Space Wizards: Thinking on the Resource System
I detailed the resource system here.
For a quick rundown, think if in Magic’s system the total converted mana cost was how many lands you needed to cast a spell, but you only ever had to tap one land that shares a color with a spell to cast it. Multiple mana symbols of any given color would simply mean you need that many lands of those colors, not that they need to be untapped or that you have to tap them all to play that spell.
My resource system has an additional twist where player always have all three colors of planets (where resources are extracted in my game) to invest their rockets on (rockets extract the resources so the space wizards can use them). But they have to draw rocket cards to actually get rockets on the planets (playing a maximum of one rocket card on their turn, like lands).
So this system could still see mana screw and mana flood and draws still matter for that. I want exciting top decks to be a thing.
However mana screw is more forgiving, especially in a longer game, as a player could potentially have access to all three resources in the game by turn three. That’s a pretty low bar to play a gold deck, really.
That means my game will put more emphasis on multiple color costs, even for single color spells. A really powerful, iconic, and/or niche red effect, for example, might cost 4 red rockets specifically, in addition to two rockets of any color. Not only is that a late game spell, but that’s a spell that says “you need to invest in red most of the game to pull this off.” Sure, you could run a gold deck that can cast spells in any of the three colors by turn three, but those spells would all have to have at most one of a specific color in its cost.
The trade off here is that there still need to be big spells that only require one or two red resources to pull off. I think the way to accomplish this is to have tiers of effects for each color.
Tier 1 in each color are effects that color can do with one resource of the appropriate color (with spells costing more resources of any color in addition to that getting a more powerful version of the same effect)
Tier 2 requires two of those resources in lower cost spells but might be reduced to one in late game spells
Tier 3 requires three of the appropriate color but can likewise be reduced to two for later game spells that cost more
Tier 4 always require four or more of the appropriate resource
Colors that overlap in the same abilities can have them at different tiers. Multicolor cards may get some leeway in what the requirement is but I’m not sure on this yet--for instance should a spell with a tier 1 yellow ability and a tier 2 red ability be able to be costed at RY or should it be RRY. I’m leaning toward the latter when the abilities don’t overlap in anyway and the former if the two colors share the ability in some manner.
The real attraction of this resource model for me is that since a spell only ever requires you to “tap” one untapped rocket to cast it, games that go long can absolutely become epic spell slinging bouts where each player casts a flurry of spells that all require they control five or more resources to play. In reality I find it hard to imagine many games where you would hoard a big costly spell like that, I imagine that dramatic scene will play out at least occasionally and when it does it will be a real highlight.
The trick with this system will be balancing the color intensity in costs with the range of available effects. My small selection of colors should still feel like a robust color pie that requires consideration in deck construction and in assigning rockets in game for multicolor decks even though you choose which colors you want as you place them (so there would never be an issue of getting a Mountain when you wanted an Island, for instance. Just a potential point where you need two Mountains and you put your rockets on a Mountain and an Island).
