Same. I read the title and thought "wait is blue vigilance not normal?". I mandella effect'd myself into thinking blue vigilance was always a thing lol
To me it was always there, as storm crow is one of the earliest MTG cards I can remember. Don't know why, it just happens that my friends had this card and played with it sometimes
I've always thought there is good unexplored design space with conditional psudo-vigilance. "When this creature is blocked, untap it" "When this creature deals combat damage to a player, untap it," "U: Untap this creature, use only during combat" "At the beginning of your turn, choose one: +2/+0, vigilance" But of course, as a spider I am always negative on blue getting better at creatures!~
I really like the idea of "when this creature is blocked, untap it". I feel like that could support a lot of different sneaky things that Blue likes to do.
On the notion of planar chaos, I would like to share this one idea that had bounced in my head: alternate reality unignited versions of the gatewatch, each relevant to a different path to their pivotal moments. Kytheon accepting the death of his allies and becoming Erebos' demigod, Liliana turning to herbological solutions to her brother's ailment rather than the necromantic shortcut, Nissa finding Ugin rather than an eldrazi and studying under him, Etc. Wishful thinking for a set that'll never exist.
Alt timeline of characters would be a great idea. Could also extend it to some weird tribal colors, which shouldn't break standard. Blue Elves. Red Merfolk. Black birds.
I wish they stuck with that and islandwalk, was a cool angle for blue, converting their special lands into something that let you be aggressive in a novel way.
I feel vigilance is mainly a White color key word but then it makes perfect sense that it is in the two allies of White; Green and Blue. It also seems to fit Blue's identity of seeking / knowing information thus being able to attack and still block due to intel.
I really like stun counters in blue, and to that end I also like blue tapping things. To that end especially in commander/multiplayer formats giving blue creatures the ability to tap creatures they fight and/or put stun counters on them depending on how strong of an effect you want seems like a nice choice. Then the natural blue combo is "block this and get temporarily locked down" or "don't block this and let me draw cards from enchantments/effects". This could give blue an actual "combat ideal" beyond just evasive creatures/bombs. White really wants to have robust armies, Red wants fast/cheap creatures to make fast value, Green wants the giant creature with trample to fight through anything, and Black wants make combat an eventuality with revives, -1/-1 effects, and sacrificial creatures. Blue doesn't really fit into this whole ideal of having a combat style besides "evasive" I guess.
I think I could get behind a "stunning" keyword in blue that disincentivizes people form blocking blue creatures. I think the only problem with the idea is that flying pretty much locks down the evasive side of things for blue, so adding more evasive options isn't necessarily needed/wanted. Maybe 'stunning' or something like it could stun attackers being blocked by a blue creature, which would help with the defensive issue that vigilance aims to correct. This is probably design space that wizards doesn't want to go down because now we're adding more things to keep track of and slowing games down a bit too much for an evergreen keyword.
True, you could have a keyword that taps a creatures and puts X stun counters on them like Freeze 1(when ~ attacks, you may tap 1 target creature you don't control. If you do, put 1 stun counter on it)
I agree, i feel that using ice magic to freeze/stun enemies should be more common in blue. I mean if red gets fire magic, then its logical for blue to get water/ice magic.
@@eewweeppkk Such a mechanic could be used to reduce the reliance of blue on flying, which I would be in favour of. Flying is a very low interaction evasion keyword - you just either have a flier to block with or you don't. More consequence-based evasion would allow blue to have better evasive creatures since opponents would have more avenues for dealing with them.
Blue having vigilance feels extremely appropriate and I have been looking forward to it ever since I read it in an article by Mark Rosewater on the (then current )glossary of abilities and what colors have those abilities primarily, secundarily and very infrequently, mind you this was years ago. What I'm still looking forward to is when we get to have UW vigilance matter cards like we had GW vigilance matter cards in Ikoria.
I think a good way to print a looter at common would be to make you choose between looting and vigilance. Like it has vigilance but can loot only as a sorcery. Or it has vigilance and a tap ability that makes it so the next time it deals combat damage to a player this turn, you get to loot.
not sure abou vigi, since blue is so mysterious i think the adequate behaviour would be to use a keyword for stunning/tapping, use the tempo advantage that is so blue, there is a card in this set that stuns if tapped and taps if is untapped, to me, that's the way to go with blue.
I think Vigilance in blue fits but the issue is that it turns the color that's already the absolute best at digging for answers into one that can both attack and be defensive. That's a significant risk when buying a turn or two is often all blue needs to find the card it's looking for to turn the corner. When blue's the "I have answers" color and is dependent on another color for aggression it balances out with other risks (in limited it's about multi-color fixing, in constructed it's about needing to balance the answers and threats against an ever evolving metagame). When it can just be blue for answers as well as aggression plus defense then the other color becomes much more splashable and, thus, less of a risk. Which is, itself, a massive risk in the color of finding answers.
At my last FNM draft, I was getting beaten down by a Marauding Sphinx... until I played the equally pushed Spinewoods Armadillo to block it. It's like Herd Migration at uncommon.
Coming into magic in OG Ravnica, Vigilance in Blue feels like.. It fits? Like Azorious kinda made Vigilance a Blue/White keyword to me so it's honestly more a case of "Oh, yeah I guess it wasn't really a Blue keyword until recently." because it would be on Azorious cards or playing Azorious you'd have access to vigilance cards because White was in the colour combo.
I haven't played the latest sets but I'm not surprised to see this happen. I always felt like Vigilance was a bit redundant with lifelink in white, they both affect the game state in the same way in that they allow you to attack in instead of having to hold back in losing/even situations. Lifelink is a bit better because it also makes it harder for the opponent to catch up when you're winning, so makes sense to spread vigilance to more colors. Honestly what's really needed is for white to get another keyword. Something that is thematically similar to banding or soulbond but without being so complicated/weird to interact with. That would make white more interesting to play.
Fully agree that Planar Chaos would be a hard sell today, but I oh so love the "alternate universe" trope and wouldn't mind seeing it revisited. Funnily enough, March of the Machine kind of did this with the unlikely pairings, which I also adored
I will say I always like this insight into how wizards looks at fundamental building blocks of the game like color. I didn’t even really notice that much that blue got vigilance (probably because I had only just begun playing seriously when they did) but this insight helped me understand better how the design team looks at the color pie! Thx Gavin
I think this one's a good choice. I guess just because I'm old, I thought Vigilance was *already* in blue because of Zephyr Falcon, so when it started showing up again, I didn't even register that anything had changed (I don't really *play* Blue so I never really noticed its absence, either, lol). Also, as an aside, it's really nice seeing more videos from you again!
Mechanically, I believe this move was perfect as Blue really loves what vigilance does for it. But flavorfully, I was a bit hesitant at first, but once you mentioned how Green also got the keyword and how they each got vigilance secondarily to White, then it made the flavor click into place in my head. So overall, I believe the decision is very sound and I'm glad we finally got here in the end.
The comment of Prowess being, in a way, at odds with izzet/spell heavy themes because it's more inclusive than just "instants and sorceries" is really interesting because of how in Wilds of Eldraine most recently, both Elusive Otter and Frolicking Familiar were printed. 1 using prowess, the other just instants and sorceries. I still run both in my Monastery Monk deck but I did notice the slight inconsistency when building it and wondered why that was.
Vigilance in blue is rather fitting, even more than in green. However, it has the issue of changing the game dynamic a lot if used more than sparingly.
Because this video is fundamentally the death knell of the logic used by detractors of that question. If both White and Blue have access to flying and vigilance then a multicolor creature with those abilities, that can't be a color that would support both as a monocolor, removes white/blue from consideration.
@@ZefulStarson Counterpoint: Skyknight Legionnaire. Or Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier. Or Vraska Joins Up. Notice that the last two are from the newest set. There's plenty of cards which gain mechanically unnecessary additional colours for the sake of flavour, set mechanics, balance or Commander viability. 4/4 flying vigilance french vanilla is a recognizable statline connected to white creatures and a good designer should take such mechanical continuity nods into account. That doesn't mean that you can't make a BG one, but in the actual game UW is the natural choice and the more correct choice. That question rewarded blindly following the rules and penalized having actual knowledge of the game.
@@jonarbackle1185 Well said. It felt less like a game design question and more of a gotcha question to see if people read what the question wanted(whether it was good game design or not)
I so appreciate getting an ear to the ground on the thoughts of the design team. It really helps to hear how deeply you guys are thinking about the game, and to get explanations for seemingly out of the box changes.
blue being the 'doing a bunch of spells and abilities all the time color' with some of the weakest creatures, having a few that can attack, then still tap to do something, doesn't feel like it's wandering from the colors core
Certainly helps the commander format and keeping blockers up. Rather see more temporary vigilance or ensuring sources of vigilance as payoff for a triggered ability: Example: whenever you cast your second instant or sorcery for the turn you may give vigilance to target creature
The 1U 2/2 question got me. For some reason I thought it was like, 2017 or 2014 or something. I thought about it for a while and remembered that it was because of Falkenrath Reaver being a big deal of sorts when it came out as the first real bear in red, even though we'd had 2/2 RR cards for a while, and so I mixed that up with Blue, which hadn't gotten such a thing. It feels a little weird to see Vigilance in Blue, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it conceptually. It's certainly a more fun ability to spam than something like... Skulk... was. And I do think that as fun as Prowess could be it was a really weird ability to stick into sets at random. Vigilance is a commonly seen keyword that's almost always seen on only White creatures, and I think that it conceptually fits the connection between Blue and White very well - it just feels sensible for Blue to be a color that acts defensively even when it attacks. I do feel that it needs to be used with some caution to keep Blue's creatures from being too good at their job - the color still should have the weakest creatures overall - but I think it's a very elegant solution to making it easier to fill in set commons with the color without having to reinvent the wheel. If anything I think Vigilance makes more sense in Blue than it does in Green.
Being a huge fan of slivers and collecting them all to use in my commander deck (with some being rotated in and out to keep it interesting), the blue vigilance of my Synchronous Sliver made it always seem like a secondary color for that ability. Though admittedly it was rare, I wasn't shocked to see it come into play with cards like Vhal, one of my favorite new commanders to play. I paired her with Clan Crafter, which has been a beautiful marriage.
Yeah it should be in blue... It should not be in green (or at least be verry rare). Green has trample as it's main hability, haste and reach. It don't need vigilance as well.
Blue had the "U: Untap this creature" abbility for years. Vigilance is simply a logical sidegrade of this abbility. Serra Sphinx has some amazing art btw.
@@majestyzx9081Not really, being able to untap means you can use the ability multiple times in a turn. In my commander decks that can turn regular creatures into mana dorks I run things that untap my creatures instead of give them vigilance
@@majestyzx9081 That's the trick. Vigilance is better in a vacuum. Vigilance has two weakness vs. untap activated abilities: pushing through tapping effects and abuse for tap cost payments. So vigilance is safer and allows for bigger stats for the mana cost for limited, but removes more combo potential.
The untap ability was much more fitting for blue. As you could combo it with tap mechanics, it works better with "crew" and many mechanics that require tapping as a cost, even convoke. So if anything vigilance should not be on blue creatures, but they should get that ability to untap at will, which feels much more fitting. The name itself "vigilance" is so thematically tight to white and "guards", that a random blue creature that is not "vigilant" at all should not have it.
@@majestyzx9081 Its quite literally a side grade. There are situations where untapping, even for a cost, are better than vigilance, and situations where vigilance is better than untapping. Its a very dangerous mentality to consider anything in magic an objective upgrade - particularly in legacy formats, there are so many different cards that there will be SOME edge case where something is worse than something that seems directly better. Even making an identical card but with a slightly cheaper cost opens you up to 20 new different counters/removal spells, for example. Just to be clear though, untap abilities are not as niche as something cheaper being more vulnerable to specific removal - there are so many different combos that work with tapping/untapping and tapping creatures down for protection has become more popular recently, which untap abilities get around.
It also really makes perfect sense for the blue pumping creatures too, where being able to attack with your bonus damage (from casting spells, etc.) instead of either missing out on blocking or missing out on actually using your creature's bonus, which always feels bad.
Vigilance in blue makes a lot of sense as a preemptive untap. Another ability that could work well if it was keyworded (Binding?) is what appears on Mercurial Kite and Queen of Ice, where damage dealt by them to a creature taps that creature and it doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step. That's definitely a combat-relevant ability. Not sure if that would increase complexity too much with the need to remember something for a future turn.
I'm fine with vigilance in blue, but maybe a keyword that allows a blue creature to bounce another creature when it attacks(or blocks). Like: 1U 2/1 Wind Gust(When ~ attacks, return up to 1 target opponent's creature to their hand). You could even do it like Ward and add different mana restrictions or other flavors of it, like caring about mana cost, or power, or toughness. It could look like "Wind Gust - 2 mana value." "Wind Gust - Power less than 3" etc Feels very blue.
Vigilance makes a LOT of sense to me. I know skulk was tried for a new u/b evasion keyword to....medicoure/underwelming results. PERSONALLY, in addition to vigilance, i'd try reviving shadow primary blue/black. OR maybe some new take on flanking in u/w
I think shadow is redundant, blue already have many evasion abilities (flying, landwalk or simply "cannot be blocked"). But Flanking is good idea. Or maybe some morphling ability (+1/-1 stat buffs).
I gotta say I’m open to a lot of things but I kinda hate vigilance in blue mainly when paired with evasion as it almost always seems to be. Blue has the best card draw by miles, bounce spells, protection through countermagic and evasion for days with unblockability and flying. While I’m griping I should also mention it’s frustrating how much super efficient creature removal green has now. The bite effects everywhere at common that ALSO buff your creature should be higher rarity. Even with that there are now five uncommons or rares per pack with play boosters so the already powercrept cards are even more prevalent. I built a draft deck with only 5 commons in it, that really shouldn’t be possible. There used to be upsides and downsides to particular colors and they’ve all kind of been phased out which causes them to lose identity to me.
Skulk, if it returned as a keyword, has an on board presence that turns low power into an upside. It **also** synergizes well with prowess! Thieves, rogues, ninjas, and adventuring wizards all resonate with skulk. Blue also has a lot of Curiosity effects to make use of it.
I personally feel like flying is already just a very powerful mechanic. In constructed, blue already does so many things. Of course red is its own whole pile of fun, but blue just makes decks work. So considering constructed, I'd have never thought blue needed any help. But in the context of limited, it makes sense. An example here would be malcators watcher. Its just good filler. Its only downside is that you draw it instead of something else. But its almost never not value. Its an outstanding common. (Not in a pauper sense tho) A bad example would be maurauding sphinx. It just does too much already that it really doesnt need vigilance. Tho otj in general seems just way more powerful that the previous few sets. Pretty obvious to see with turn 4 kill decks running rampant and slickshot being able to one shot kill on turn 3 semi consistently, with only instant speed interaction being able to do anything. And guess who's the king of that? Yeah blue does not need any help in constructed. So on uncommons and above use sparingly. But on commons? I thing blue vigilance makes a lot of sense.
I think it makes total sense for blue to get vigilance sometimes, both from a mechanical standpoint and flavor-wise. And as someone who plays Limited as their primary format (been absolutely loving OTJ, by the way!), I’ve been personally really loving vigilance on blue creatures. Haunting Figment was a favorite of mine, given the unhealthy amount of Izzet Balmor and Azorius Raff I played in DMU (another absolute all-star draft format). I’m not as personally invested in Marauding Sphinx, but I do think it perfectly ticks all the boxes for a higher-rarity (even if it only uncommon) finisher in blue. It’s big defensively, chips in for damage over a long game, is hard to kill, and can generate value if left unchecked. It’s the perfect “long game” card, and a good saving grace for blue to have at uncommon in a format where blue is a bit of an underwhelming color overall.
I don't mind the change at all. To be honest, I always felt that the whole "x keyword belongs to y color" thing was always a bit heavy-handed. Like yeah, it's a good way to mechanically represent the identity and flavor of a color. But many keywords represent general concepts that often could make a lot of sense in "wrong" colors given the right situations. Trample in blue is a great example, usually that'd be very "wrong", but blue has several leviathans and other giant sea monsters that totally make sense having trample, and some of them actually do! Yet in many of the custom card communities I visit, I often see people criticizing keyword choices for being the "wrong" color, even though it makes total sense for what the card is trying to be. So kudos to you guys for being willing to explore and continue to show the community that keywords can be used outside their home colors in the right context.
That's not what they're doing though. They're not "exploring using keywords outside of their colors", but expanding what the colors can do. As Gavin himself pointed out, a Red card that bounces wouldn't be printed today.
Blue has always had this weird split in its creature design, where it's mostly weak, semi-cheap creatures with special effects, but then also the occasional "mechanically green but it's a sea creature so it has to be blue" giant fish.
I love the addtional synergy of creatuers being able to attack and also use there tap abilities Blue is the color that should have the most effective tap abilities so instead of making them more directly powerful since things like looting and tap down effects are costed less aggressively than they used to, it holds up that my random 1/3 looter with like UUT: Tap a creature can also attack sometimes since that UU or whatever isn't always a great deal
I find that one interesting balance change is the introduction of "once per turn" on Magic cards. While it is true that they appeared on cards in earlier sets, they seem to come up much more frequently now. Take Morbid Opportunist, for example. Morbid Opportunist activates on any creature dying, which we see a lot of in black, but draws you a card, which is something kind of uncommon in that color. This is balanced by the use of "once per turn." If we look at Blood Artist, who activates on death but drains target opponent for 1, it doesn't share the same restriction. Perhaps if we keep on giving out odd slices of the color pie but give them "once per turn" restrictions and tie-in requirements, we could allow more liberties! Make a red counter spell that can only be played if your opponent has taken non combat damage! Make white card draw that only activates once per turn when you gain life! I implore you to make use of this restriction to allow interesting new ideas and cards to be made.
1. Looting as a triggered ability has been clean for making it better to tangle… red has rummage on combat and blue is getting a few loot on combat. However, if you want a blue mechanic that feels clean and combat, a tweak on myriad would probably be where I put my money. Attack or block trigger make a token copy of a thing that is doing the same thing. Just sort of confusion mechanic… stun also feels like it can be base blue combat trigger. With red second white/black as third, and big green creatures getting it last .
Whenever i think "combat ability for blue" flying is always the first thing to come to mind (as mentioned probably the best one ever) it is true that blue do not have 2/2 for 2 but they have often had 2/1 flying for two which honestly might be slightly better, and while I agree that vigilance fits blue nicely, I think it fits in a strictly defensive way (big defense low attack) something they can chip away damage while staying safe not something that can take over the game like the sphinx (that still feels white to me) . Just like how blue gets big stated minions but only at high mana value and kind of clunky so they never feel green like.
An other alternative I could see would be to lean in the shapshifting ability of blue with mechanics similar to bushido and flanking. For expanding on it's combat ability, I would like to see a comeback of cheap illusions that gets sacrificed when targeted. It would help blue close out games and encourage interaction. In limited, it could also allow for a creative use of combat tricks.
It's been pretty good, to underratedly great to play in limited, especially when paired with flying for "mini-angel" which has carried me in the recent Caverns of Ixalan and definitely made Duelist of the Mind a first pick in drafting OTJ. Just feels like the right kind of "safe" wall that either early for a bit of chip damage or late to REALLY help turn a game around with a massive wall. I do worry if it's "too good" if only because said combination crowds in on white's keyword soup angels department. If you can maintain low power Blue vs "even" white in design, it'd certainly help a lot. Maybe if they're more conditional like Slickshot Vault-Buster's 1/4 Vigilance Blue that gets a a buff on crime so "pseudo-prowess" issues, but I'd say the complexity/interactive fight strength makes it way more blue than a plain good white or red temp attack buff might.
The problem with Vigilance on 2-drop and 1-drop creatures is that that enables aggro decks which is not what blue should do. They can do tempo like with Delver of Secrets but that's about it.
I'm very new to the game and loving it so far. Blue is my favorite color, and it makes sense to me for the quintessential tempo color to have the ability to mess with timing and play state. Having a creature that is both attacking and still able to block seems to fit right in with the high control aspect of blue.
Honestly Azorius shared vigilance so it makes a lot of sense that single white and blue would also have it. Also Sky Hussar(Azorius also) had pseudo vigilance in that it had ETB untap creatures which also feels very blue. Great video and love looking back at the history of cards/colors/ and mechanics, having started around Weatherlight and up since i was a kid
As a relatively new player. Coming in around strixhaven. Seeing the complexity in full swing since then. Has me feeling that it is all still daunting despite my efforts to catch up on all of it. Thankful for keywords. And they’re flexibility in the color pie
Vigi on blue feels fine, but I really do wish there was something else we could do. I was talking to a friend about 4-color identities recently and we agreed defining them based on the one color they lack would be for the best. Like "Not Black" would have no graveyard play. "Not Blue" was the hardest one to define. Flying seemed like a Blue thing, but then again for every mechanic we came up with, it seemed to show up in equal measure in another color. Counterspell was the only thing that really felt blue-only.
I like with double cards they are made to have a word in-between. So, I don't read it as 'dead gone' I read it as 'dead and gone' - same goes for other split cards. They're quite consistent with this too. Other kinds of split cards, like those with aftermath, have a differnt word in the middle. Aftermath's is "to". For example, "Claim to fame", which sounds a lot cooler than Claim fame
I've always thought that blue's access to Vigilance was through untap and flicker effects, which made sense to me because blue tends to hold mana up to change the board at instant speed to bait the opponent into thinking they have the advantage. I don't mind that much about a blue vigilance creature, but it's clear that the concept of "colour identity" has become less relevant over time, and I don't fault the people who have stuck with the game for years for being upset about it.
Haven't watched the video yet but: To me it makes sense for Blue to get Vigilance considering it has had the "M: Untap this creature" ability forever. So for it to NOT get Vigilance to me would have been a bigger surprise. Now that I'm watching it: Serra Sphinx marked the first time that I could ever remember doing well (better than 50/50) at a sealed event of any sort. At the Planar Chaos prerelease I found I had just barely enough cards of relevant types to build something along the lines of Brian Weissman's The Deck, including Magus of the Moat, a handful of counters, a bit of card draw, and Serra Sphinx as my primary wincon. I'm actually really surprised Blue didn't get it before - much like how surprised I was when Leaf Arrow showed up in Rise of the Eldrazi (what, this doesn't already exist??). It feels too natural to me.
That is interesting, for once it seemed at least secondary for blue to me. For some days I played around some own card ideas for my mana rocks commander deck (Karn, Silver Golem). What would I wish for. The colorless and no creature type, made many other possible cards useless. So I thought of more harmless variants to Forsaken Monument and possible key words, and it looked on the first ubalanced with the key words White: vigilance, lifelink Blue: hexproof, flying, flash Black: menance, deathtouch, fear Red: first strike, haste Green: trample, reach Now I have 5 based on Scion of Draco, which, still some are confusing, because lifelink is in black, it feels wierd to me. And for naming blue with flying would be easier 😅
I was watching a let's play of the old Shandalar game which introduced me to zephyr falcon & vigilance before vigilance. It was very unexpected but upon thinking about it, it did feel apt. It didn't feel like a violation of colour philosophy. Vigilance is my favourite keyword (sorry lifelink) so I'm happy to see that it might entice me into blue more rather than all the mill and counterspell meme strategies that advertise it as an unfun colour.
I'm inclined to believe that each colorpair should have an evergreen keyword, and that the Core Set (which should exist) should really play up these evergreen keywords: WU Vigilance, BR Menace, RG Trample, GW Reach, WB Lifelink, BG Deathtouch, GU Hexproof, UR Prowess, RW First Strike. The only problem color pair is UB, at least with established keywords. (I mean, I know a few options that would work, but I'm talking about pre-existing mechanics). One important thing is that the mechanic should feel different in each color. For example, Green's Deathtouch is poison, but Black's is often "death magic." Similarly, they should often be mechanically different - ex: white's Vigilance should be "this creature attacks and blocks!" while Blue's really should be "This creature can attack... and still use it's tap ability." Blue creatures w/ vigilance and w/o a tap ability just feel "off." Vigilance never really worked, flavorfully, in green, much like how reach doesn't generally work in red.
Isn't UB Flash? And the pairs used to be: WU: Flying UB: Flash BR: Menace RG: Trample GW: Vigilance WB: Lifelink BG: Deathtouch GU: Hexproof UR: ? (Prowess before it was made decidious) RW: First Strike
@@RasmusVJS In a vacuum I think UG might be Flash because Hexproof wouldn't be on enough creatures in the core set (Although I'd fight for that 1 drop, @ (U) if need be). The problem with flash is that WOTC likes using it on ETB creatures often enough that it'll muddy the waters too much for a core set. I'm inclined to think that UB (and maybe UR if Prowess isn't evergreen anymore) should probably have saboteur keywords as it encourages attacking and blocking in a way other keywords don't. For example, UR could have "Treasuremaker" and make a treasure whenever it deals combat damage to an opponent. (I HATE this as a core set keyword, keywords that make tokens shouldn't be evergreen for a variety of reasons, it's just an example of an on-color saboteur effect. Frankly, I know what I'd do for the two keywords if it was up to me, but youtube comments isn't the place for this kind of detailed discussion. To be clear I'm not really afraid WOTC would steel my ideas so much as treat them as off limits because I mentioned them unsolicitedly.
Vigilance fits perfectly. Other ideas are: 1) Keyword X for "creature blocking or blocked by this creature gets -X/-0". This allows blue's poorly stated creatures to play a bigger role in combat. 2) Keyword for "creature blocking or blocked by this creature gets tapped and a stun counter put on it". This can be hopefully be used to open up the battlefield more than it causes board stalls (like the first one probably does).
this felt like the right choice. like its the most fitting combat keyword that already exists that also works in pretty much any set so long as creatures are around to do combat
If it's thought necessary to give blue some extra identity in combat in addition to vigilance (side note i like vigilance being in blue) I think a variation on boast that lets you tap the creature while its attacking for an effect could provide an interesting dynamic kind of similar to how canyon crab play. I've been finding canyon crab unexpectedly fun in draft thanks to the flexible/variable attack stat...
I wonder if any of the other blue staple abilities could be keyworded to work in combat. Either something like a stun ability that taps and/or places a stun counter on attack or maybe an ability to bounce a creature that is dealt damage, like a pseudo deathtouch if it bounces opponent's creature or a protection against getting blocked by something with a certain power threshold. In my mind, blue's combat abilities should focus on tempo.
I'm always cautious about the five "true" keyword abilities: White/Vigilance, Blue/Flying, Black/Deathtouch, Red/Haste, Green/Trample. To me, I start to worry about wizards whenever core things change. Isn't flying enough for blue?
Not much to say except that, aside from being happy that you guys found a satisfactory mechanic from the design point of view, I personally like Vigilance in my creatures as it feels good to attack and not worry about lack of blockers. So yeah, it adds a feel good factor from a mechanic that may have been a bit underrepresented for my taste.
As a long-term veteran of Magic -play(ed) from 4th Edition to Mirrodin and from Dragon's Maze until now - I believe that color breaks in evergreen keywords are fine, as long as they are done as deliberate color breaks. I'm not thrilled in simply moving Haste into Green en masse or moving Trample into Black en masse, for example. But a bit of a color shift/blur is fine with me on occasion. Vigiliance in particular has never felt especially "White" to me, anyway, not nearly as much as Haste feels Red and Trample feels Green, for example.
Some custom designers have been experimenting with blue menace, flavorfully it doesn't fit it fits in nicely mechanically. Blue has evasion and each set has a flying budget.
A proposal for a blue (and black) combat keyword: disengage {cost} When a creature with disengage is blocked, you may pay {cost} to remove it from combat. This means you can create uncomfortable attack scenarios for the opponent and bail your creatures out of bad trades, for a cost. I would have black creatures pay in life and blue one in small amounts of mana. Or maybe it's safe enough that you can make it have no cost
The effect of disengage is making the creature impossible to kill through combat (as long as you can pay the cost). It's interesting but definitely not safe at no cost as attacking with multiple creatures with this effect guarantees a good outcome, specially on big creatures. The concept is interesting, but while the name and logic feels blue, the actual execution feels mono black. If the cost is significative (paying 4-5 life, sacrificing a creature or discarding a card), it asks you how far are you willing to go to save this one creature from a certain death. Paying mana (an impactful amount) feels green as it's a force of nature you can delay but not defeat.
I think blue could use more creatures with stun counters when they interact with other creatures in combat, something like a "freeze" mechanic, Wall of frost does this without the counters, but keywording it and using the counters would be a more modern approach and it could be a payoff for having blue creatures in combat. If white likes to tap creatures to prevent them from blocking, blue could have triggers on attack, on block or on combat damage that freeze the opponent's creatures for additional tempo.
I've liked blue vigilance a lot, the one downside is the increased prevalence overall combined with fewer tap abilities since the "once per turn" triggers got more common makes it so the white "destroy target tapped creature" effects more often don't kill the creature you've been attacked with or that's activated its ability. Also Red can untap creatures by virtue of Threaten effects.
I personally also think vigilance fits blue with the tapping/untapping theme it has. And I agree with many other comments, that it felt natural to see it on blue creatures. I’d love to see more of it in the future.
I think counter spells in green would be an interesting addition. They have so little interaction in standard. It's near impossible to play a mono-green deck without more ways to interact.
I could get behind this, maybe no countering spells, but more focus of non permanent countering and abilities, they are generally more expensive than blue counter magic too
Vigilance feels very right in blue. One thing I would also put more of in blue is Protection from (creature type), or perhaps Protection from (Enchanted creatures) or something very specific. Like the subject of their studies has given them deep insight into how to effectively counter a very specific kind of creature or smth, similar to ranger's favored enemy in D&D
On the talk of new timespiral ideas. Wouldn't it be cool with some sort of set that have a place for weirder creatures, like biblically acurate angels, more things that look like the elementals and incarnations from lorwyn. Creatures that blend different creatures and challanges how many apendiges something has without making them eldrazis. As a matter of fact they could even be a cosmic counterpoint to eldrazis from the "everseeing impermanence". (You can have that name for free 😄). You could be very experimental with a set like that. Have flicker be a setmechanic for example. Make creatures grow with +1/+1 counters as you pay cumulative upkeep costs or have them flicker back to 0/1 to not have to sacrifice them. Just some food for thought.
The closest thing to planar chaos are some modern horizons cards, where mechanics (occasionally from colors or color pairs) are put onto new colors or color pairs. It's not like the alternate future cards that have the same rules text converted to a new color, but it's close.
I'm curious how Skulk fits into this timeline of keywords for Blue. I know it was considered an unpopular mechanic, but it seems to be returning more recently (although without the actual keyword) so I'd love to hear the current internal opinions on it as well.
I think vigilance in green should be specific to creatures that are more like blockers, with more toughness than power. Imagine a hulking treefolk or elemental, for example. Plus points if it also has reach so you can attack whenever there's the opportunity but still defend from flyers next turn. But for something like, let's say, End-Raze Forerunners, why does that card have vigilance? It already has haste. The trade-off of haste is that you get some damage in right away at the expense of not being able to block next turn. Also, End-Raze Forerunners is an overrun-like card. It's meant to end games. So why would you need the blocking insurance of vigilance? You're supposed to risk everything in that one attack and suffer the consequences if your opponent manages to survive.
I think this change also makes strategic sense for limited. Blue often has slow strategies that benefit from keeping blockers up, and being able to chip away at opponents while still holding blockers back will help ensure that blue's defenses will be strong and benefit a long game plan.
I would love creatures like a blue 2/1 to have "first strike when you use an instant or sorcery", even double strike for some one offs(like a 1/3) You can increase the firepower alike prowess, but also increasing defensive capabilities to turn an Opt into a combat trick by itself
At first i didn't like it, but thinking more about it, I like it. Blue already does tap and untap shenanigans, so it fits thematically. it also helps spellslinger decks since they can attack for damage and still have blockers to defend themselves later
I agree with some others that it would be interested to give blue a pseudo-vigilance that reads like "At the end of combat you may untap this creature." Keyword could be something like Watchful, Prudent, or Wary
I'm glad blue has an honest-to-goodness evergreen combat keyword. I was beginning to think blue was just going to have to make do with a pastiche of prowess, skulk, shrink, tap, stun, flying, and bounce (some of those would be triggered abilities). Being the color most associated with subterfuge, never quite knowing what a blue player has up her sleeve seems appropriate.
While I think vigilance in blue is fine, I could also have seen an "untap this whenever this deals combat damage" keyword working in blue, perhaps flavored to be diving into/out of water to attack opponents. It could also play well with stun counters and let green fogs play into being blue's enemy. Also, there could be some shenanigans with that one legend that lets you block with tapped creatures.
In regards to Prowess being too powerful due to it adding in a lot of complexity, perhaps there is room for a sorcery speed version. Like Prowess but only on your turn. Or prowess but only during your main phase (Which is clunky). I am a bit surprised it took like 20 years to decide that blue can have access to vigilance. I know the game grows and changes both in drastic and subtle ways a lot but in this case the lack of an answer there is pretty stunning. Especially since I think it makes a ton of sense for them. Blue is inherently sort of defensive as a color, so the idea that you would have creatures with vigilance that can both attack while also being able to play defense just feels like it makes a lot of sense.
Not surprised by Vigilance. But could you speak on creature sizing? Like a lot of the colors have even 3/2 for 1C and even mono blue now has access to a couple 3/1 for 2. As well as other creatures up the curve. Like Sheoldred, Mavrin and Ghalta, Yargle and Multani, and the Colossal Rattlewurm?
I would have the creature untap after combat. you could pair it with a fix stat boost for the creature depending on its tap status (+x/+0 while taped +0/+x while untaped) it would work as a fixed combat ability while also working with the whole "change" thing blue has going
I like mechanics sitting comfortably in 3 colors. Artifact removal in Naya. Vigilance in Bant. Haste in Jund. Returning creatures from the graveyard in Abzan.
Think others have said it above, but "icetouch" could be an alternative ability - similar templating to deathtouch, but instead of destroying the opposing creature you tap it and put a stun counter on it
I think Planar Chaos should happen again. Modern Horizons and Commander Legends are pretty similar in my opinion, especially with how much each color's identity has grown in the last few years. I think it's an absolute treat of an idea for a set and it would be sad if Wizards couldn't make another one. You never know if it's a true failure until it's been done twice! Perhaps there's a design space for a much smaller set, something like the From the Vault series, for Planar Chaos styles of designs. That way the interest can be tested without a huge commitment.
I have thought about blue getting a bit of menace before as an alternative mid-power combat keyword. Menace has proven to play nicely and it’d fill the UR evergreen keyword slot that’s been empty since the demotion of prowess. That said vigilance is just a perfect fit, and the team doesn’t seem to be in any rush finding a new UR keyword (particularly not another evasion keyword), so I’m not holding my breath.
I think more restrictions on it would be good, having good defense on a vigilance creature feels more white than blue. Creatures that are more likely to die blocking having vigilance in blue makes it feel like it's a more temporary effect, similar to untapping as a combat trick. This could also work well with blues swapping power and toughness to come out on top in a blocking scenario.
New combat ability for blue: Shield - If this creature blocks, it gains indestructible (till eot) BUT the attacking creature gains trample (till eot). Lorewise this could be the outer shell of a crustacean or a protective mage spell.
I wasn’t so surprised by vigilance in blue. I’m more surprised I didn’t notice.
Same. I read the title and thought "wait is blue vigilance not normal?". I mandella effect'd myself into thinking blue vigilance was always a thing lol
It took me until Brother's War to notice
It seems you weren't vigilant. 🤔
Yeah, having planar chaos stuff that I used in commander messed with my mind so that blue vigilance seemed normal
Same here, I’d never even thought about it til I saw this video
"Every color but blue can get 1U 2/2s." Very green thing to do there.
This is funny because UU for a 2/2 with upside was in Alpha
@@resolution5 1U and UU are not the same mana cost -- especially when we're talking about playability in limited!
I guess you could say blue is green with envy for not having one in common
Vigilance felt so natural in Blue that I didn't even notice it happen. It just felt like it was always there.
To me it was always there, as storm crow is one of the earliest MTG cards I can remember. Don't know why, it just happens that my friends had this card and played with it sometimes
@@pedroaffonso82 I think you're experiencing the Mandela effect. Storm Crow never had vigilance
Myself too
I've always thought there is good unexplored design space with conditional psudo-vigilance. "When this creature is blocked, untap it" "When this creature deals combat damage to a player, untap it," "U: Untap this creature, use only during combat" "At the beginning of your turn, choose one: +2/+0, vigilance"
But of course, as a spider I am always negative on blue getting better at creatures!~
You can solve what you said with "when this creature deals combat damage, untap it".
I can see these on one off designs, but I doubt they would be used as much as “first strike only on your turn” for instance.
At that point why not just do vigilance?
I really like the idea of "when this creature is blocked, untap it". I feel like that could support a lot of different sneaky things that Blue likes to do.
@@jameshayes-barber9340 Untapping can trigger some stuff. And if it doesn't deal any damage for any reason, it would still be tapped.
On the notion of planar chaos, I would like to share this one idea that had bounced in my head: alternate reality unignited versions of the gatewatch, each relevant to a different path to their pivotal moments.
Kytheon accepting the death of his allies and becoming Erebos' demigod, Liliana turning to herbological solutions to her brother's ailment rather than the necromantic shortcut, Nissa finding Ugin rather than an eldrazi and studying under him, Etc.
Wishful thinking for a set that'll never exist.
seems like sth they could do in an MH or MH-style set, as MH3 shows
Alt timeline of characters would be a great idea. Could also extend it to some weird tribal colors, which shouldn't break standard. Blue Elves. Red Merfolk. Black birds.
Now, Islandhome, now there's a fine keyword.
Hey I remember you, you commented on Gatherer all the time before that shut down.
I wish they stuck with that and islandwalk, was a cool angle for blue, converting their special lands into something that let you be aggressive in a novel way.
I feel vigilance is mainly a White color key word but then it makes perfect sense that it is in the two allies of White; Green and Blue. It also seems to fit Blue's identity of seeking / knowing information thus being able to attack and still block due to intel.
I really like stun counters in blue, and to that end I also like blue tapping things. To that end especially in commander/multiplayer formats giving blue creatures the ability to tap creatures they fight and/or put stun counters on them depending on how strong of an effect you want seems like a nice choice.
Then the natural blue combo is "block this and get temporarily locked down" or "don't block this and let me draw cards from enchantments/effects".
This could give blue an actual "combat ideal" beyond just evasive creatures/bombs.
White really wants to have robust armies, Red wants fast/cheap creatures to make fast value, Green wants the giant creature with trample to fight through anything, and Black wants make combat an eventuality with revives, -1/-1 effects, and sacrificial creatures. Blue doesn't really fit into this whole ideal of having a combat style besides "evasive" I guess.
I think I could get behind a "stunning" keyword in blue that disincentivizes people form blocking blue creatures. I think the only problem with the idea is that flying pretty much locks down the evasive side of things for blue, so adding more evasive options isn't necessarily needed/wanted. Maybe 'stunning' or something like it could stun attackers being blocked by a blue creature, which would help with the defensive issue that vigilance aims to correct. This is probably design space that wizards doesn't want to go down because now we're adding more things to keep track of and slowing games down a bit too much for an evergreen keyword.
True, you could have a keyword that taps a creatures and puts X stun counters on them like Freeze 1(when ~ attacks, you may tap 1 target creature you don't control. If you do, put 1 stun counter on it)
Blue is ass and the cheesiest cheap color
I agree, i feel that using ice magic to freeze/stun enemies should be more common in blue. I mean if red gets fire magic, then its logical for blue to get water/ice magic.
@@eewweeppkk Such a mechanic could be used to reduce the reliance of blue on flying, which I would be in favour of. Flying is a very low interaction evasion keyword - you just either have a flier to block with or you don't. More consequence-based evasion would allow blue to have better evasive creatures since opponents would have more avenues for dealing with them.
Blue having vigilance feels extremely appropriate and I have been looking forward to it ever since I read it in an article by Mark Rosewater on the (then current )glossary of abilities and what colors have those abilities primarily, secundarily and very infrequently, mind you this was years ago. What I'm still looking forward to is when we get to have UW vigilance matter cards like we had GW vigilance matter cards in Ikoria.
It won't take long, probably.
I think a good way to print a looter at common would be to make you choose between looting and vigilance. Like it has vigilance but can loot only as a sorcery. Or it has vigilance and a tap ability that makes it so the next time it deals combat damage to a player this turn, you get to loot.
Next thing you know, we’re gonna see 4/4 flying vigilance on creatures outside of Golgari!
not sure abou vigi, since blue is so mysterious i think the adequate behaviour would be to use a keyword for stunning/tapping, use the tempo advantage that is so blue, there is a card in this set that stuns if tapped and taps if is untapped, to me, that's the way to go with blue.
I think Vigilance in blue fits but the issue is that it turns the color that's already the absolute best at digging for answers into one that can both attack and be defensive. That's a significant risk when buying a turn or two is often all blue needs to find the card it's looking for to turn the corner. When blue's the "I have answers" color and is dependent on another color for aggression it balances out with other risks (in limited it's about multi-color fixing, in constructed it's about needing to balance the answers and threats against an ever evolving metagame). When it can just be blue for answers as well as aggression plus defense then the other color becomes much more splashable and, thus, less of a risk. Which is, itself, a massive risk in the color of finding answers.
Marauding Sphinx has definitely felt like the most pushed uncommon in limited, the vigilance pushes it trough the roof
Literally rode this card to the top
man, i LOVED feeling blue having a board presencefor a change.
The akroma amount of keywords on this card
At my last FNM draft, I was getting beaten down by a Marauding Sphinx... until I played the equally pushed Spinewoods Armadillo to block it. It's like Herd Migration at uncommon.
Oh my god, I assumed it was a rare.
Coming into magic in OG Ravnica, Vigilance in Blue feels like.. It fits? Like Azorious kinda made Vigilance a Blue/White keyword to me so it's honestly more a case of "Oh, yeah I guess it wasn't really a Blue keyword until recently." because it would be on Azorious cards or playing Azorious you'd have access to vigilance cards because White was in the colour combo.
I haven't played the latest sets but I'm not surprised to see this happen. I always felt like Vigilance was a bit redundant with lifelink in white, they both affect the game state in the same way in that they allow you to attack in instead of having to hold back in losing/even situations. Lifelink is a bit better because it also makes it harder for the opponent to catch up when you're winning, so makes sense to spread vigilance to more colors.
Honestly what's really needed is for white to get another keyword. Something that is thematically similar to banding or soulbond but without being so complicated/weird to interact with. That would make white more interesting to play.
Fully agree that Planar Chaos would be a hard sell today, but I oh so love the "alternate universe" trope and wouldn't mind seeing it revisited. Funnily enough, March of the Machine kind of did this with the unlikely pairings, which I also adored
I will say I always like this insight into how wizards looks at fundamental building blocks of the game like color. I didn’t even really notice that much that blue got vigilance (probably because I had only just begun playing seriously when they did) but this insight helped me understand better how the design team looks at the color pie! Thx Gavin
I think this one's a good choice. I guess just because I'm old, I thought Vigilance was *already* in blue because of Zephyr Falcon, so when it started showing up again, I didn't even register that anything had changed (I don't really *play* Blue so I never really noticed its absence, either, lol). Also, as an aside, it's really nice seeing more videos from you again!
Mechanically, I believe this move was perfect as Blue really loves what vigilance does for it.
But flavorfully, I was a bit hesitant at first, but once you mentioned how Green also got the keyword and how they each got vigilance secondarily to White, then it made the flavor click into place in my head.
So overall, I believe the decision is very sound and I'm glad we finally got here in the end.
The comment of Prowess being, in a way, at odds with izzet/spell heavy themes because it's more inclusive than just "instants and sorceries" is really interesting because of how in Wilds of Eldraine most recently, both Elusive Otter and Frolicking Familiar were printed. 1 using prowess, the other just instants and sorceries.
I still run both in my Monastery Monk deck but I did notice the slight inconsistency when building it and wondered why that was.
Vigilance in blue is rather fitting, even more than in green.
However, it has the issue of changing the game dynamic a lot if used more than sparingly.
Why did I immediately think of the Black-Green Serra Angel when i saw this topic?????? IYKYK
THE GOLGARI DEATH SWARM, BABY!
Because this video is fundamentally the death knell of the logic used by detractors of that question. If both White and Blue have access to flying and vigilance then a multicolor creature with those abilities, that can't be a color that would support both as a monocolor, removes white/blue from consideration.
@@ZefulStarson Counterpoint: Skyknight Legionnaire. Or Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier. Or Vraska Joins Up. Notice that the last two are from the newest set. There's plenty of cards which gain mechanically unnecessary additional colours for the sake of flavour, set mechanics, balance or Commander viability. 4/4 flying vigilance french vanilla is a recognizable statline connected to white creatures and a good designer should take such mechanical continuity nods into account. That doesn't mean that you can't make a BG one, but in the actual game UW is the natural choice and the more correct choice. That question rewarded blindly following the rules and penalized having actual knowledge of the game.
@ZefulStarson I'd say the opposite, multicolor cards that do the thing that both colors do but stronger because its multicolor is a common design.
@@jonarbackle1185 Well said. It felt less like a game design question and more of a gotcha question to see if people read what the question wanted(whether it was good game design or not)
I so appreciate getting an ear to the ground on the thoughts of the design team. It really helps to hear how deeply you guys are thinking about the game, and to get explanations for seemingly out of the box changes.
blue being the 'doing a bunch of spells and abilities all the time color' with some of the weakest creatures, having a few that can attack, then still tap to do something, doesn't feel like it's wandering from the colors core
Certainly helps the commander format and keeping blockers up. Rather see more temporary vigilance or ensuring sources of vigilance as payoff for a triggered ability:
Example: whenever you cast your second instant or sorcery for the turn you may give vigilance to target creature
The 1U 2/2 question got me. For some reason I thought it was like, 2017 or 2014 or something. I thought about it for a while and remembered that it was because of Falkenrath Reaver being a big deal of sorts when it came out as the first real bear in red, even though we'd had 2/2 RR cards for a while, and so I mixed that up with Blue, which hadn't gotten such a thing.
It feels a little weird to see Vigilance in Blue, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it conceptually. It's certainly a more fun ability to spam than something like... Skulk... was. And I do think that as fun as Prowess could be it was a really weird ability to stick into sets at random. Vigilance is a commonly seen keyword that's almost always seen on only White creatures, and I think that it conceptually fits the connection between Blue and White very well - it just feels sensible for Blue to be a color that acts defensively even when it attacks. I do feel that it needs to be used with some caution to keep Blue's creatures from being too good at their job - the color still should have the weakest creatures overall - but I think it's a very elegant solution to making it easier to fill in set commons with the color without having to reinvent the wheel. If anything I think Vigilance makes more sense in Blue than it does in Green.
I think it's a testament to how good it fits that I didn't even notice the change.
Being a huge fan of slivers and collecting them all to use in my commander deck (with some being rotated in and out to keep it interesting), the blue vigilance of my Synchronous Sliver made it always seem like a secondary color for that ability. Though admittedly it was rare, I wasn't shocked to see it come into play with cards like Vhal, one of my favorite new commanders to play. I paired her with Clan Crafter, which has been a beautiful marriage.
Yeah it should be in blue... It should not be in green (or at least be verry rare). Green has trample as it's main hability, haste and reach. It don't need vigilance as well.
Listen to this guy lol ok there fella
Blue had the "U: Untap this creature" abbility for years. Vigilance is simply a logical sidegrade of this abbility.
Serra Sphinx has some amazing art btw.
Vigilance isn't a "side grade" it's a clear upgrade. Untap abilities cost resources be it mana or other creatures, vigilance doesn't.
@@majestyzx9081Not really, being able to untap means you can use the ability multiple times in a turn. In my commander decks that can turn regular creatures into mana dorks I run things that untap my creatures instead of give them vigilance
@@majestyzx9081 That's the trick. Vigilance is better in a vacuum. Vigilance has two weakness vs. untap activated abilities: pushing through tapping effects and abuse for tap cost payments. So vigilance is safer and allows for bigger stats for the mana cost for limited, but removes more combo potential.
The untap ability was much more fitting for blue. As you could combo it with tap mechanics, it works better with "crew" and many mechanics that require tapping as a cost, even convoke.
So if anything vigilance should not be on blue creatures, but they should get that ability to untap at will, which feels much more fitting.
The name itself "vigilance" is so thematically tight to white and "guards", that a random blue creature that is not "vigilant" at all should not have it.
@@majestyzx9081 Its quite literally a side grade. There are situations where untapping, even for a cost, are better than vigilance, and situations where vigilance is better than untapping.
Its a very dangerous mentality to consider anything in magic an objective upgrade - particularly in legacy formats, there are so many different cards that there will be SOME edge case where something is worse than something that seems directly better. Even making an identical card but with a slightly cheaper cost opens you up to 20 new different counters/removal spells, for example. Just to be clear though, untap abilities are not as niche as something cheaper being more vulnerable to specific removal - there are so many different combos that work with tapping/untapping and tapping creatures down for protection has become more popular recently, which untap abilities get around.
idk if green needs vigilance tbh
It also really makes perfect sense for the blue pumping creatures too, where being able to attack with your bonus damage (from casting spells, etc.) instead of either missing out on blocking or missing out on actually using your creature's bonus, which always feels bad.
Vigilance in blue makes a lot of sense as a preemptive untap. Another ability that could work well if it was keyworded (Binding?) is what appears on Mercurial Kite and Queen of Ice, where damage dealt by them to a creature taps that creature and it doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step. That's definitely a combat-relevant ability. Not sure if that would increase complexity too much with the need to remember something for a future turn.
Blue creatures already have great evasion to connect damage, they don’t need built-in defense.
Dude my mind went right to the sphinx!!! I loved that card!!! I've still got one sitting around somewhere
I'm fine with vigilance in blue, but maybe a keyword that allows a blue creature to bounce another creature when it attacks(or blocks).
Like:
1U
2/1
Wind Gust(When ~ attacks, return up to 1 target opponent's creature to their hand).
You could even do it like Ward and add different mana restrictions or other flavors of it, like caring about mana cost, or power, or toughness.
It could look like "Wind Gust - 2 mana value." "Wind Gust - Power less than 3" etc
Feels very blue.
Vigilance makes a LOT of sense to me. I know skulk was tried for a new u/b evasion keyword to....medicoure/underwelming results.
PERSONALLY, in addition to vigilance, i'd try reviving shadow primary blue/black. OR maybe some new take on flanking in u/w
I think shadow is redundant, blue already have many evasion abilities (flying, landwalk or simply "cannot be blocked"). But Flanking is good idea. Or maybe some morphling ability (+1/-1 stat buffs).
I gotta say I’m open to a lot of things but I kinda hate vigilance in blue mainly when paired with evasion as it almost always seems to be. Blue has the best card draw by miles, bounce spells, protection through countermagic and evasion for days with unblockability and flying. While I’m griping I should also mention it’s frustrating how much super efficient creature removal green has now. The bite effects everywhere at common that ALSO buff your creature should be higher rarity. Even with that there are now five uncommons or rares per pack with play boosters so the already powercrept cards are even more prevalent. I built a draft deck with only 5 commons in it, that really shouldn’t be possible. There used to be upsides and downsides to particular colors and they’ve all kind of been phased out which causes them to lose identity to me.
Skulk, if it returned as a keyword, has an on board presence that turns low power into an upside. It **also** synergizes well with prowess! Thieves, rogues, ninjas, and adventuring wizards all resonate with skulk. Blue also has a lot of Curiosity effects to make use of it.
I personally feel like flying is already just a very powerful mechanic. In constructed, blue already does so many things. Of course red is its own whole pile of fun, but blue just makes decks work. So considering constructed, I'd have never thought blue needed any help. But in the context of limited, it makes sense.
An example here would be malcators watcher. Its just good filler. Its only downside is that you draw it instead of something else. But its almost never not value. Its an outstanding common. (Not in a pauper sense tho)
A bad example would be maurauding sphinx. It just does too much already that it really doesnt need vigilance. Tho otj in general seems just way more powerful that the previous few sets. Pretty obvious to see with turn 4 kill decks running rampant and slickshot being able to one shot kill on turn 3 semi consistently, with only instant speed interaction being able to do anything. And guess who's the king of that? Yeah blue does not need any help in constructed. So on uncommons and above use sparingly. But on commons? I thing blue vigilance makes a lot of sense.
I think it makes total sense for blue to get vigilance sometimes, both from a mechanical standpoint and flavor-wise. And as someone who plays Limited as their primary format (been absolutely loving OTJ, by the way!), I’ve been personally really loving vigilance on blue creatures. Haunting Figment was a favorite of mine, given the unhealthy amount of Izzet Balmor and Azorius Raff I played in DMU (another absolute all-star draft format).
I’m not as personally invested in Marauding Sphinx, but I do think it perfectly ticks all the boxes for a higher-rarity (even if it only uncommon) finisher in blue. It’s big defensively, chips in for damage over a long game, is hard to kill, and can generate value if left unchecked. It’s the perfect “long game” card, and a good saving grace for blue to have at uncommon in a format where blue is a bit of an underwhelming color overall.
I don't mind the change at all. To be honest, I always felt that the whole "x keyword belongs to y color" thing was always a bit heavy-handed. Like yeah, it's a good way to mechanically represent the identity and flavor of a color. But many keywords represent general concepts that often could make a lot of sense in "wrong" colors given the right situations. Trample in blue is a great example, usually that'd be very "wrong", but blue has several leviathans and other giant sea monsters that totally make sense having trample, and some of them actually do!
Yet in many of the custom card communities I visit, I often see people criticizing keyword choices for being the "wrong" color, even though it makes total sense for what the card is trying to be. So kudos to you guys for being willing to explore and continue to show the community that keywords can be used outside their home colors in the right context.
That's not what they're doing though. They're not "exploring using keywords outside of their colors", but expanding what the colors can do. As Gavin himself pointed out, a Red card that bounces wouldn't be printed today.
Blue has always had this weird split in its creature design, where it's mostly weak, semi-cheap creatures with special effects, but then also the occasional "mechanically green but it's a sea creature so it has to be blue" giant fish.
I love the addtional synergy of creatuers being able to attack and also use there tap abilities
Blue is the color that should have the most effective tap abilities so instead of making them more directly powerful since things like looting and tap down effects are costed less aggressively than they used to, it holds up that my random 1/3 looter with like UUT: Tap a creature can also attack sometimes since that UU or whatever isn't always a great deal
I find that one interesting balance change is the introduction of "once per turn" on Magic cards. While it is true that they appeared on cards in earlier sets, they seem to come up much more frequently now. Take Morbid Opportunist, for example. Morbid Opportunist activates on any creature dying, which we see a lot of in black, but draws you a card, which is something kind of uncommon in that color. This is balanced by the use of "once per turn." If we look at Blood Artist, who activates on death but drains target opponent for 1, it doesn't share the same restriction. Perhaps if we keep on giving out odd slices of the color pie but give them "once per turn" restrictions and tie-in requirements, we could allow more liberties! Make a red counter spell that can only be played if your opponent has taken non combat damage! Make white card draw that only activates once per turn when you gain life! I implore you to make use of this restriction to allow interesting new ideas and cards to be made.
1. Looting as a triggered ability has been clean for making it better to tangle… red has rummage on combat and blue is getting a few loot on combat. However, if you want a blue mechanic that feels clean and combat, a tweak on myriad would probably be where I put my money. Attack or block trigger make a token copy of a thing that is doing the same thing. Just sort of confusion mechanic… stun also feels like it can be base blue combat trigger. With red second white/black as third, and big green creatures getting it last .
Whenever i think "combat ability for blue" flying is always the first thing to come to mind (as mentioned probably the best one ever) it is true that blue do not have 2/2 for 2 but they have often had 2/1 flying for two which honestly might be slightly better, and while I agree that vigilance fits blue nicely, I think it fits in a strictly defensive way (big defense low attack) something they can chip away damage while staying safe not something that can take over the game like the sphinx (that still feels white to me) . Just like how blue gets big stated minions but only at high mana value and kind of clunky so they never feel green like.
An other alternative I could see would be to lean in the shapshifting ability of blue with mechanics similar to bushido and flanking.
For expanding on it's combat ability, I would like to see a comeback of cheap illusions that gets sacrificed when targeted. It would help blue close out games and encourage interaction. In limited, it could also allow for a creative use of combat tricks.
It's been pretty good, to underratedly great to play in limited, especially when paired with flying for "mini-angel" which has carried me in the recent Caverns of Ixalan and definitely made Duelist of the Mind a first pick in drafting OTJ. Just feels like the right kind of "safe" wall that either early for a bit of chip damage or late to REALLY help turn a game around with a massive wall.
I do worry if it's "too good" if only because said combination crowds in on white's keyword soup angels department. If you can maintain low power Blue vs "even" white in design, it'd certainly help a lot.
Maybe if they're more conditional like Slickshot Vault-Buster's 1/4 Vigilance Blue that gets a a buff on crime so "pseudo-prowess" issues, but I'd say the complexity/interactive fight strength makes it way more blue than a plain good white or red temp attack buff might.
I love it. Vigilance always felt more like a defensive ability to me so seeing it on blue makes sense to me.
The problem with Vigilance on 2-drop and 1-drop creatures is that that enables aggro decks which is not what blue should do. They can do tempo like with Delver of Secrets but that's about it.
I'm very new to the game and loving it so far. Blue is my favorite color, and it makes sense to me for the quintessential tempo color to have the ability to mess with timing and play state. Having a creature that is both attacking and still able to block seems to fit right in with the high control aspect of blue.
Honestly Azorius shared vigilance so it makes a lot of sense that single white and blue would also have it. Also Sky Hussar(Azorius also) had pseudo vigilance in that it had ETB untap creatures which also feels very blue. Great video and love looking back at the history of cards/colors/ and mechanics, having started around Weatherlight and up since i was a kid
"Limited sets have been bangers" proceeds to show March of the Machines... At least he knew not to include MKM...
As a relatively new player. Coming in around strixhaven. Seeing the complexity in full swing since then. Has me feeling that it is all still daunting despite my efforts to catch up on all of it. Thankful for keywords. And they’re flexibility in the color pie
Vigi on blue feels fine, but I really do wish there was something else we could do. I was talking to a friend about 4-color identities recently and we agreed defining them based on the one color they lack would be for the best. Like "Not Black" would have no graveyard play. "Not Blue" was the hardest one to define. Flying seemed like a Blue thing, but then again for every mechanic we came up with, it seemed to show up in equal measure in another color. Counterspell was the only thing that really felt blue-only.
I like with double cards they are made to have a word in-between. So, I don't read it as 'dead gone' I read it as 'dead and gone' - same goes for other split cards. They're quite consistent with this too. Other kinds of split cards, like those with aftermath, have a differnt word in the middle. Aftermath's is "to". For example, "Claim to fame", which sounds a lot cooler than Claim fame
I've always thought that blue's access to Vigilance was through untap and flicker effects, which made sense to me because blue tends to hold mana up to change the board at instant speed to bait the opponent into thinking they have the advantage. I don't mind that much about a blue vigilance creature, but it's clear that the concept of "colour identity" has become less relevant over time, and I don't fault the people who have stuck with the game for years for being upset about it.
Haven't watched the video yet but:
To me it makes sense for Blue to get Vigilance considering it has had the "M: Untap this creature" ability forever. So for it to NOT get Vigilance to me would have been a bigger surprise.
Now that I'm watching it:
Serra Sphinx marked the first time that I could ever remember doing well (better than 50/50) at a sealed event of any sort. At the Planar Chaos prerelease I found I had just barely enough cards of relevant types to build something along the lines of Brian Weissman's The Deck, including Magus of the Moat, a handful of counters, a bit of card draw, and Serra Sphinx as my primary wincon.
I'm actually really surprised Blue didn't get it before - much like how surprised I was when Leaf Arrow showed up in Rise of the Eldrazi (what, this doesn't already exist??). It feels too natural to me.
Blue also got BETTER vigilance sometimes like Merfolk Skyscout... which at WORST was vigilance and untapping something else if blocking.
Honestly, I think the color pie needs more differentiation and unique interaction, but blue getting vigilance definitely makes sense
That is interesting, for once it seemed at least secondary for blue to me. For some days I played around some own card ideas for my mana rocks commander deck (Karn, Silver Golem). What would I wish for. The colorless and no creature type, made many other possible cards useless. So I thought of more harmless variants to Forsaken Monument and possible key words, and it looked on the first ubalanced with the key words
White: vigilance, lifelink
Blue: hexproof, flying, flash
Black: menance, deathtouch, fear
Red: first strike, haste
Green: trample, reach
Now I have 5 based on Scion of Draco, which, still some are confusing, because lifelink is in black, it feels wierd to me. And for naming blue with flying would be easier 😅
I was watching a let's play of the old Shandalar game which introduced me to zephyr falcon & vigilance before vigilance. It was very unexpected but upon thinking about it, it did feel apt. It didn't feel like a violation of colour philosophy. Vigilance is my favourite keyword (sorry lifelink) so I'm happy to see that it might entice me into blue more rather than all the mill and counterspell meme strategies that advertise it as an unfun colour.
Also I was pleased to get the "2/2 for 2 w/ no downside" question right but that was only 'cause the professor mentioned it.
I'm inclined to believe that each colorpair should have an evergreen keyword, and that the Core Set (which should exist) should really play up these evergreen keywords:
WU Vigilance, BR Menace, RG Trample, GW Reach, WB Lifelink, BG Deathtouch, GU Hexproof, UR Prowess, RW First Strike. The only problem color pair is UB, at least with established keywords. (I mean, I know a few options that would work, but I'm talking about pre-existing mechanics).
One important thing is that the mechanic should feel different in each color. For example, Green's Deathtouch is poison, but Black's is often "death magic."
Similarly, they should often be mechanically different - ex: white's Vigilance should be "this creature attacks and blocks!" while Blue's really should be "This creature can attack... and still use it's tap ability." Blue creatures w/ vigilance and w/o a tap ability just feel "off." Vigilance never really worked, flavorfully, in green, much like how reach doesn't generally work in red.
Isn't UB Flash? And the pairs used to be:
WU: Flying
UB: Flash
BR: Menace
RG: Trample
GW: Vigilance
WB: Lifelink
BG: Deathtouch
GU: Hexproof
UR: ? (Prowess before it was made decidious)
RW: First Strike
@@RasmusVJS In a vacuum I think UG might be Flash because Hexproof wouldn't be on enough creatures in the core set (Although I'd fight for that 1 drop, @ (U) if need be). The problem with flash is that WOTC likes using it on ETB creatures often enough that it'll muddy the waters too much for a core set.
I'm inclined to think that UB (and maybe UR if Prowess isn't evergreen anymore) should probably have saboteur keywords as it encourages attacking and blocking in a way other keywords don't. For example, UR could have "Treasuremaker" and make a treasure whenever it deals combat damage to an opponent. (I HATE this as a core set keyword, keywords that make tokens shouldn't be evergreen for a variety of reasons, it's just an example of an on-color saboteur effect. Frankly, I know what I'd do for the two keywords if it was up to me, but youtube comments isn't the place for this kind of detailed discussion. To be clear I'm not really afraid WOTC would steel my ideas so much as treat them as off limits because I mentioned them unsolicitedly.
Vigilance fits perfectly.
Other ideas are:
1) Keyword X for "creature blocking or blocked by this creature gets -X/-0". This allows blue's poorly stated creatures to play a bigger role in combat.
2) Keyword for "creature blocking or blocked by this creature gets tapped and a stun counter put on it". This can be hopefully be used to open up the battlefield more than it causes board stalls (like the first one probably does).
this felt like the right choice. like its the most fitting combat keyword that already exists that also works in pretty much any set so long as creatures are around to do combat
If it's thought necessary to give blue some extra identity in combat in addition to vigilance (side note i like vigilance being in blue) I think a variation on boast that lets you tap the creature while its attacking for an effect could provide an interesting dynamic kind of similar to how canyon crab play. I've been finding canyon crab unexpectedly fun in draft thanks to the flexible/variable attack stat...
I wonder if any of the other blue staple abilities could be keyworded to work in combat. Either something like a stun ability that taps and/or places a stun counter on attack or maybe an ability to bounce a creature that is dealt damage, like a pseudo deathtouch if it bounces opponent's creature or a protection against getting blocked by something with a certain power threshold. In my mind, blue's combat abilities should focus on tempo.
I'm always cautious about the five "true" keyword abilities:
White/Vigilance, Blue/Flying, Black/Deathtouch,
Red/Haste, Green/Trample.
To me, I start to worry about wizards whenever core things change. Isn't flying enough for blue?
Not much to say except that, aside from being happy that you guys found a satisfactory mechanic from the design point of view, I personally like Vigilance in my creatures as it feels good to attack and not worry about lack of blockers.
So yeah, it adds a feel good factor from a mechanic that may have been a bit underrepresented for my taste.
As a long-term veteran of Magic -play(ed) from 4th Edition to Mirrodin and from Dragon's Maze until now - I believe that color breaks in evergreen keywords are fine, as long as they are done as deliberate color breaks. I'm not thrilled in simply moving Haste into Green en masse or moving Trample into Black en masse, for example. But a bit of a color shift/blur is fine with me on occasion. Vigiliance in particular has never felt especially "White" to me, anyway, not nearly as much as Haste feels Red and Trample feels Green, for example.
Some custom designers have been experimenting with blue menace, flavorfully it doesn't fit it fits in nicely mechanically. Blue has evasion and each set has a flying budget.
I feel robbed - my answer was "there still hasn't been one", having not kept up with or having had a chance to play OTJ yet >_
A proposal for a blue (and black) combat keyword: disengage {cost}
When a creature with disengage is blocked, you may pay {cost} to remove it from combat.
This means you can create uncomfortable attack scenarios for the opponent and bail your creatures out of bad trades, for a cost. I would have black creatures pay in life and blue one in small amounts of mana. Or maybe it's safe enough that you can make it have no cost
The effect of disengage is making the creature impossible to kill through combat (as long as you can pay the cost). It's interesting but definitely not safe at no cost as attacking with multiple creatures with this effect guarantees a good outcome, specially on big creatures.
The concept is interesting, but while the name and logic feels blue, the actual execution feels mono black. If the cost is significative (paying 4-5 life, sacrificing a creature or discarding a card), it asks you how far are you willing to go to save this one creature from a certain death. Paying mana (an impactful amount) feels green as it's a force of nature you can delay but not defeat.
I think blue could use more creatures with stun counters when they interact with other creatures in combat, something like a "freeze" mechanic, Wall of frost does this without the counters, but keywording it and using the counters would be a more modern approach and it could be a payoff for having blue creatures in combat. If white likes to tap creatures to prevent them from blocking, blue could have triggers on attack, on block or on combat damage that freeze the opponent's creatures for additional tempo.
I've liked blue vigilance a lot, the one downside is the increased prevalence overall combined with fewer tap abilities since the "once per turn" triggers got more common makes it so the white "destroy target tapped creature" effects more often don't kill the creature you've been attacked with or that's activated its ability.
Also Red can untap creatures by virtue of Threaten effects.
I personally also think vigilance fits blue with the tapping/untapping theme it has. And I agree with many other comments, that it felt natural to see it on blue creatures.
I’d love to see more of it in the future.
I think counter spells in green would be an interesting addition. They have so little interaction in standard. It's near impossible to play a mono-green deck without more ways to interact.
I could get behind this, maybe no countering spells, but more focus of non permanent countering and abilities, they are generally more expensive than blue counter magic too
Vigilance feels very right in blue. One thing I would also put more of in blue is Protection from (creature type), or perhaps Protection from (Enchanted creatures) or something very specific. Like the subject of their studies has given them deep insight into how to effectively counter a very specific kind of creature or smth, similar to ranger's favored enemy in D&D
On the talk of new timespiral ideas. Wouldn't it be cool with some sort of set that have a place for weirder creatures, like biblically acurate angels, more things that look like the elementals and incarnations from lorwyn.
Creatures that blend different creatures and challanges how many apendiges something has without making them eldrazis. As a matter of fact they could even be a cosmic counterpoint to eldrazis from the "everseeing impermanence". (You can have that name for free 😄).
You could be very experimental with a set like that. Have flicker be a setmechanic for example. Make creatures grow with +1/+1 counters as you pay cumulative upkeep costs or have them flicker back to 0/1 to not have to sacrifice them.
Just some food for thought.
The closest thing to planar chaos are some modern horizons cards, where mechanics (occasionally from colors or color pairs) are put onto new colors or color pairs. It's not like the alternate future cards that have the same rules text converted to a new color, but it's close.
I'm curious how Skulk fits into this timeline of keywords for Blue. I know it was considered an unpopular mechanic, but it seems to be returning more recently (although without the actual keyword) so I'd love to hear the current internal opinions on it as well.
Vigilance as a word, not just as a mechanic, seems deeply blue
I like blue white vigilance. But green doesn't need it. Please and thank you.
the amount of green haste in recent sets has been crazy to me
Green always gets tune-ups when they are always already on top for casual
I think vigilance in green should be specific to creatures that are more like blockers, with more toughness than power. Imagine a hulking treefolk or elemental, for example. Plus points if it also has reach so you can attack whenever there's the opportunity but still defend from flyers next turn.
But for something like, let's say, End-Raze Forerunners, why does that card have vigilance? It already has haste. The trade-off of haste is that you get some damage in right away at the expense of not being able to block next turn. Also, End-Raze Forerunners is an overrun-like card. It's meant to end games. So why would you need the blocking insurance of vigilance? You're supposed to risk everything in that one attack and suffer the consequences if your opponent manages to survive.
@@remogaming791 In the last year we got 3
I think this change also makes strategic sense for limited. Blue often has slow strategies that benefit from keeping blockers up, and being able to chip away at opponents while still holding blockers back will help ensure that blue's defenses will be strong and benefit a long game plan.
I would love creatures like a blue 2/1 to have "first strike when you use an instant or sorcery", even double strike for some one offs(like a 1/3) You can increase the firepower alike prowess, but also increasing defensive capabilities to turn an Opt into a combat trick by itself
Gavin continuing to hit us with the history lessons! 🔥
Thanks for watching them 😄
At first i didn't like it, but thinking more about it, I like it. Blue already does tap and untap shenanigans, so it fits thematically. it also helps spellslinger decks since they can attack for damage and still have blockers to defend themselves later
I agree with some others that it would be interested to give blue a pseudo-vigilance that reads like "At the end of combat you may untap this creature." Keyword could be something like Watchful, Prudent, or Wary
I'm glad blue has an honest-to-goodness evergreen combat keyword. I was beginning to think blue was just going to have to make do with a pastiche of prowess, skulk, shrink, tap, stun, flying, and bounce (some of those would be triggered abilities). Being the color most associated with subterfuge, never quite knowing what a blue player has up her sleeve seems appropriate.
I mean, flanking was right there...
While I think vigilance in blue is fine, I could also have seen an "untap this whenever this deals combat damage" keyword working in blue, perhaps flavored to be diving into/out of water to attack opponents.
It could also play well with stun counters and let green fogs play into being blue's enemy.
Also, there could be some shenanigans with that one legend that lets you block with tapped creatures.
In regards to Prowess being too powerful due to it adding in a lot of complexity, perhaps there is room for a sorcery speed version. Like Prowess but only on your turn. Or prowess but only during your main phase (Which is clunky). I am a bit surprised it took like 20 years to decide that blue can have access to vigilance. I know the game grows and changes both in drastic and subtle ways a lot but in this case the lack of an answer there is pretty stunning. Especially since I think it makes a ton of sense for them. Blue is inherently sort of defensive as a color, so the idea that you would have creatures with vigilance that can both attack while also being able to play defense just feels like it makes a lot of sense.
Not surprised by Vigilance. But could you speak on creature sizing? Like a lot of the colors have even 3/2 for 1C and even mono blue now has access to a couple 3/1 for 2. As well as other creatures up the curve. Like Sheoldred, Mavrin and Ghalta, Yargle and Multani, and the Colossal Rattlewurm?
I would have the creature untap after combat. you could pair it with a fix stat boost for the creature depending on its tap status (+x/+0 while taped +0/+x while untaped) it would work as a fixed combat ability while also working with the whole "change" thing blue has going
I like mechanics sitting comfortably in 3 colors. Artifact removal in Naya. Vigilance in Bant. Haste in Jund. Returning creatures from the graveyard in Abzan.
Think others have said it above, but "icetouch" could be an alternative ability - similar templating to deathtouch, but instead of destroying the opposing creature you tap it and put a stun counter on it
I think Planar Chaos should happen again. Modern Horizons and Commander Legends are pretty similar in my opinion, especially with how much each color's identity has grown in the last few years. I think it's an absolute treat of an idea for a set and it would be sad if Wizards couldn't make another one. You never know if it's a true failure until it's been done twice!
Perhaps there's a design space for a much smaller set, something like the From the Vault series, for Planar Chaos styles of designs. That way the interest can be tested without a huge commitment.
I have thought about blue getting a bit of menace before as an alternative mid-power combat keyword. Menace has proven to play nicely and it’d fill the UR evergreen keyword slot that’s been empty since the demotion of prowess.
That said vigilance is just a perfect fit, and the team doesn’t seem to be in any rush finding a new UR keyword (particularly not another evasion keyword), so I’m not holding my breath.
I think more restrictions on it would be good, having good defense on a vigilance creature feels more white than blue. Creatures that are more likely to die blocking having vigilance in blue makes it feel like it's a more temporary effect, similar to untapping as a combat trick. This could also work well with blues swapping power and toughness to come out on top in a blocking scenario.
New combat ability for blue:
Shield - If this creature blocks, it gains indestructible (till eot) BUT the attacking creature gains trample (till eot).
Lorewise this could be the outer shell of a crustacean or a protective mage spell.