Pattern Recognition #159 - The Grandest Mechanic!

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

9 July 2020

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut.net's longest running article series. In it, I aim to bring to you each week a new article about some piece of Magic, be it a card, a mechanic, a deck, or something more fundamental or abstract. I am something of an Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass, so I sometimes talk out my ass. Feel free to dissent or just plain old correct me! I also have a Patreon if you feel like helping out.

The grandest mechanic of all in Magic's History is one that has a certain degree of history behind it that makes for an interesting tale. Which is the primary reason why I'm telling it to you today.

That, and it's from my favourite block in the game, so that's just bonus points. So let's get right into it.

Grandeur is a mechanic that has only appeared on five cards in the game, a cycle of Legendary Creatures from Future Sight, each of them in the future shift frame. They are, in order of color, Oriss, Samite Guardian, Linessa, Zephyr Mage, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Tarox Bladewing and Baru, Fist of Krosa.

Each of these creatures was a thematic future 'inheritor' of a title or aspect of a previously existing creature in Magic. For example, Korlash was to wield the Blackblade Reforged long after it left the hands of Dakkon Blackblade, but then in the actual future and not the 'what might have been', it was Gideon Blackblade who wielded the blade in the last, forever breaking it on Nicol Bolas' noggin. Oriss is a follow up to Orim, Samite Healer. Linessa descended from Alexi, Zephyr Mage, Tarox from Rorix Bladewing and Baru from Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.

But Grandeur itself, as a mechanic, is actually quite simple. It is an activated ability that can be done at instant speed, where you simply discard a card that has the same name as the card with the ability in order to activate it. That's it. It's a very simple mechanic, one with a degree of implication that I'm not sure everyone - even I - am fully aware of. So let's break it down.

The core of the ability is that you have to discard a card that has the same name as the card in play. One of the things that I remember from this block, a subject that I have talked about in the past. Spellshapers are creatures that let you discard a card to create an effect that mimics a spell. Like in-block Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, who can 'cast' three spells, each by paying the relevant mana cost and discarding a card in the process.

Grandeur is a spell or spell-like effect that comes from the card discard. For example, Oriss, Samite Healer can discard to effectively cast Orim's Chant. Now, the typical Spellshaper could discard any card, from a Planeswalker to a basic land. But for Grandeur, you don't have to pay any mana cost, but the exchange you can only discard the same creature with that Grandeur ability to activate it.

This is a curious limitation, one that only really makes sense when you consider that the ability is currently only found on Legendary Creatures. For those of you who have just recently started the game, and aren't aware, you can only have one copy of any given Legendary permanent on the battlefield at any one time. If a second one enters, then you have to choose one to keep and sacrifice the rest.

Grandeur was placed onto Legends because once you have a copy of the creature on the board, the other copies in your deck become useless at best, taking up a card draw and hand space on cards that might actually be useful. Or just redundancy should the Legend in question get destroyed or exiled. So Grandeur was formed with the notion in mind that this was something you could do with your excess Legends, turning them into a resource for your other copies of the same Legend, even if your deck didn't have other outlets for discarding cards as a resource.

But here we run into the first practical problem. Of all the formats in the game, how many actually care if you have more than one copy of a Legendary Rare in your deck? Well, it turns out that only Sealed, Draft and Commander don't care.

So the first two are limited pools. If you have multiples of a rare in the pool, it's a pretty long odd shot that you'll get both. And the way that the rarity distribution works, while making duplicates more common than not, allows for the assumption that you're only going to see 3 rares total in a draft or 6 in a sealed event. And the odds of any of those being duplicates are really, really low. Like, not worth mentioning.

On the other hand, Commander. Commander, Commander, Commander. And Brawl too, I suppose. The format that has as one of its fundamental rules, you can only have one copy of any card that isn't a non-Basic Land in your deck.

And Grandeur only works because you have duplicates in your deck. Which Commander can't have.

So there's an entire format (two) that has as a central conceit, the use of Legendary creatures - and a mechanic that is functionally incompatible with the format.

Wizards made their choice, and kept support for Commander, to the point that when MaRo is asked on the BolgAtog about a return of Grandeur, his response boils down to "And what about Commander? Why print a mechanic on a card that deliberately shorts their chosen format. We don't sabotage any other format like Grandeur can in EDH, so we won't."

And, yeah, I can understand that. It's a good call on one level, but on a few other levels, it's a failure of design and of imagination.

Let's start with the big thing, and deal with the Legendary clause.

I want to make this perfectly and abundantly clear:

There is no condition in which Grandeur and Legendary are required to interact. There is nothing in the rules or on the card texts that require that only Legendary creatures or permanents in general be the ones with Grandeur. That Wizards refuses to develop this mechanic any more because it restricts the design space of Legendary creatures is a Sleight of Hand designed to distract people from the fact that there is no reason for the two to be connected in the first place!

And when this is pointed out, the raised objection to that point is that why would you use a Grandeur ability when you could just play the second copy of the creature?

I would like to introduce you all to the logical fallacy of Moving the goalposts. Every time someone comes up with an understanding the mechanic that allows it to be reprinted, Wizards changes the definition to avoid the new schema.

But here's the thing. I asked my local Commander players about Grandeur, and while they liked the mechanic, they were OK with it being a mechanic that didn't offer a bonus to their format. They've played with cards where they didn't use all of its abilities before, one of them citing Baru, Fist of Krosa as an example of not caring about the Grandeur activated ability, but rather looking at the pseudo-Landfall ability instead.

So, if a card is good enough without a Grandeur ability, but also has a Grandeur, why not print it?

But let's step back and prove it.

Aiming right at Commander, the format Wizards uses to defend why they won't reexamine the mechanic, let me show you an example card that is perfectly legal, perfectly in color, and perfect for Commander or limited or, hell, even constructed. Or at least perfect enough for a proof-of concept.

Relentless Horrors

Creature - Rat Horror
A deck can have any number of cards named Relentless Horrors
Relentless Horrors gets +1/+0 for each other Rat you control.
Grandeur - Discard a card named Relentless Horrors: Each creature you control gains Menace until the end of the turn.
0/1

I admit, that utilizing the Relentless style of card, from the iconic Relentless Rats to the more recent Persistent Petitioners is a cheap trick, but when the rules allow it, why not embrace it? Why not point out that you can easily bypass the numerical limitations on a card in your deck through already existing mechanics and rules?

But you know what else came to me while I was writing this just now? Because even I can't plan everything ahead of time. I'm not a mono player. Did you guys know that there is a mechanic that lets you cast a card when you discard it?

What about giving a creature with Grandeur a Madness Cost? Yes, it's nothing that can't be done with a simpler "Enters the Battlefield" effect, but by combining the two, you get the option to Madness-cast the spell as well as gaining the Grandeur effect. Or casting it through madness without the need for a copy to already be in play like all the other Madness cards. Or using the Grandeur effect by itself and skipping the Madness cost because you can't afford it, or have better options in mind.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that Grandeur is nowhere near as bad off as Wizards makes it out to be. It's easy to look at it and peel off the thin outer shell of a mechanic that honestly, if Wizard just came out and said "Look, we don't like this effect, we're not interested in it," I could at least respect that. But it's the excuses they make that get to me.

I've complained about mechanics not being given a chance to shine in the past, how Wizards keeps going forward and only rarely looks to the past for things that can be fixed or salvaged. So, here's another one for the pile.

Join me next week when I talk about something else. What? I don't know yet.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!