D&D General MtG Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Spoiler Thread

[Parmandur]

Dungeon cards looking pretty damn cool. But those aren't the only dungeons that are going to be in this set, right?

Just those three, yup. They made that explicit in the article. You can repeat the three in any order, at any time, but there are no more. They suggested that they might revisit the mechanic in the future.

 

[Charlaquin]

Silly people on the main subreddit are complaining that the Dungeon Mechanic is parastic, which basically means it doesn't interact well with other mechanics which is bs. The Dungeon can trigger life gain, treasure and creature tokens, force sacrifices, etc..., all of which interact with cards from previous sets, from Goblin tribal, to Magda, to Vito, to Heliod, to Purphoros, to that Assembly Worker from MH2, that enchantment that grants a bonus squirrel token when creating other tokens, Divine Visitation turning tokens into 4/4 Angels, etc...,

And trigger a venture itself has plenty of interactions from flicker effects, to cards that cause enter the battlefield effects to go off twice, to Emberclever giving that blue rogue that ventures when dealing damage to a player double strike and trample.

That isn’t what parasitic means. A parasitic mechanic is one that doesn’t function outside of a specific environment supporting it. Splice onto Arcane is the classic example, because the mechanic only works if your deck runs a lot of Arcane spells, which have hardly been printed outside of Kamigawa block. On the other hand, Energy Counters are commonly thought of as parasitic because they are designed to work best together, but aren’t actually parasitic because you don’t need other cards that interact with Energy counters to make them work - you can just throw a card with the mechanic into any deck and it’ll still work fine.

Dungeons are parasitic because you need a certain critical mass of Venture cards for them to function. You can’t just put Gloom Stalker into any deck, because unless you’re running a bunch of cards that let you Venture into the Dungeon, you’ll never be able to Complete a Dungeon to get his double strike online. Yes, Dungeons do have synergy with other mechanics, but so does Splice onto Arcane. The reason they’re parasitic is because most of them are going to be useless outside of a dedicated Dungeon deck.

All that said, I don’t think it’s a problem that Dungeons are parasitic. It’s a gimmick mechanic in a one-off set that’s specifically outside of normal MtG canon, which as this very thread demonstrates, a lot of people who aren’t normally magic fans are likely to buy to play on its own. If there was ever a good time and place for a parasitic mechanic, this is it. Parasitic mechanics also aren’t necessarily bad. They’re just somewhat limited in playability. This seems like a perfectly fine mechanic to be parasitic, because folks who are going to want to play with it are surely going to want to build around it heavily.

 

[Charlaquin]

The hivemind is notoriously bad at adjudicating the effectiveness of new mechanics before they hit the Meta. Could go either way, particularly since it is so complex.

The Parasitic label isn’t about the effectiveness of a mechanic, it’s about applicability outside of the environment it was created in. Dungeons will need dedicated Dungeon decks to work. That doesn’t mean they won’t be good, but it does mean if you’re not making a dedicated Dungeon deck, you probably won’t be looking at cards that let you Venture or care about if you’be completed a Dungeon. Which is perfectly fine IMO, like I said, I think it’s perfectly appropriate in this context.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The Parasitic label isn’t about the effectiveness of a mechanic, it’s about applicability outside of the environment it was created in. Dungeons will need dedicated Dungeon decks to work. That doesn’t mean they won’t be good, but it does mean if you’re not making a dedicated Dungeon deck, you probably won’t be looking at cards that let you Venture or care about if you’be completed a Dungeon. Which is perfectly fine IMO, like I said, I think it’s perfectly appropriate in this context.

If you use the new Nadaar as your Commander, you don't need a ton of venture into the Dungeon stuff in the deck, although it doesn't hurt.

 

[Charlaquin]

If you use the new Nadaar as your Commander, you don't need a ton of venture into the Dungeon stuff in the deck, although it doesn't hurt.

Sure, but that doesn’t make it not parasitic. No one is going to seriously consider putting Ellywick Tumblestrum in a deck with no other Dungeon-related cards, even though she technically works independently of them. And just because you could use Nadaar as the Commander for your mono white Death and Taxes deck doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. This is the sort of mechanic that you aren’t even going to consider unless you’re building around it, and that’s the definition of a parasitic mechanic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the MtG crowd are not sure what they mean by the term "parasitic" (not helped by the fact that the term has negative conotations in RL)!

Obviously, if you are going to use dungeons you also need venture cards, but there is plenty of opportunity for the dungeons to trigger other mechanics. Indeed, I can see decks being built around a specific dungeon, rather than using all three. For example Dungeon of the Mad Mage can be used to bring into play expensive multicoloured cards like Tiamat. If you combine it with cards that manipulate the order of cards in the deck it becomes more effective.

NB, what does a "treasure" token do?

 

[Parmandur]

I think the MtG crowd are not sure what they mean by the term "parasitic" (not helped by the fact that the term has negative conotations in RL)!

Obviously, if you are going to use dungeons you also need venture cards, but there is plenty of opportunity for the dungeons to trigger other mechanics. Indeed, I can see decks being built around a specific dungeon, rather than using all three. For example Dungeon of the Mad Mage can be used to bring into play expensive multicoloured cards like Tiamat. If you combine it with cards that manipulate the order of cards in the deck it becomes more effective.

NB, what does a "treasure" token do?

Treasure tokens can be used as one time Mana boosts, but there are cards, a lot of cards actually, that use Treasure tokens as a resource to do clever things that break the normal rules of the game: my personal irrationally favorite deck has a Legendary Dwarf that generates Treasure tokens every time a Dwarf attacks, and can spend 5 Treasure tokens to Tutor (search the deck and place into play without spending Mana) either an Artifact or a Dragon. The deck falls flat on it's face a fair bit of the time, but when I get those 5 Treasure tokens...game over, man.

 

[Bolares]

Charlaquin already explained it perfectly, Dungeons are for sure parasidic, and that's OK. Even Mark Rosewater already commented on that. That doesn't mean the mechanic is bad or anything. Mechanics in MTG are made with various formats in mind. Dungeons are probably going to be more impactfull on limited than other formats, and are probably going to be the focus of one of the commander decks the will come out with the set. Their power level will depend solelly on the power level of venture cards. And because dungeons are free vallue, R&D were most likelly very conservative with the power level. They got pretty seriously burned with the companions before, to make the same mistake.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the MtG crowd are not sure what they mean by the term "parasitic" (not helped by the fact that the term has negative conotations in RL)!

Obviously, if you are going to use dungeons you also need venture cards, but there is plenty of opportunity for the dungeons to trigger other mechanics.

There are certainly MtG players who misunderstand the term, but it has a very clear meaning, and “can’t be used with other mechanics” isn’t it. Again, just because Dungeons can have synergy with other mechanics doesn’t mean they work without a lot of Dungeon support. It is 100% a parasitic mechanic, and that’s fine.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here’s the lead designer of Magic acknowledging that Dungeons are parasitic:

Blogatog — I thought that R&D tries to avoid parasitic...