7 Mechanics They'll Never Use Again In Magic: the Gathering Again

[@respectblindfolds7411]

I'd personally really like to see Level Up cards that aren't creatures until you've gotten them to their first milestone. 1. It helps with keeping them around for you to build up mana and 2. it can create interesting modal designs that could make for some fun games.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Interesting! How would you flavour a noncreature becoming a creature?

[@respectblindfolds7411]

@@HarrisontheManaDork Well, I think it would have a lot to do with the set's mechanics, so I'll list 3 examples (sort of in order of what I think is most realistic): Artifacts: A type of technology that is so advanced that it begins to iterate on itself to adapt to its opponents. Enchantments: Thought-forms that through enough collective belief physically manifest in our reality. Lands: The mana coursing through the land becomes so great that it causes the very earth to mutate and come alive.

[@sablesalt]

​​​@@HarrisontheManaDork look at some sagas that turn into creatures, prototype or how classes are a spiritual successor to level up, the pieces are all here in modern day surprisingly. Level up can return fine honestly and I don't think players would have trouble with it in the current day, I think the first iteration of the concept of having something become stronger over time was simply just less refined and hard for players to understand since it was so new.

[@mattmonster8402]

Level up is interesting with proliferate so you don't have to focus on one creture as much 🤔

[@calemr]

I love the idea of a bunch of rusted old relics that need fixing up before they can move again, then upgraded further.

[@TylerMKimball]

I do wish that the recent Thunder Junctions version of Kaervek had him on a horse with Flanking. It would have been a cute callback to his original block, a Time Spiral-ish acknowledgement of how displaced in time he is, and fit both the setting and his earlier mechanic on Kaervek the Spiteful.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

I don't know much about the character but I'm willing to bet that even if they are willing to bring back some keywords in guest spots, they are saving those spots for the top of the top.

[@marcodaddario3965]

Aw, man. I'm loving this videos. Another topic you could work with are mechanics without keywords (Unstoppable, High Flyer) and other MtG terms (like Ping or Loot).

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

As an etymology nerd, it'd be fun to research where the root is for a lot of these words.

[@violetto3219]

i enjoy the flip card Student of Elements // Tobita, Master of Winds, who flips into a 3/3 who gives your creatures flying if he gains it on the top side. It's such a niche thing to turn on, but giving your whole board evasion makes it compelling to build around. Also, Bushi Tenderfoot doesn't need to deal combat damage specifically, you could flip him with a bite effect

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Student of Elements is a really funny card. The line "When Student of Elements has flying, flip it" if I were to read that without the context, I would've sworn it was something a half baked AI spat out. When it comes to Tenderfoot, having to use a whole other card from a whole other colour just for the chance to flip it, the flipped version better put me so far ahead of my opponent(s)

[@Sanvone]

@@HarrisontheManaDork Bushi can be flipped by Hankyu artifact from Champions of Kamigawa, that unlike other bows specify that it is the holder that deals the damage, not the artifact itself. Also white combat tricks, if you are not into splashing. The thing that stings with him is that isn't Samurai yet. Also often he can piggyback when you are exchanging creatures to flip for free or force better trade. It isn't so bad - 3/4 Double striker that hits for 6 a turn or removes any creature with less than 5 toughness for free. It takes removal or 6/10 creature (or 6 power first striker). It fell off many years ago but wasn't bad in first 10 years after release.

[@parsath_2584]

I'm calling it now. Level up is coming back in the Final Fantasy set.

[@donavandunn9824]

it would have been fun that in Thunder junction, the Saddle keyword also gave the creature Horsemenship

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Or at least one card as a nod to horsemanship that couldn't be blocked by non-mounts. Some of the creatures were too big for borderline unblockable to be thrown around willy nilly, but at least a little reference.

[@alexbalgar8369]

@HarrisontheManaDork I, too, would have loved horsemanship with mounts. I was thinking of an enchantment like this: 2WG - legendary enchantment At the beginning of your upkeep, create Winder Rider, a 1/2 legendary green Horse creature token with "Whenever this creature attacks while saddled, another target saddled mount gains horsemanship. Saddle 2. Or something like: Whenever a saddled creature attacks, if it was saddled by a legendary creature, it gains horsemanship. Dunno which seems less toxic, but that's what I hope one day exists for my Mount deck haha

[@Xhild_]

I came here to comment about Thunder Junction should've had horsemanship but I see everyone else felt the same way 😂

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

It works flavour wise but it is far too parasitic. Standard and a bunch of other formats would be filled with horsemanship cards right now

[@HobGungan]

I remember my Aunt used to work at a convention center and brought me a giant bag of discarded Mirroden/Phyrexia block cards that were left after a big draft tournament thing. I didn't do anything with them at first (I had only just started collecting again around that time), but a friend of mine had built a pretty much unbeatable mono-White lifegain deck that was the bane of all who were in the friend circle at the time. That's when I noticed Infect. My Black/Green Infect deck is to this day one of my favorite decks to play despite being made to specifically counter that one deck and having a 50/50 winrate otherwise

[@pallen2645]

I've always loved banding. I'd love to see it return with some simplifying erratta.

[@noble3696]

Havent watched fully yet but id LOVE to see city's blessing again

[@Knights_Oath]

I will never believe Mark when he says a mechanic will not return to a main set. He said for years that poison and toxic would never be printed in a new set. I have a feeling Hasbro forced his hand to make sure set block would sell well.

[@ikebirchum6591]

@@Knights_Oath we also just got Furry Ral giving instants and sorceries Storm in standard

[@tallynnyntyg6008]

7:08 There are also a few cards like Ascendant Spirit that level up, though at a much reduced cost per turn (and in Ascendant Spirit's case, requiring mana produced from a Snow source).

[@marcoottina654]

I love the level up mechanics, so much that I try to use some of those cards and circumvent the problem with proliferate. Anyway, I still wished they were less mana intensive and I still hope for a comeback, even a support maybe (like doubling the level counter, some discount, some "TAP: add 1 level counter to a creature" and stuff like that) I also loved the idea of Flanking in my Slivers :D a minor boost (or debuff) on a somewhat minor card (forgetting the synergy with haste-enablers + Gemhide/Manaweft Slivers + WIld Pair + Dormant Sliver to almost swarm the field) that still lowers something frightening like Infect, Wither and Indestructible (and First/Double Strike of course) Wither ... Hateflayer is a menace if you are able to pull it off early and give ways to tap (Surestrike Trident / Burning Anger) quickly (haste?) and to activate its UNTAP ability! Lovely casual, or casually loved, you name it

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

I think there is definitely some interesting design space for Level Up but I think a major thing holding it back is room. Right now, everything Level Up has at its disposal practically takes up the entire card already. You'd need to be really crafty to figure out how to make the cards themselves different.

[@marcoottina654]

@@HarrisontheManaDork yeah I've tried to design "Legendary Angels incarnations" which are taking inspiration from their specialities and themes growing in their effects (like, Aurelia pumps power and keywords, Bruna creates equipment tokens, etc) through a level-up system, even granting level counters on thematic triggers; and I've also tried to just forget about the level up template and word the "level range" in the text box. Nope, not enough space available and I felt like those were Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Sadly

[@minervadetauro7646]

Great video. Another aspect about flip cards that makes them difficult to return aside of the existence of DFCs is the weird logistics issues they bring up. Like when a board state gets confusión and one of them is tapped some players may get confused, or another player can pick it up to read what it does and then it returms on the wrong position, not ideal for rookie players. Also, another mechanic I think will probably not como back to standard is Wither, which is creatures that deal damage to other creatures as -1/-1 counters. The main issue is that the entirety of that mechanic was slapped on to infect as a part of it, and since infect won't come back I doubt they'll bring wither back, even if wither is a really cool mechanic in my opinion

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Oh, I can only imagine how many fights broke out because someone claimed their card had flipped while an opponent claims they didn't! Wither is such a weird mechanic. It is strong while also feeling under powered.

[@RasmusVJS]

The recent Massacre Girl gave things wither.

[@cablefeed3738]

I get that, but I'll take flip cards over double-sided cards all the time.I hate taking my cards out of sleeves just to use the other side.

[@t0xictac015]

Oh man, they really need to bring Level Up back, thats a really cool mechanic

[@priscillaquinn9505]

I like the level up card nirkana cutthroat 3:08 shes one of the extremely rare instances of a card having first strike AND deathtouch

[@LordMorde]

honorable mention to shadow.

[@E.F.W.]

Infect is peak

[@tzukan9039]

@@E.F.W. based

[@Matteracter]

Honestly if they ever do another Un set I love it if they brought back flip cards and combined it with double face cards to make a triple faced card.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

That'd be great! Why stop there? Let's go for quadruple and make them both flip!

[@skarloey1214]

I think if and when they bring back level up some of the cards should have X Power and/or Toughness where X is it's level.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

That could be cool. There would be the concern that Level Up starts at 0, but if you found a way to address that without running out of room on in the text book, it'd make for a neat design.

[@avengerwolf646]

Flanking represents cavalry and other creatures that can out-flank their opponents. It makes more sense than Horsemanship being unblockable by infantry, and flanking being negated by other swift forces makes sense as well. That said, it can still cause confusion and doesn't have to return...

[@dicedude1071]

While it isn't named flanking and flanking creatures aren't immune to it, the back side of Order of the Mirror from March of the machine essentially has flanking

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Neat. Probably a reference to flanking but since it doesn't have it by name, it is simultaneously both better and worse.

[@hizzilitis]

3:26 Echs gonna give it to ya.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

I'm not sure I get what you're referring to in the video.

[@minervadetauro7646]

Echo Mage's card ard lowkey looks a lot like the rapper DMX

[@residentgrey]

I approve this crossing of streams!

[@JohnTalbane87]

A personal fave of mine isn’t actually a named mechanic but is in their names is the Flailing cycle of red creatures. 1v1 they’re so bad but in commander they make for interesting social interactions.

[@benvictim]

tbh, I feel like they could have just rules changed reached. reach can block flying or horsemenship. there, we could now have some more flavor of horsemenship. Yes it's just flying... but it's a flavor of flying

[@residentgrey]

Does a Defender successfully block? Is that another possible requirement?

[@kunopumpernikkel215]

Rampage is pretty good on big creatures Banding is pretty strong when used properly

[@chrisva4268]

I would love to see Level Up Return, I started playing right when Rise of Eldrazi released and I'll always be attached to the shoebox full of RoE commons I was given by my LGS to start me off. I think there's lots more potential for Level Up with Ward - increased protection for your investment, its why Hexdrinker is actually kind of good. With some extra support cards for level counters I think it could actually thrive - all we have for the originals is Venerated Teacher, Time of Heroes, and Champion's Drake which are all skewed on the color pie.

[@atriumgamesmore4336]

Just off the top of my head, if I would make Horsemanship come back, I would make it more of a red white thing, and make it blockable by Haste creatures, that sounds kinda fun.

[@jrnazon9998]

You mentioned infect and toxic but you didn't refer to poisonous

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

There are two cards with poisonous and they both predate infect. I don't think mentioning poisonous would be relevant to the video.

[@malthungaming3466]

In all honesty, Rampage *could* be really good, if you also had specific forms of Evasion, such as Menace, Super Menace (IT isn't keyworded, but 'This creature can't be blocked except by three or more creatures.'), and/or Trample. Cards where Double Blocking is an absolute *Must.*

[@thejunecooperative]

Horsemanship was actually never Standard legal from what I know! It was a draft supplementary product that only got legalized for eternal formats years later! I looked into it recently when I was inspired to make a deck around it for Commander, but ultimately due to how bad creatures at the time were I have thrown in some other similarly unreprintable mechanics like Banding. Funny enough most are used on Humans who are in some way fighters in an army or similar so I pushed the deck in the direction of human typal army flavor for fun :)

[@viziroth]

I think cards like evolved sleeper are the spiritual successors of level up cards

[@chasebeleren]

Rampage, while awful on it's own, can be kind of interesting with trample. Makes it a harder choice to try to block all the trample damage or they just end up taking a bunch of damage to face

[@Shamax0]

What if lvl up could also have a half shroud half ward effect In the sense that, cards targeting this creature require x more mana, where x is the number of level tokens on it (shroud since it also applies to your spells, and ward since it gives an additional cost to target it)

[@inaminayo5327]

Never say never. WotC really likes bringing back obscure mechanics for one-time cards in supplemental products.

[@williammartin172]

The D&D sets where wizards best chance to bring horsemanship back i think!

[@austinchuilli3652]

honestly id love to see a new card with rampage and either menace or the line each creature that can block they must block it.

[@Dadutta]

I'd like to see SKULK make a return

[@NateTmi]

I would like to see the flip come back

[@residentgrey]

I actually like Infect/toxic. You become an unsettling threat that the others may not appropriately consider, so the result can be a tense match ending in success.

[@shieldgenerator7]

at one table i played at, the player with the infect-proliferate deck was always everyone's #1 target

[@balian9177]

I feel like that planeswalker replaced level up creatures quite good.

[@venkelos6996]

As someone who was a rather big fan of Level Up, and Transform/Flip, I really enjoyed this video. It's too bad, in my opinion, that we likely won't see these again, though I suppose I do understand why. I will confess, I was bummed when we got through both of the D&D themed sets, and nothing there had Level Up, but they did try Party, and that flopped, so I'm good. I won't say that I dislike Classes, but I do kind of like more the targeted nature of LU, as opposed to "leveling up" my Planeswalker self, though I agree it is probably usually a better use of the resources. I really liked a few of the Transform Creatures. I specifically like the two Ratfolk who go from nameless to Legendary, and there's a few others. Wish Erayo had remained available, in EDH, as today I don't feel it would be quite so oppressive, but I expect it will stay banned. I have a particular relation with Infect. Mirrodin block was when I first got into Magic, and it was my favorite plane I knew we'd never visit, again, for a long time. When I actually got into Magic play, again, about sixish years ago, our group quickly became effectively exclusively EDH, and as the person both least aggressive, in play, and worst at filling a big, singleton deck constructively, I lost many games. I prefer to win by alternative means, and not just building a huge board state, and going wide, because they could be vengeful, and I liked the idea of winning in one shot, where they wouldn't have the tone to strike back, which the hated mechanic of my favorite set could potentially lead to. It also didn't bother me, as so much else in Magic seemed to be tournament-based, and not wanting to take too long, so Infect could win a game fast. It didn't, but it could. It's also why I knew we couldn't go back to Mirrodin, or Phyrexia, as Infect, Phy Mana, and a heap of powerful Artifacts were each things they were going to want to avoid, and going back without them would feel wrong. I didn't hate how New Phy played out, though I didn't personally like Toxic as much as I liked Infect, bur things change, and that's fine.

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Some interesting points here, I did want to point out that Party did not flop. "Party" was a mechanic they call batching and they've continued to use batching since. Batching was used for "Outlaws" in Thunder Junction.

[@lyndsaypeters5981]

I would prefer flip to transform because then I can see the whole card

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Valid point. I also agree with other commenters that it is a lot easier to tell what side a creature is on when they are double faced cards.

[@Mushroomhead671]

Shoutouts to the real ones in pods who have to deal with Herald of Hoofbeats in a Knight deck. Gotta be one of the more annoying cards to show up (this comment was brought to you by someone with a creature that grants my other green creatures in my mono green deck intimidate).

[@tssteelx]

You can make chapters for each thing? Or is that a KZbin machainic that you'll never see again?

[@corvendata]

Anyone have any predictions on foretell?

[@sallomon2357]

I feel like Level Up could come back if they experiment with costs which aren't mana, or the Level Up is cheap manawise, but requires an additional non-mana cost.

[@Danthenuggetman]

@@sallomon2357 i think the level up perk should be based on how many creatures it takes out, or if it manages to hit the player that turn, like how a d&d player might gain exp and level up.

[@Poenas]

Just buff reach to being able to block horsemanship too, and leave horse and flying unable to block the other

[@joshcuker5877]

Never again will they never again in Never the Againing

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

Never Ever Ever

[@residentgrey]

Don't give them ideas! lol They may go out of their way to make a set with that name!!!

[@joshcuker5877]

@HarrisontheManaDork 🎵getting back together🎵

[@residentgrey]

@@HarrisontheManaDork I just thought of an insane idea: a silver set called The Undoing that NOOX the color pie.

[@robertsanders4575]

I mean, wouldn't rampage be half-decent if you paired it with Menace, which forces an opponent to block with multiple creatures?

[@Gaming_dynasty001]

Just watched your video and if you like level up I would check out battle spirits saga with their core mechanic

[@WindBrahmin]

Honestly I think they should just errata horsemanship to be blockable by flying and possibly defender.

[@edhdeckbuilding]

wotc said no more protection and no more landwalk. but of course they did bring it back. so everything they say i take with a grain of salt.

[@calicogaming6063]

Horsemanship was in on a few reprints since Dr who, wasn't it? One set at least reprinted a ton of them

[@GlossyCandle]

IMO, Flanking has some good potential, and it definitely does not deserve a 12 on the Storm Scale

[@neco-arc]

It’s funny how nobody mentioned the 2 “again”s in the title… might wanna get rid of the last again lol

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

This is the second time I've done this video. The second again is on purpose.

[@neco-arc]

@@HarrisontheManaDork o i see i get it now. I would just expect to see part 2 or something lol

[@Rockjay288]

I want more dash cards. 😢

[@residentgrey]

Dash?

[@Braindoner101]

Invoke Prejudice. They will NEVER do this mechanic ever again.

[@braydenc1791]

Idk if you forgot but new Etali has infect

[@HarrisontheManaDork]

New Etali doesn't have infect

[@demonagalt3367]

what about shadow? ;)

[@Cove0Crow]

I think we should bring back horsemanship but not print it for blue or white only the other colors

[@ave_maria323]

I mean, we won't see Storm much again.... hopefully. So far, there's been 2 recently.

[@Rye312]

I'm commander infect is not as powerful as you'd expect because even though you only need 10 DMG per person as soon as you drop the 1st infect creature everyone is coming at you

[@LittleMushroomGuy]

I would have never guessed you are "he" thanks for saying that, now when i talk about you in a conversation you aren't part off i won't be confused and call you a xhem

[@shyumby]

toxic=poisonous

[@ChickenMcThiccken]

all these crap cards came out during the 20 year "lull" period i had with magic.

[@is1spang478]

Level up too slow!!