway, I'd be satisfied with either Lord of the Unreal or Phanstasmal Image, leaning toward the latter as it feels much more flexible to me.

>>362200
Apologies, I failed to cast telepathy and read your mind to know you were talking about out of combat magic casting. I'll try to be a more diligent psychic in future, and focus less on the issue at hand we've been asked to make a decision about when that's called for.

We haven't discussed out of combat spellcasting, so far Charm has rolled dice for it and apparently we have been rolling well to use these spells that we don't know mostly.
Teleport would be pretty useful out of combat, agreed. Lots of other blue spells would be also, like telepathy, flight, invisibility... those are just the shortlist but I'm sure we can go digging in the blue colour for all sorts of cool things. We should try it.

>>362212
It's alright, you will get it eventually.
No harm done.
I like your ideas too.

Incidental:
We die against our first red mage. They need four cheap spells to do it, which are easy to get. Someone else check how badly we are chumped by the other colours?

Shock -R
Lightning Bolt -R
Bloodcrazed Goblin -R
Jackal Familiar -R

>>/quest/409697
what about proxies?

Create a fictional man, call jack (for now, find a nationality appropriate name later), via illusion. This jack is an honest to goodness real life wizard. And he will prove it to a few specific people... Talented but not too wealthy people. They will be rich when he gives them things like winning lottery tickets and locations of hidden treasure and such. They get the "fame" and fortune, in exchange the slowly funnel Jack some of it over time (as per our agreement).

Feed them some spiel about jack being from a small village in india or africa or something (no documentation, so sad) and get them to use their new-found wealth to arrange his legal immigration and naturalization. (creating jobs in USA servers as grounds for receiving a L2 immigrant visa which leads to green-card and naturalization).

The jobs jack creates is that he will operate a company that provides assorted services to those rich people at very large price. (as per "his" secret agreement with them).

Then we can "work" for jack amongst many other employees. High enough in the chain for our presence to be explainable, low enough to avoid notice.
If need be we can make our own fake identity, assume the identity of another employee, pretend to be the american wife of his little brother, or whatever.

>>362217
Yeah, the less-than-20-life thing favors red VERY strongly simply because of burn spells. I don't think any of the other colors could hit us as hard.

>>362223
Have you not noticed that the personality of our protagonist is just not type-A money and power hungry? She is thinking more along the lines of escaping this world than ruling it. It's not guaranteed but I think she's going to be going planeswalking sooner rather than later. The lottery thing is perfect for that because it lets her get as much as she needs to get by with some on top for emergencies, which gives her no lasting job commitment or management responsibility if she goes poof into another world for a few years. I think that if she had a car, five figures in the bank and a compounding investment somewhere safe like Switzerland she wouldn't be interested in more since magic is more interesting to her anyway.

>>362226
The problem is in getting 5 figures without getting more.
And honestly, what I described is simpler and easier and less work then... well, work.

People are talking about her getting a new 9-5 job... this will not end well and is just a waste of our time that should be focused on magic.

The proxy plan is because people are freaking out about "oh my god if we win the lottery we will be "famous" (their words) and then other planes walkers will find us easily and kill us". (wha?)

What I want is a simple single "hit it big" thing ourselves, put the money in the bank, and then just focus on getting better at magic as a full time job until we start hopping dimensions

You know, I kind of like the idea of an illusion proxy, but we can do that with a lot less trouble by just making an illusion then turning invisible.

I also think we should stay in this plane, as it is likely going to need some help with all the new mages popping up, and we don't have anything better to do elsewhere.

>>362236
Question... do we have a living family? Friends?
Because those kinda make you want to stick to a certain plane of existence.

>>362245
Read the first thread, it's really not that long and it will answer that question and many more: Short answer: She is a loner that just lost her job.

http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questarch/res/395339.html

>>3622233

>Better to go for steadily winning many lesser prizes in enough different places that it's hard to put together what's going on until we're ready to make money by investing.
Okay, that is a workable plan that doesn't involve anything directly illegal. We all on board with it?

That's not freaking out about winning the lottery as long as we don't win prizes big enough to get our name in the paper. A five hundred dollar prize a day from scratch'n'win should take us at most an hour or two to find if we're good enough at clairvoyance and would be plenty for any reasonable lifestyle. Make it a bunch of lesser prizes if we want to make it easier to dodge taxes and tax paperwork. This is far quicker and far less trouble than shell corporations and networking with rich people to get more money than Erica needs, and probably more than she wants.

For laughs:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5858 Enchantment for 1G that lets you tap it for X mana where X is the number of islands your opponent controls.

Play Stormtide Leviathan, laugh. Good part to build an engine with too if you can untap the enchantment repeatably somehow.

Alter reality and Llawan, Cephalid Empress.
We'd need two rares though.

>>362259
If you were going to do that wouldn't Swirl the Mists or Sleight of Mind be better? Besides, it still doesn't do much against red heat or other parts of black and such.

Charm:
I'm really not sure I get your tutor mechanic either, if you could give me an example of the use of Index and Merchant Scroll that would help.

>>362258
Two problems with that mana thingy. The enchantment doesn't tap, and the oracle text specifically says you can only use it once per one of your turns.

I just thought of something, it might actually be really good to take Tome Scour. Consider: if any player has 28 cards or less by the time they've drawn a full hand and drawn one card all it takes is four castings of that spell to deck them. If they have more than that either our Djinn would be enough to finish the job up to 40+ or we need to start scratching our heads over how card draw became strictly a positive thing in this format.

>>362265
When Erica casts Merchant Scroll, at the beginning of the next turn she'll get a blue instant with a mana cost of 1U, chosen at random. That spell does not count against her spells per turn cycle cap, but she's forced to deal with the spell regardless of whether it's good or not for you at that time.

With Index, at the beginning of her next turn, Erica will be given one random sorcery that costs U. She can now cast that spell whenever she wants during this combat, but it will count against her spell per cycle cap.

Tutors give you free stuff, but library manipulation allows you great options on when to use what you find. It's a trade off.

>>362323
So... in either case, we're spending mana to get a completely random spell that either has a good chance of fizzling/harming us (tutor) or which we will have to pay for again in order to cast (scrying). In neither case do we gain reliable access to spells which would actually help us win the battle; we just pull up completely random results, correct?

If that is the case then I'd evaluate both mechanics as such a huge gamble as to be essentially worthless, and pass them up in favor of things that will reliably better our position with our limited available resources.

>>362323
I honestly can't think of when either of those would be useful, but I likely didn't understand what you meant.

Let's start with the tutor. Let me make sure I've got this right: You spend a library slot, a casting slot and mana this turn to get a random spell next turn, costing another library slot, which is randomly chosen from spells of its tutor type with the same mana cost? Where's the free? It looks like you're paying the same mana plus an extra card and an extra turn to get one random spell of cost and tutor-type limited specifications, whether you want it or not. This sounds terrible. Plus, with merchant scroll in particular... well... most blue instants require a particular target and/or circumstance to do anything at all. So if it were to fetch Cancel, the only thing in the agreed player deck that costs BU right now, it would be a completely wasted/stupid thing too. I must be missing something here.

Also, this does not give a very good answer to the question of why you would ever want to use library manipulation spells either. Why pay a library slot now, and mana, and a turn casting limit to have to pay ANOTHER library slot, casting slot... and it's not clear if you mean you pay the mana for the second card too... to get a random spell from your library costing the same as the rearrange card that you already have? If we were to add Index to our deck right now the only spell it could fetch would be... itself. I must be missing something here.

Am I guessing right and with both of these cases you're limited to cards in your deck? If so I guess it's not totally random but for one thing there's no guarantee it wouldn't just fetch another tutor or rearrange. I still don't see why you would ever want to spend two cards to get one cheap spell that you can have just as easily by casting it directly. Without a reason to cast these spells you've just made blue lots weaker because their ability to rearrange libraries and use card draw to get what they need is a lot of what they were good at. If those cards don't do a thing that's useful then blue's card list just shrank by a whole lot.
Another issue is cards like Brainstorm, which can be interpreted as a form of limited tutor, library rearrangement and card draw. How do we figure out what it actually does in this format?
What I understood of your descriptions don't seem to make sense and it's very likely I misunderstood what's going on in both of them. With that said, tutors specifically were implemented to be something you could use and pay for to remove randomness and provide a little bit of specific card-draw. The main good thing about this variant format is that it eliminates top decking skills from the equation of who wins and how. If you turn tutors and rearrangers into cards that put randomness of card availability back into the game that's silly: Balancing this may take more than zero effort but it makes more sense to let tutors be copies of spells in the player's library that they want to have more of, and library arrangement... uh... I don't know... something else that's actually useful and doesn't ruin the good thing about your format. Maybe graveyard return, maybe subtracting from opponent casting per turn, something that isn't random is the really important part.

I think certain types of cards should simply be ditched from this format, since they don't make nearly as much sense in it. There're still plenty of other cards. Cards like tutors and a fair number of library/draw manipulation ones such as Index, for example. Likewise, some of the hand manipulation cards wouldn't work nearly as much.

On the other hand, milling becomes more potentially useful since it outright removes options from an opponent and does so better than standard discard cards (since 'hand' sizes are far larger, so you need more card removal).

>>362251
five hundred a day is too little. It is too much work to do it every day and it WILL raise suspicion when the same person keeps on winning. Recall there are people trying to cheat in a mundane manner (like employees of lotteries) and systems in place to catch them.

First, it is critical to know what the lottery is. The lottery is the only form of legal gambling in many countries, the lottery is owned by the government and is used to supplement tax income.

It is usually NOT an option to remain annonymous when accepting a winning.
However, as it turns out some places allow it. My research turned out:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/kansas-mega-millions-lottery-winner-claims-prize-remains/story?id=16088865#.T6ugZutYvW4

That Kansas is one of those states that allow anonymous winning.

Furthermore, in other states you can maintain anonymity if multiple people form a lottery club (trust fund or other investment vehicle) and that vehicle then fills out lottery tickets. We would have to share the winnings though and if we don't do it for a while it will look suspicious as hell, so lets just stick with winning in kansas.

>>362345
Alternative possibility: Win one larger five-digit prize. Not newspaper worthy, don't have to keep doing it, just have to get our tax return paperwork together early. Play ten tickets just to make sure it isn't that suspicious we won on one of them. Put 10k in a secured bond or interest bearing certificate, most of the rest in a Swiss bank account, and triple what we need for the next month in two local bank accounts. Calculate and set aside what we need to pay tax with. One or two days work spread over a week or two, all done for a very long while.

>>362341
Augury Owl, Cryptic Annelid and Unblinking Bleb say that your proposal may be harder to balance than you think, and those are just creature spells with scry. Turning it instead into, "Remove target opponent's next X casting opportunities," where X is number of cards arranged means that instead there's actually a good reason to play some of these arrangement cards. Perhaps that's too good but that requires investigation and playtesting, I think that one of the things that has going for it in balance is that it does not graveyard their spell or waste their mana. Another would be that it's not played on a specific spell their opponent wants to play, so if you were to scry two and they only wanted to play one spell that turn then it didn't do anything. Those limitations mean it's okay for it to be more effective than a counterspell in limited ways.
If that still seems too good then how about target opponent has to pay X mana before they can cast further spells? No, that's too powerful....
I don't know, help me come up with and shoot down ideas here.

Format issue causing card: Treasure Hunt.
This would deck out a player if we have a decking mechanic attached to card draw, or else make them able to play every spell they have in a turn.

Hmmm. The reason to use a weird hand-size and draw mechanic thing with this format, instead of cards just being unspecific cards from the deck, is so that all those draw and discard cards (mostly in blue) aren't strictly bad things. Normally they are used to deal with being spellfat or landfat at a kind of crappy price that's still sometimes worth it if you don't have what you need.
Maybe it's better to just take the forced discard off those cards and go back to a more normal hand size/card play mechanic? This wouldn't fix the problems with tutors and library arrangement yet but it would make Veiled Crocodile non-useless, amongst many other cards broken by this non-standard handling of hand size. It would also turn card draw back into the double-edged sword it's supposed to be.

Next problem is tutors and library arrangement. I'm thinking make library arrangement into opponent milling. Too powerful? I'm balancing against Tome Scour here which mills five for one mana.
Tutors can... hmm. I have to look up what they do in more detail, I'll start working on those. Remove a specific spell from opponent's library is probably not right but let's see.

Trying to redesign Magic variants isn't my favourite passtime. If I'm getting no help I'm giving up.

So, what, are you proposing that we go back to having a standard hand and draw phase, but basically be able to draw any card we want from our library? That'd certainly fix a lot of those niggling issues.

Which leaves spells that mess with the library in general (tutors and library rearrangement). Suggestion: library rearrangement can make cards temporarily unavailable for drawing or reverse that. Advantage compared to milling is that with library rearrangement you can pick what becomes unavailable whereas with milling you likely wouldn't get to pick what they lose.

Tutors are pretty close to a lost cause, but I'll think about it.

Further proposal: cards affected by library rearrangement become available again at a rate of one card per turn. The owner picks which card.

>>364296
Yes, my idea was to bring it back to working almost like normal Magic, except instead of drawing actual cards you're dealt seven uses at the beginning and draw a new use each turn (subject to normal modifications by card effects), which act like normal cards for hand size and things like that. For spells that look at what's in your hand or things like that it would be your hand-count's number of cards that haven't been taken out of your hand/library set yet.
Still existing problem: Red gets to blast with all four of its lightning before the end of the third turn. As long as life stays below normal this is a cheap and easy win without some kind of life gain, damage redirect, damage prevention, counterspell, forced discard against red. or SOMETHING to keep the other walker alive. Even with standard life totals this is alarming. Perhaps this is a good thing in disguise because white life gain used to be someting I always laughed at.
The biggest issue with that is the draw and discard mechanic cards, those would be flat out negative. My proposed solution for that would be to just make the discard part happen at the option of the caster/controller/user of the effect. I figure this should work since none of them are as good as the P9 instant Ancestral Recall anyway, although there's a list of them that are iffy:
-The thing that bothers me most about this adjustment is that it makes cycling into an easily obtained and reusable card draw method without the normal cost associated with it... unless you take the discard as a casting cost and therefore unskippable. That's probably what happens but this is already getting a bit complicated.
-Another possible issue is the *mill hand to find better cards* mechanic from things like Drastic Revelation, Shattered Perception, Tolarian Winds and I think others as well. I don't know how much adjustment they would need or how to adjust them.
-Compulsion should probably lose the discard part of its first option and the mana cost of its second option to be balanced with this because... it sucks! Lose the discard for Mental Discipline as well.
-Merfolk looter, Thought Courier and others like that suddenly become tap for 1 draw, but they're not all blue so it isn't totally unfair. Plus blue needs something to make up for having 2-cost spells that say no be its big thing.
-Draw and reveal if it isn't X for Sindbad and certain others I guess fixes that card as being specific when it's drawn? For Sindbad itself I'd just let it be draw one but other draw and reveals do crazy things like Treasure Hunt. That one in particular is puzzling me about how to handle it.
-Cephalid Broker, Bazaar of Baghdad, Frantic Search, Magus of the Bazaar seem a bit too good without the discard but perhaps livable. With draw back to the double-edged sword it's supposed to be they help players that use them deck themselves.
-Magus of the Jar and Memory Jar probably shouldn't change at all, they're all about decking out an opponent in a really annoying way that risks giving red their last lightning they need or something.
-Trade Routes? I dunno. It's a weird old enchantment whose main purpose seems to be bouncing back land. I have to look up if it'll let you recover land from the graveyard to know how good it is in standard format even.
-Wheel of Fate, Wheel of Fortune and Windfall shouldn't change I think.
-Control of the Court and Goblin Lore are draw 4 discard 3 for converted 2... that's alarming without the discard. Take out the discard and these sorceries are looking roughly as good as Ancestral Recall. Should we just let red have it and bite our nails more when facing a red player? Change them instead to draw 1?

About your library arrangement proposal >>364296 and >>364298
You're talking about individual specific cards instead of "Counterspell" or "Mana Leak" right? Sounds complicated to me; that's effectively a temporary exile and exile return mechanic. It also would require a player to know what they're exiling somehow which implies spy on their whole hand/library. Not a fan of that implication or the complexity of exile and return.

My concept of tutors being something you cast to become a duplicate of some other card in your hand/library was an idea that I got by looking at Copy Artifact. I mean that spell actually does something comparable to what a tutor does and it does it for somewhere in the range of costs of what tutors cost. You'd reveal this token-copy spellcard as normal for tutors I'd figure. Someone tell me how easily abused it is though.


Irrelevancies:
Geth's Grimoire + Jace's Erasure + make them discard one card in any way you like = !!!
Illusions of Grandeur + Donate = troll win

Another implication: Would Telepathy fix opponent hands as specific cards?

I see that my tutor/library manip ruling has sparked quite a debate about this system. I'll agree that it isn't perfect, but I'm not going to go fiddling around with stuff like this willy-nilly. I'll try to address the points that I can.

>>362338
That's a well-made point, and even though it doesn't affect things right now, I think that it needs an overhaul. Here's what I will be doing now. This is final unless it gets changed at a later date, so whining about it won't do anything.

Tutor spells combine the best aspects of the previous tutor and library manipulation mechanics. When erica casts a tutor spell, she'll receive a spell at random with the same CONVERTED mana cost as the tutor that she cast. She can cast that spell without paying its mana cost at any time during that duel, but that spell will count against her spells per turn. This way, she doesn't have to pay double for a spell, and she can save it until it's beneficial for her to use it.

Spells that manipulate your library order will now add one casting of a spell in your pool, with slight weight being given to spells that have been discarded/milled.

>>364279
Treasure Hunt always draws you only one spell, plus however many lands are on top of your library. So it'll basically read "draw a card" since the lands you get aren't contributing to you getting access to more spells other than being taken out of the way.

>>364320
Telepathy would reveal X spells to you, where X is their hand size. (determined by the process in >>361581)

>>364330
I'm not suggesting you change things without due consideration. I am suggesting that the reworking of the way card draw works has significant issues:

#1: Card draw is also part of decking out in the original system. Draw 20 should exhaust someone's library or nearly so, not be a strictly positive thing. Draw any should put you however many steps closer to decking out than an opponent playing the same deck size. It's a risk with a defined chance of something that will help you and a guaranteed certain problem. The cards of MTG were designed and balance-judged with the understanding that it would be a risk.

#2: Card draw persists between rounds in the original system; if you draw a card and don't play it or discard it then it stays in your hand. So draw three this turn and you use two should leave you one more than you started with.
In order to avoid carrying over insane numbers of "castings" and still provide a limit you avoid this and give a flat default limit that an be enhanced with the greatly reworked replacement for card draw each round. But it doesn't work out right: Card draw becomes something weak and strictly positive instead of more powerful and risky. Consider Howling Mine and its possibility as a form of attack if you have graveyard return and your opponent doesn't. If you get this working all you need is to survive their attacks on your life and they die instead of you, which is a balance shift from the normal problem of trying to kill them before they kill you. It provides support for using healing/lifesteal to survive unit attacks until something else gets your opponent for all of the colours.

#3: Draw is part of the oversize hand discard mechanic, and the oversize hand discard mechanic exists to disallow people from having infinite deck access without severe problems and costs. Your format gives them infinite deck access in their hand except for a casting per turn mechanic that is far enough away from the way Magic usually works that it causes headaches.

My proposal is to dial that back one step to something closer to the way Magic generally works with the same cool feature that randomness of card draw doesn't screw up everybody. If you and your group can address the issues I have identified in a better way I would be very interested. Both my proposal and your current system still have the turn-three Lightning runthrough problem as well, which should be addressed somehow. In normal 40/20 decks the odds of even seeing three out of four lightning within the first three turns is something I can calculate, but far less than 100%. You need me to refresh on my high school probability and remember how to calculate that?

>>364335
I have to say, turning the hand into a "number of available casts" mechanic makes a LOT of mechanics more sane than the originally presented system. Both discard and draw can actually function again, for one thing, just by changing the number of available casts.

Draw as mill can function by making you lose if your available casts exceed your remaining spells+lands. Likewise, available casts over seven can negate spells at random from your available spells at the end of your turn to simulate the hand size limit.

We could avoid the "spam a single spell to win" difficulty by implementing a cooldown scheme between castings of the same spell, which tutor/scry mechanics could reduce or eliminate.

>>364337
I'm seeing problems with your casting limit idea. Telling a red player they can see that lightning, taste it, smell it, and touch it without being allowed to cast it by some outside-of-normal rule mechanic is... iffy. Consider that if red starts with three lightnings, a fireball, a critter of some kind and two mountains in hand in the normal game that was most of a win unless the other player has some dirty trick, Force of Will, enough Force Spikes or something.
More generally that risks confusing and upsetting the standard beats versus cool situation.
-Red is usually the beats... the player trying to do everything they can to stop the other player from winning by killing them first.
-Blue is usually the cool because most times all they have to do is stop the other player from initiating their victory condition (big fatass monster or enchantment or whatever) and then pull out what they've got to win.
Your mechanic risks telling blue that they can't cast a second counterspell in a row even though they have to or die, for example.

>>364349
But that's very similar to how things are in normal Magic. If you've got five cards in hand and three more counterspells in your deck, you can still be SOL if none of those counterspells are amongst the five cards. It gives up a little potential for casting the same spell repeatedly, but you still have access to a wider variety of spells than you normally would because you can use your casting slots for any of your deck's spells.

If you want to be sure that you've got the spell that you need, stack spells with similar functions to avoid cooldown problems- just like in normal Magic you stack spells with similar functions so that you're more likely to draw more of them and have them available when you want them.

>>364353
Hmmm. You've led me to the obvious point that I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too with perfect spell access except for that red guy who will use it to win.
Perhaps the real reason I'm looking at this from a blue perspective and alarmed about it is there's no Force Spike, Force of Will or anything else we can use to ding off repeated Lightning to the face: Red easily has the cards to potentially blast 20+ damage in 8 cards + 8 mana within the the initial pick five from recent core and expansions. That lets them finish out a turn 4 win in normal and a turn 3 win in 16 life or less if they aren't somehow stopped. If they do run out of blast cards or use them up on defensive removal or something they didn't have critters out for those rounds anyway.
I'm probably also unduly alarmed because red isn't supposed to win with 12 damage, or even 16 damage. They're supposed to win with no less than 20.

>>364355
Yeah, with less than 20 life fast decks take the advantage. But I'm really not sure how that would change unless we drastically shift away from the current game mechanics. I remember there was an M:TG computer game where you ran around and built your deck out of antes from beating NPCs with their decks, and leveled up your life from the battles, and it basically suffered from exactly this problem. Most enemies were all but trivial to beat if you just rushed as quickly as possible.

>>364358
The Shandalar game was trivial to beat for a lot of reasons. One was because none of the computer players had enough brains to really know what to play when, or a good set of rules to fake it. The biggest reason it was easy to beat was because it put few limits on the player deck beyond your maximum of four to a type and 30 card minimum. There was no restricted one-to-a-deck card rarity or anything.
Eventually I beat it silly using a thirty card deck with 4xblack lotus, 4xtimetwister, 4xancetral recall, 4xmox jet, 4xmox sapphire, 4xdark ritual, 4xlife drain and 2xhurkyl's recall. This was a fairly reliable first turn win and a demonstration of the power of over half of the P9.
Seriously, experience playing Shandalar introduces a number of details of how to play Magic but it does not teach you about how the game generally works against sane human opponents with reasonably constructed decks or reasonable choice limits. Magic is not supposed to have no-response win on the first turn, they work very hard at preventing that even in legacy, er, vintage is what they call that now?

Now, I'm not here to choose the new card that we're gonna be using as there's been much debate about it. I'm here to try to guess our new "black" best friend's magic spells.

And I'm guessing from M10,11,12 that Nicole gonna be using undead creatures, more specifically vampires, zombies and probably Black Knight. What two blocks she gets I won't guess, just no point in it.

>>364469
Nicole probably got our starter deck list choice options as well, five from Mercadian Masques and Invasion as well as 2010-2012. Possibly also the extra pick from 2010-2012.

Seeing as there's not been any real consensus, I'm shelving the pick until you get another card choice, or earlier if you all agree on something.

I also apologize again for leaving you all hanging as long as I did. Real life happens, unfortunately, and when it does I have to deal with it before dealing with imaginary magical girls. I hope you all understand.
>>54690
Because I'm a vindictive bastard, I'll tell you: Nicole is still sitting at "level 1", so she hasn't got a bonus pick yet. Her starting sets are the 3 core sets, plus kamigawa and ravnica blocks (a somewhat modern analog to your options - a generally weak block that had a few good cards but little that was extraordinary, followed by a very well-received multicolor block that sold like crazy.)

>>55026
>Seeing as there's not been any real consensus
There was fairly real consensus that by nuking the effectiveness of tutors, library manipulation, and card draw, a huge chunk of blue's cards are reduced to crap and more crap. There was general consensus that nuking has indeed occurred. Also that no other color can reasonably expect to beat an intelligent red player in this system. Just sayin'.

On what card to choose, I feel reasonably confident saying that either "hold the pick until we can choose from a set that isn't mostly crap" or Phantasmal Image were our unhappy mediums.

I don't know about consensus about the format being busted: I was doing most of the talking and not many people were saying much about it.

Honestly, I feel the quest would be fine without the system being so rigid. Just wing the spells to act as you think they should act, and do whatever you want to make the quest interesting.

I think the point of a more rigid system is that it provides a much more solid framework for developing tactics while avoiding having to rely on author fiat too much to keep the players from breaking the game. What a lot of even the common cards do according to the fluff is ridiculously broken in a freeform system. Would turn the quest into a game of "Do I have a contingency/enough mana to not die/be mindraped/exiled"

On the subject of balance, I think it'll mostly even out in the end, but two mechanics I think will have to be looked at are deck and graveyard control. The first is almost useless, the second probably too powerful with returning cards to the deck being synonmous with returning them to your hand.

I know you're getting a lot of unasked for advice regarding the mechanics, but I gave it some thought and had an idea for making deck control suck less without, to me anyway, any big overhauls. Instead of having full access to your deck to start, begin with access to one of every card, and on draw(renamed pick to avoid confusion) phase pick another to gain access to. Draw keyword grants access randomly to what's still in your deck, tutor works more or less as normal, and scry would only really work with the draw keyword.

This makes deck control weaker than in normal magic, but it will be an option to reduce the turns on your win condition. Moreso, it leaves the stability of the current system pretty intact while forcing the early win condition decks to choose between rushdown and the longgame, because with the current rules and access, once you have the card selection you can just have both. All colors can do that with set access, but red and green have that earlier with no drawbacks later on.

Welcome to the revival of cute girls doing cute magician things. I'm still the same dumbass from before, but we're doing things a little different now.

Veronica has the following traits:
>Black Magician Girl - Veronica is able to wield the magic of the swamps and cast black spells.
>Concerted Caution - Veronica's reserved nature will exclude spells randomly chosen by the DM that require a life payment or losing life as part of the spell's effect(Ex: Thoughtseize, Reckless Spite)
>Maiden of the Blind Eternities - Veronica, after gazing into the truth of the multiverse, has gained otherworldly insight about interplanar theory and how the many universes can interact with each other.
>Mana Flood - Veronica's mind has the tendency to go off on a tangent that needs to be reined in on occasion when standing in a powerful source of black mana. She remains totally cognizant of her surroundings and can act as normal in this state (for certain values of normal).

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves or ask lore questions. I'll try to answer as best I can without spoilers.

>>84352
Okay, due to Veronica's status, I think she'd be more amenable to summoning these creatures.

-Black Knight
Knight, Soldier

-Mortician
Zombie, Skeleton, Spirit

-Accountant
-Mercenary

-Abandoned Supermarket mana source
Vermin like rats and bats

I'm amused two of us asked after a dis thread in quick succession.

>Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves or ask lore questions
Could I ask what Maggie's sub-specialization in blue is? (Like 'Roni ended up a Knight / Mortician). I don't know if that would be too big a spoiler into her character or motivation that we could leverage, but I'm curious about the flavor you set up for other colors. Because honestly, the fluff for black was pretty damn cool.

>>84353
I'd think once we're thinking strait and have secured the ara, experimenting with summons and negotiating loyalty would be our next priority. I see no problems with that list.

...and I like that the black knight comes with protection from white. That sounds like something useful to have waiting in reserve. You know we're going to run into some meddling holy force, eventually.

>Maggie's motivation
Thinking about this: she was scared away by the realization that her power was running away from her, and by a close brush with her own mortality. While Roni may understand that way of thinking, I think it's going to have a hard time getting through to her directly. She's focused on caution and control even while running headlong into this, and her natural affinity was for black, and a natural order of death (mortician), and a certain callousness towards doing what needs to be done (knight).

Put that all together and I think you've got someone who's not going to be concerned about their own recklessness, nor overly worried about her own mortality (even if she's in no rush to die). If and when Mags tries to talk her friend into not going to deep, I don't think her reasoning is going to stick very well.

Which I think is going to make for an interesting problem, if we intend to find some way to use her as an ally.

>>84364
Here were Margaret's sub-class choices:
>[]Elementalist - The winds and waves are at your command and obey your every whim. Some folk believe wielders of blue magic are frail and infirm academics who can't actually do combat. With a little planning, showing those fools up is a trifling matter.

>[X]Scholar - Magic is finicky. The rules obeyed by this stuff we don't know are vaguely defined, and just when you think you know it all, something rapes everything you thought you knew. That said, knowledge is power, and few can match your knowledge in matters of the arcane.

>[]Illusionist - Whoever said "seeing is believing" can shove it. A strength of blue magic is the ability to fool the senses. Whether it's summoning a protector, calling a veil of invisibility, or altering one's appearance, what you see is very rarely what you get.

>Put that all together and I think you've got someone who's not going to be concerned about their own recklessness, nor overly worried about her own mortality (even if she's in no rush to die). If and when Mags tries to talk her friend into not going to deep, I don't think her reasoning is going to stick very well.

This is a pretty astute analysis of the two's interactions. I remember a line from FE8 when thinking about Veronica's logic: "I don't pick fights I can't win" - she's very sure of herself because she doesn't run into things without the most information that can be gathered - and when she decides to fight, it's on her terms.

>and just when you think you know it all, something rapes everything you thought you knew
...ouch. She went right for the "magic is gonna fuck you over somehow" option right from the start.

Still, an ally whose whole shtick is knowledge is would be a good resource to have, especially getting started, and especially if we ever doubt what our employer is telling us. If and when we get her on board with that.

>"I don't pick fights I can't win"
Another potentially interesting complication, since we signed up to basically be a magical mercenary. Not sure we get to pick all our fights...

>>/quest/587692
>black market
>this is a major long term investment
Part of the reason I'm not thrilled by the idea, right now. Figuring out how to be a sorceress, getting our magic going, that's a major long term investment. Not sure another one is really worth it when that's still in play.

>>84426
Apologies, but I went looking through the enchantments of Black for something that can burn through an excess of black magic that's worth having. I was thinking we'd rather have an enchantment of some kind than a minion in place, since *any* kind of minion at all we leave in the old store is either 'a suspicious character' or 'a dangerous infestation' that could call down official attention.

Oh, I suppose that's not bad logic. If we dump excess mana into it and it operates itself (or if we're functionally converting mana to revenue) that's two birds with one stone.

I guess how useful it would be would depend on how autonomous said market would be, and whether or not it was a big timesink.

Looking at the card Black Market, it's a converted-cost five enchantment that gives you free mana in proportion to the number of folks who've died. Basically it's step one of a two to five turn drain life for infinity in conventional Magic, and I suggested it partially out of whimsy.

>>84438
>>84447
It's not a horrible idea, admittedly. But Black Market a rare spell (not easily accessible to a beginning mage), an enchantment (uncommon for black magic), and gives Veronica bursts of free mana (which in this place is the LAST thing she needs). It's important to remember that black market is a mana source, not a mana sink.

Also remember that when this was printed, mana burn was a thing. Unless you had something to do with all the mana you were getting every turn, you'd risk taking significant amounts of damage. While mana burn no longer exists (and a big reason of why black market is a $13 card now) it's still not something Roni will especially want. An actual black market on the other hand might be a bit more up her alley, but there's the question of what she'd sell.

I'll leave that to you all.

>a rare spell (not easily accessible to a beginning mage), an enchantment (uncommon for black magic)
Out of curiosity, how do game mechanics like that translate to the quest? Does rarity mean the spell has prerequisites before we could access it? (Requires research or a book, being taught, components, a ritual?). If black magic doesn't tend towards enchantment, does that mean Roni just wouldn't come up with it on her own? That there would be a high chance of failure, or the spell blowing up in our face?

>>84575
Generally speaking, the more rare and a spell is, the more likely Roni will need specialized teaching or research to cast it, as opposed to randomly dropping it. Something like Dark Confidant will require Veronica to display extreme competence and awareness of the risks she takes by having Bob giving her stuff, while demonic tutor (an uncommon spell, but a very old and very good one!) would require communing with a demon of some form. Spell failures will almost always result in just wasting mana as opposed to having much in the way of dangerous consequences (obviously high-power spells can have other setbacks if things go poorly).

It's entirely possible for Roni to be casting enchantments, it's just not as common in black as it is in other colors (blue and white especially).

It's contract negotiation time!

Anon has already brought up some concerns which I'll address currently. The contract is in fairly plain wording and written in English.

>Preamble
The contract writer assumes whoever is taking this contract is not a lawyer and will treat them as such. This contract is written to be easily understood by everyone involved so there's no misunderstanding. If you try abusing loopholes, we can do it too, and we've much more experience at it. Don't try it.

>Exit Criteria
If you want out and we can't convince you otherwise, you can leave. If you continuously fuck up missions that should be well within your ability, we can fire you. In these cases, we will take back the spells you started with, unless you have other spells of similar power and rarity you're willing to trade. You aren't banned from trying to re-learn those spells, but don't be a dick about it.

>Right of Refusal
If you think there will be a conflict of interest for a mission we assign you, speak up before you start. Depending on the conflict, we may or may not have someone else do that job. If you think a mission is impossible, do what you can and we'll take it from there.

>Education
Seriously? You actually like school? You know the basics by now, if you want to learn more that's on you to find someone you can ask for it.

>Death/Benefits
If you get hurt on the job, we'll heal you as best we can so you're as you were before you got hurt. If you're only mostly dead,(and there's a reasonable expectation you can be revived) we'll do everything viable to get you back. If you're completely dead, that's that. We won't resurrect you, and if you knew what it does you'd beg us not to try.
If you die in our service (we hope you don't, it's supposedly unpleasant) then all payments you're due to receive will be sent to a person you indicate, or your nearest living relatives. (by lineage, not distance)

>Arbitration
We have arbiters that can be summoned. They do this shit for a living, ask them about it.

>What else do you want to know?

Pff great tone.

That they won't revive us if we're completely dead seems like it might leave the door open for a lot of fates worse than death open to exploit, but if we're meant to trust intent and not exact wording, I'll take it.

That we don't get more than one lesson with Bob is disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. On the job training programs are notoriously unreliable.

Having an equal vote in a mediator was probably reaching, but if they're summoning outsiders for it, that's better than in house HR.

>give up the spells you started with
So every spell currently on our list? Or none, since we didn't know any when we met. Or just the ones our employer paid for through Bob's lesson?

Biggest concern here is we seem to have accidentally summoned some kind of powerful permanent artifact sword, and I want to know if they have a claim on that (frankly, we don't have anything else to offer in place of that).

>>84780
This would likely be a thing for arbitration when/if it happens, but they expect the return of 3 summons and 3 spells. (or equal value for it)
The sword you keep regardless, because it's not actually a spell you can cast. You do lose access to spells you cast through the sword, but the actual thing isn't something they can lay claim to.

I'll hold this open until Friday for any other concerns. If there are none, I'll post new thread on saturday.

Honestly, the whole cancellation fee thing seems a little weird to begin with (I mean, if you worked for a military, say, it makes sense if you're asked to return the weapons or equipment they issued you when you leave. But they didn't issue us any spells or summons- we sought out knowledge and/or experimented!), but I suppose they want a return in power for awakening us (which they can't take back) if they lose our services. And obviously, a means to discourage us from leaving.

If we continue to gain spells at a reasonable rate, and don't run into something intolerable forcing us to quit before at least our first few missions, sacrificing 3 spells and summons of our choice isn't too arduous a price to pay. (Especially if arbitration allows us to argue the price down). Their not having a claim on the sword is the biggest issue down.

That's pretty much everything I can think to check, barring obvious fuck you clauses Roni may find reading the whole document through. Didn't ask about vacations or sick days, but I assume they're smart enough not to send sick people on dangerous missions (or just heal them), and I'd assume time off could be negotiated depending on the circumstances.

So yeah, I think we're good, up until the point they decide to do something stupid like sending us on suicide missions, or giving us stupid evil assignments.

Would you like this signed in ink or blood, hairball?

I would like to ask for a stipulation that allows for guarantee of return to present in case of time shenanigans.

Rules of universe be damned, magic is magic, and causality is a right, not a privilege!

>>84799
>Vacation/Sick Days
You're guaranteed a minimum 2 full days off between the end of one mission and the start of the next. We reserve the right to call you in early if and only if something really bad comes up. ("Really Bad" is going to be at least a multi-dimensional threat. This is just a contingency, we really hope it never comes into play) If you need longer after a mission, give us a good reason and we'll work something out.

>>84806
>Causality Loops
We won't fix time bullshit, because we refuse to mess with it on general principle. If you mess up the time stream, that's on you.

Assuming "we refuse to mess with time bullshit" includes, by extension, not deliberately sending your employees into situations to mess with time bullshit (wormhole fetch quest! Attack the time wizard!) that's probably sufficient.

>>84811
We do not deal with time travel. It never ends well. (or begins well, it's hard to tell with time travel.)
Technically any interplanar job is going to involve what is basically a "wormhole fetch quest" as you put it. But we arent going to abandon you in some fucked up plane with no possible way out. That's a very easy way to get people wanting to kill you, and that's not beneficial for us.

And Turn 2 has begun >>/quest/591035

Good luck!

As promised, here is Veronica's mission Dossier, as prepared by Management.

http://pastebin.com/HQag6BYE

Good luck~

Some thoughts.

We were told we could use magic openly, in this plane. However, we turned the entire course of that fight by summoning two creatures, and I'm not sure anyone else was even casting. We've only been at this a day or two- if any of the other attackers or defenders had mana to draw on, you'd think they could have easily made a contribution of that scale.

Suggests casters, while known and accepted, might be somewhat uncommon or rare. Sarah seems to hold an officer's rank in her guild's command structure, but I'm guessing most of the grunts under her command and on the other side were normals. I wonder if that means our display of power might mean we accidentally drew more attention than we wanted to ourself?

>>85497
That brings up the question of whether this setting all mages in this setting work like the land-powered creature-summoning plane-hopping planeswalkers or whether other mages (such as you might summon or encounter native to a plane) function differently. If they all work like planeswalkers than mage summons are significantly more powerful than their card stats, since they could potentially summon their own minions, (or maybe if they are powerful relative to their cost even copies of themselves?!).

Yeah, intelligent summons are definitely more valuable than the alternative. So far for us because they can teach us things. So far we've got a sword tutor, counter assassin consultant, and magic lessons.

Which actually gives us a cheap way to dodge some of the costs of quitting, if and when we do. Let them have the spells Elena taught us- but keep Elena. She can always reteach us, at a later date. (Even if she's eventually going to start charging in some manner).

You're right that chain summoning would get crazy overpowered, right quick. I'd like to assume that there's something that balances or prevents that but... we'll see. (Might just be balanced by the fact that truly powerful casters don't cooperate as summons very often?).

I take it that we may have a chance to get black common and uncommon creatures and spells from Ravnica and RTR blocks when we are doing the bodyguarding job on the plane. Of course the job comes first, but if we get some free time afterwards, we might want to walk the streets and markets.

Any chance we could get the full flavor for Sarah's trait? From her trigger speech, Devout Aspirant likely ties to faith and determination and getting the job done, but it's nice to know.

I'm assuming it's a white trait, although I'm not sure if she's white, or if she's been doing this long enough to be dual colored (white / blue would fit with her assumed guild, and with the color of dialog).

Yeah. School happened, but let's not worry about that. my personal life shouldn't be a barrier to you all enjoying the quest. I'll answer your questions at least.

>>85497
You're correct - most spellcasters know one, maybe two spells. Part of that has to do with being self-taught, part of it has to do with the plane itself, and there's also the relevant Powers That Be governing certain things.

>>85506
You do not have the ability to planeswalk. It might be possible that you have the spark required, but if you do it's not active. Thankfully, Management does have that ability and is using it to shuffle agents around.
As for others, your normal "creature" won't have magic they an use. Magically inclined creatures on the other hand will know a few spells pursuant to their color. The easiest way to identify this is looking for a casting class in the typeline. (Cleric, Wizard, Shaman, Druid, and Spellshaper are the biggest ones. There may be others.)

>>85552
This falls under the umbrella of "dick move" as far as Management is concerned. You certainly could do this, and there's technically nothing stopping you. But you never know if you might need them later, and if there's bad blood between you and them...don't expect them to lend a hand.

>>85648
I'll be sure to address this, because there are plenty of places where you could pick up a new trick or two - if you're willing to accept the prices. Gold is...usually accepted.

>>85837
>High Trait: Devout Aspirant - Blessed is she who fights in the name of the Lord. When things aren't going your way, be it fatigue, injury, poison or even just rotten luck; even a short reminder of your unbreakable faith is enough to boost your resolve. Be aware this blessing is not irrevocable, and calling on such help must be part of a higher calling.

Sarah has been with the Company for almost two and a half years. she has near-mastery over white magic and a firm understanding of blue magic. While she's still in the middle tier as far as agents are concerned, the girl has proven herself exceptionally competent, if not a bit quick to judge others. (gee, you noticed?)

>Yeah. School happened
No worries, life happens to the best of us. Glad to see this isn't left for dead though!

>spellcaster limitations
If that's true generally, and not just in Ravenica, it strikes me that's really what management did in awakening us. Bypassed the planer and/or PtB restrictions for us.

>dick move
Awful touchy these lawyer types with their fuzzy hellspawn are.

I suppose the alternative solution would be to simply have accumulated enough spells by the time we leave that there are ones we don't mind parting with. Or... not leave. (I kind of hope they don't inevitably do something that forces us to turn away from them. I'd rather just have someone to hand us quests than have to wage war, again. I'm fine working for casual affable evil so long as it stays that way. Heck, the paladin is).

>Sarah
Now there's a handy trait for someone expected to operate on her own for long periods of time.

Although really, it's the experienced and competent bits that worry me. Management sending completely green reinforcements either suggests they're not taking her seriously, or that they really couldn't scramble anyone else any faster. Either of which could blow up in our face.

And I can live with judgey. I'm pretty sure there's enough compatibility between their philosophies for respect, even. Assuming we're past the worst of the black is bad thing, we keep her alive, and we get a chance to talk about more than immediate problems at some point.

Welp, the thread's in the graveyard.

Rest well, and collect black mana.