What I feel the game is currently lacking is more cards which interact with their immediate surroundings in an active way. Not the reactive kind of Bomb Slinger, Salamander, Triton Banquet that make your opponent afraid to develop his game because he might get axed, but a card that takes its strength from positioning.
To me, Bone Collector is the embodiment of such behavior, and one of my favourite cards. I feel it’s beautiful when I see top players manage to place it and move it in a position it’s able to grow to a real threat, while keeping it (relatively) away from danger. On the other hand, your opponent will never think “I can’t do this, because if he has a Bone Collector I’m screwed”, which is what I think anytime I play a creature in range of Bomb Slinger. No, Bone Collector is a new strategic battle that begins when it touches the board and when both players know its presence, and play to either get the best out of it, or to prevent your opponent from getting such value.
At the moment, I don’t see many cards like this, it’s mostly Bone Collector, and, maybe, Baeru. Might consider Kobold Barracks as well, but it’s already kind of a reactive card, plus it’s a building, so positioning tricks aren’t as easy as with creatures (but it still is an interesting card when not played in a reactive manner).
Not sure if I’m clear here, to sum up I’d like too see more cards that interact positively with their immediate surroundings, in a non-reactive manner.
YES. I always love death benefit. A single Bone Collector on the board opens up sooo many possibilities and things to consider. The positioning element, the playing it risky or safe… Probably my favorite card.
Some ideas, for either creatures (legend or not) or structures:
Production: All adjacent (friendly) creatures gain jump this turn.
Explanation: Anything but production would be op in that case. Production ensures that you can’t use it as a surprise attack (which would be basically an even stronger Triton Banquet in case of this card), at least without Imperial Engineer.
Production: All adjacent (friendly?) creatures are healed for 2 (3?) life.
Explanation: Probably as a structure. This enables you to trade efficiently around this structure/creature without having to sacrifice your own.
Production: All adjacent (friendly) creatures gain +1/+0 [or, another card: +0/+1].
Explanation: Similar to the one above, but with permanent buffs. Non-permanent buffs (healing) enable the possibility of greater numbers. For instance, buffing a creature by 2 or 3 life/turn is ridiculous. Healing is okay.
Another idea: What about enchanting lands? Example (after enchantment): This land deals 2 damage to anything that steps on it for the next 3 turns. (something like that)
Bone Collector is the most interesting green card, because of how strategic its positioning is. I’d really like to see more similar cards.
Positional cards could actually be green’s specialty. Green is a bit boring to play right now, since most of its cards are so straightforward. If they had a lot of cards that would be more powerful with careful positioning, mono green would be more interesting to play.
I’ve made a thread with 4 card ideas, 3 of which revolve heavily around positioning. Only one is Green, but I feel like it is exactly the sort of design direction some of you are mentioning. As the thread is about Bone Collector and Green, I won’t post the pictures of the cards here, but I will link the thread so you can tell me if I understand what you are trying to ask for. Credit to Taiyodori for helping me polish the card ideas.
