Faithful Looting

We're coming up on the future.

During MTG's second Great Designer Search,entrants answered ten short response questions to see how well they understood WotC's current design philosophy. The following question was posed:

You are instructed to move an ability from one color to another. This ability must be something used in every set (i.e. discard, direct damage, card drawing etc.). You may not choose an ability that has already been color shifted by R&D. What ability do you shift and to what color do you shift it? Explain why you would make that shift.

Apparently an overwhelming majority of finalists argued to move looting (draw a card, then discard a card, a la Merfolk Looter) should be moved from blue to red. R&D listened. Magic sets are made a few years in advance so we wouldn't see the results of that change surface until...well, about now I suppose.

Faithless Looting was printed in Dark Ascension, a fine update on Careful Study. I assume because DKA was closest to completion during the GDS2 and so could afford very minor tweaks but not a huge paradigm shift. They were testing the waters, so it's just a boring palette swap.

DKA also presented us with Desperate Ravings. This is a more traditional view on red looting, i.e. madness and chaotic unpredictability. The Gamble clause assured that even with a blue flashback it sat squarely in red's territory.

I feared during the preview weeks for Avacyn Returns that Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded would solidify red's slice of the looting pie as "at random".

To understand why each color needs its own identity for any mechanic, one must understand the color pie. Blue and Red have opposing philosophies.

Blue is cold and calculating. She intellectually puzzles through any problem hoping to find an objective solution before even taking her first step. Blue is the chess master playing 30 moves ahead.

Red is ruled by emotion. He follows the Sith code: "Peace is a lie, there is only passion/Through passion, I gain strength...". Red charges in, smashes first and asks questions later if ever.

Random discard is a fine first order approximation. It represents an insane fervor, the mindless rage which flails hoping to deal more damage to the enemy than to yourself. But there's a deeper side to red.

Random discard is also poorly received by the more competitive players. It's hard for anyone to watch their bomb rare get tossed or for a tournament match to be decided by a roll of the die.

While worrying about this issue I developed my own solutions. Take for example this card, inspired by Ideas Unbound:

Passionate Philosopher 1R
Creature - Human
1/1
T: Draw a card. If you do, discard a card at the beginning of the end step.

I like this for both its flavor and mechanical elegance. Blue plans for the future by thinking of new ideas (i.e. drawing cards). Sometimes she'll brainstorm (the action, not the card) by generating many ideas but tossing the bad ones (i.e. looting).

Red lives in the moment. He wants an advantage now and damn the future consequences. Who cares about some future cost? He's willing to steroid himself up because he's banking that he'll kill you before they wear off. And even if he doesn't it's just more fun that way. This is that human behavior shown in economic experiments in which participants are willing to take $10 today over $20 a week from now.

Mechanically it is similar in power to blue's version but with its own potential drawbacks.

WotC luckily is run by intelligent dudes who came up with their own solution, showcased by Mad Prophet. I like their version and their reasoning, even if it's roughly opposite to my own. Blue knows what she wants, red knows what he doesn't want. Makes sense to me.

Mechanically I wish the discard were part of the effect rather than the cost, allowing you to use it with an empty hand for a marginal advantage. This would be a nice mirrored inversion of blue looting, which is most effective with many cards. But either way I think they did well.