[RTR] The myth about the vanished keyword...

[Lemnear]

Before the RTR Spoiler Season startet MaRo hinted that the Rakdos Keyword has something to do with cost reduction. Later several sources get into details of this "paincasting" mechanic providing reduced casting cost of cards if opponent was dealt damage this turn and saying that Rakdos himself is affected by that and provides "paincasting" to all creatures.

Now after all, we know that this fraction finally got a hilarious uninspired and bad keyword but the Guildleader card is interestingly similar to the rumored card in advance.



How much truth contains all this talking about "paincasting"? Is there any evidence that WotC decides that a cost reduction (tiggered by creatures or burn mainly) was too strong and they changed this mechanic Last Minute?

Is this the end of cost reduction in M:TG? Did the experience with Phyrexian mana change the keyword (which was likely to be Set before NPH was released due to development sheet). Did the "success" of hellbent have anything to do with? Conspiracy?

[wcm8]

I think they missed a great opportunity to make a Legacy playable keyword that could have made B/R an actual color combination worth playing.

Let's pretend something like this were a card:

Rakdos Demon
4B
Creature - Demon
Flying
Paincast (this card costs 1 less to cast for each damage your opponent has taken this turn)
5/5

[This is probably mis-costed, I don't claim to be a card designer]

Suddenly, your Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings are also Dark Rituals, and just attacking with aggressive creatures lends to an 'all-in' onslaught.

As of now, B/R doesn't seem to offer much to Legacy. Pity, since I was really looking forward to building Grixis tempo as an alternative to RUG.

[bowvamp]

Also, let's not forget that it seems every keyword people were excited about vanished. There are no good gate cards (<- this guy wanted them).

[coraz86]

I think they missed a great opportunity to make a Legacy playable keyword that could have made B/R an actual color combination worth playing.

This.

Both black and red seem to give you incentive to go heavily into their colors--part of the reason they're less popular in Legacy than the other three is that their bombs are generally harder to splash. They could've done, say, variations on Greater Harvester or Void with that paincasting and I don't think they'd be overpowered--you either still have to spend the mana you're saving on direct damage or set up in advance and not have your plans fucked up.

And, again, you'd still have to pretty heavily commit to those colors. I would kill to be able to play Greater Harvester off a Dark Ritual, but that's still in a b(x) shell, and I'm an idiot.

[Gheizen64]

Paincast would be like a fixed affinity, just because you can still cost a card 2BBB and you can regulate how much paincast can get you. It's not easy to do damage either, so even something like 5B wouldn't be as good unless you already have a lot on the board (aka, win more).

That said, WotC said times and times again that alternate casting costs, cheating casting costs etc... were bad for the game. I believe i was reading an issue of sideboard from the Onslaught era that stated this. I believe everyone know the rest.

[Aggro_zombies]

Paincast probably didn't play very well.

Rakdos wants to be one of the fastest guilds in the block (second probably only to Boros). That means you need a bunch of fast, cheap aggro enablers for paincast. But that presents two problems:

1) You won't start doing large amounts of damage per turn until late in the game, at which point most paincast designs you could make would be win more.

2) Stalling out is a double-whammy because you're not only on the back foot (as the aggro player), but you'll have all of these expensive, basically uncastable paincast cards in hand.

You could solve both problems by putting paincast on cheap cards, but then the mechanic doesn't really do anything. I'm 90% certain that, as much as people complain about unleash being terrible (and it really doesn't seem that way with the full set spoiled), way more people would complain about paincast.

[rufus]

I think they missed a great opportunity to make a Legacy playable keyword that could have made B/R an actual color combination worth playing.
....
Paincast (this card costs 1 less to cast for each damage your opponent has taken this turn)
...

That is a problematic ability from a balance/usefulness design perspective, especially in Legacy where mana cost is a really big deal. I'm not sure there's a lot of room between 'only win more' and 'grossly OP'. I think making the cards 'stronger from behind' would be better. E.g. something like

less to cast for each point of damage sources your opponent control have dealt since your last turn.

I think this fits the word 'paincast' better too.

...people complain about unleash being terrible...

Unleash is worse than terrible, it's boring and overcosted.

Dead Reveler
2b
Creature - Zombie
Common
Unleash (You may have this creature enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it. It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.)
2/3
vs.
Selesnya Sentry
2w
Creature - Elephant Soldier
Common
5{G}: Regenerate Selesnya Sentry.
3/2

[Mewens]

I'm with Aggro_zombies on this one -- paincast strikes me as a mechanic that would result in one-sided games. Either it's relevant and you're soulcrushing your opponent with BB 5/5 flyers, or it's not working and you're getting killed because you're running a bunch of Craw Wurm variants, or it's just not good enough to begin with. I'm not seeing a nice middle ground where it's scary to sit across from but not eye-rollingly good.

I'm not particularly happy with Unleash, either, but mostly because it will never be a splashy play. I think it's actually a pretty solid ability mechanically, and I suspect it's going to one of those skill-testers in draft that many people overlook.

That being said, it would have been neat to see a bloodthirst+ keyword in Rakdos -- "When ~ enters the battlefield, if your opponent has lost life this turn, [do this]." Dunno if that steps on Gruul's toes, though.

Is this the end of cost reduction in M:TG?

Probably not. They're certainly less loose with it than they were in years past, but it's an attractive mechanic that someone always feels the need to mess with. I think the danger with it now, more than ever, is that many cards are already discounted from traditional levels; Abyssal Persecutor would have been unthinkable before Alara, f'rinstance. If we reach a point where every spell is costed on a razor's edge, then even a little mana reduction is going to be disastrously powerful.

[ScatmanX]

Read "The myth about the awesome keyword..." when I clicked on this thread. #sad

[Lord Seth]

Also, let's not forget that it seems every keyword people were excited about vanished. There are no good gate cards (<- this guy wanted them).

In all fairness, the next set is called Gatecrash, so it's entirely possible there will be more to do with them then.

[JeroenC]

Unleash is worse than terrible, it's boring and overcosted.

Dead Reveler
2b
Creature - Zombie
Common
Unleash (You may have this creature enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it. It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.)
2/3
vs.
Selesnya Sentry
2w
Creature - Elephant Soldier
Common
5{G}: Regenerate Selesnya Sentry.
3/2

Except for where a) 3/4 trumps 3/2, b) 5G:regenerate is mostly irrelevant and c) white always gets better small dudes than the other colors (especially when coupled to green).
Unleash is a great mechanic, some of its cards are very strong (1 mana 2/2 for hybrid B/R sounds good to me) and it's mostly a limited-oriented mechanic. It's also a mechanic that reduces the cost for some cards by making them unable to block.

[hi-val]

Paincast probably didn't play very well.

Rakdos wants to be one of the fastest guilds in the block (second probably only to Boros). That means you need a bunch of fast, cheap aggro enablers for paincast. But that presents two problems:

1) You won't start doing large amounts of damage per turn until late in the game, at which point most paincast designs you could make would be win more.

2) Stalling out is a double-whammy because you're not only on the back foot (as the aggro player), but you'll have all of these expensive, basically uncastable paincast cards in hand.

You could solve both problems by putting paincast on cheap cards, but then the mechanic doesn't really do anything. I'm 90% certain that, as much as people complain about unleash being terrible (and it really doesn't seem that way with the full set spoiled), way more people would complain about paincast.

Came in here basically to say this. For Paincasting to work, you would need cheap burn and hasty/below the curve creatures to make it relevant. They would probably do things like print Paincast Hill Giant. If you're playing 1B 2/2s, you're not going to win by paying R for a 3/3 on the third turn. I'd imagine that R&D played with it and realized that they were just paincasting all their guys when they had the mana for it anyway. You can't get aggressive with Paincasting unless you've got a lot of Goblin Guides and Diregraf Ghouls in the format, and as a drafting strategy, it's really forced - you don't put paincasters in decks that aren't balls-out.

[wcm8]

Came in here basically to say this. For Paincasting to work, you would need cheap burn and hasty/below the curve creatures to make it relevant. They would probably do things like print Paincast Hill Giant. If you're playing 1B 2/2s, you're not going to win by paying R for a 3/3 on the third turn. I'd imagine that R&D played with it and realized that they were just paincasting all their guys when they had the mana for it anyway. You can't get aggressive with Paincasting unless you've got a lot of Goblin Guides and Diregraf Ghouls in the format, and as a drafting strategy, it's really forced - you don't put paincasters in decks that aren't balls-out.

This may all be true in regards to having it be the main keyword for Rakdos for Limited/Standard considerations. However, I think it could be a decent design-space to explore in a few one-off cards -- sort of like with Tombstalker and the Delve mechanic. Making burn spells and aggressive hasty creatures into pseudo-rituals seems to play into both Black and Red's color-pie philosophies and precedent cards.

Consider: Black used to be the color of Rituals (Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Bubbling Muck, Blood Pet, Burnt Offering, Sacrifice, etc.)... Now that design has shifted to Red (Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, etc.). So these colors are no stranger to using a one-time acceleration boost, as opposed to Green's sustainable ramp.

Black has cards that use life as a resource, what better way to incorporate that concept with Red than by using that idea in a reverse? Red has always been the color of 'passion', headstrongness, etc. -- a hypothetical Paincast mechanic would support an 'all-in' attack, since the cards may be uncastable without existing board presence or direct burn. And how flavorful would it be that in order to appease the demonic forces you'd be summoning, you've proven your planeswalker-ly power by inflicting pain and torment upon your foes?

The previous card I suggested might have been a bit off balance, so here's a slightly revised version:

Rakdos Demon
3BR
Creature - Demon
Flying
Paincast
5/5

The earliest this guy is likely coming out is turn 3. And yet it would function nicely in a deck devoted to those colors, and could definitely see Legacy play. It's not at all busted, because it requires two color commitment, and isn't even particularly power-creeped (Nimble Mongoose is a 3/3 shroud for 1, Tarmogoyf is generally a 4/5 or bigger for 2, KotR typically lands as a 5/5 for three, etc.) But it would grant a B/R deck access to a serviceable late-game beater without needing to splash green, nor have the often awkward scenario of trying to cast multiple Tombstalkers.

[rufus]

..
The previous card I suggested might have been a bit off balance, so here's a slightly revised version:

Rakdos Demon
3BR
Creature - Demon
Flying
Paincast
5/5

The earliest this guy is likely coming out is turn 3. ...

I'm not sure how bad it ends up being, but this could hit turn 2 pretty regularly in legacy with the likes of Insectile Aberration, or Rift Bolt, or BOP/whatever + Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning...

5/5 flying for (effectively) BR/1BR seems pretty aggressive.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm not sure how bad it ends up being, but this could hit turn 2 pretty regularly in legacy with the likes of Insectile Aberration, or Rift Bolt, or BOP/whatever + Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning...

5/5 flying for (effectively) BR/1BR seems pretty aggressive.

A 5/5 flying for five is already above the curve for Limited and the combination of paincast and size makes this above the curve for Standard too. Realistically, this would cost six or seven and be much less exciting.

[phonics]

I think paincast spells would have been better if it included non creatures rather than creatures alone, maybe something like (just ideas) or at least have creatures that do stuff rather than just be beat sticks.

burn card
xsome cost
paincast 1
burn card does x damage to target creature or player

draw thingy
4b
paincast 1
draw 3 cards lose 3 life

ritual
xb
paincast 1
add x b to mana pool

graveyard card
xbb
paincast 1
You may cast target card in any players graveyard without paying its casting cost if its cmc <= x, if you do exile that card afterwards.

[Cire]

I would think that pain casting would be great on cards like:

~1~ 3R
Creature - Elemental
ETB deal 2 damage to target creature or player
Paincast
2/2

~2~ 5RR
Creature - Dragon
Haste, Flying
Paincast
4/4

~3~ 2B
Creature - Zombie Rat
When ETB target player discards a card
Whenever a player discards a card that player loses 1 life
Paincast
1/1

~4~ 4BB
Creature - Demon
At the beginning of your upkeep target player loses half of his or her life.
Paincast
3/3

[Teknique]

I would think that pain casting would be great on cards like:

~1~ 3R
Creature - Elemental
ETB deal 2 damage to target creature or player
Paincast
2/2

~2~ 5RR
Creature - Dragon
Haste, Flying
Paincast
4/4

R: Lightning Bolt
R: ~1~, 2 to the dome
RR: ~2~, swing 4

9 damage and 6 power (4 flying) for RRRR, seems pretty sweet...

[Cire]

R: Lightning Bolt
R: ~1~, 2 to the dome
RR: ~2~, swing 4

9 damage and 6 power (4 flying) for RRRR, seems pretty sweet...

Yeah, the worst part of it though is that I'm still unsure that it will be legacy playable.

[bowvamp]

R: Lightning Bolt
R: ~1~, 2 to the dome
RR: ~2~, swing 4

9 damage and 6 power (4 flying) for RRRR, seems pretty sweet...

Yes, and?
That's a three card four mana combo if you're saying it's overpowered. I think that Cire's list is actually beautiful. Paincast is basically the only way wizards is going to let red, the burn color, compete with blue, the everything else and a little burn color. And even then I only mean in standard/modern.