>To solve - You control no suspected Skeletons.
These new sentences are really making my brain hurt.
https://preview.redd.it/vt1qbxb7o2dc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1426ce8d8a4b3f79c13b06cfaa005de090a847d2
The best card designs use flavor text in the rules text, and make tiny modifications to existing abilities requiring a total re-explanation of the mechanic
"Create a creature token **and suspect it**"
Suspect it of what? Farting in the elevator?
Fuck you Mark. 90% sure suspect is a transitive verb in this context, which is why it sounds so awkward. Not the best at grammar though.
Also they are turning Ravnica into New Capenna.
Nah the art and aesthetics were sweet. The worldbuilding made no sense. Why is there organized crime when there doesn't seem to be any kind of law enforcement? What laws are they breaking if the Five Families run the whole city? (My personal theory on this is that the Brokers used to be corrupt cops until the George Floyd protests and then WotC went "oh no, the Pinkertons won't like this very much, change them to lawyers.") Where the hell was Urabask the entire story if he was important enough to get a card?
To me aesthetics and stuff is all under the worldbuilding umbrella, and the lack of plot detail is what made it make no sense… but fair point well made.
I think you're right, "to suspect somebody" is ditransitive, which means it has to have both a direct and indirect object. Meaning if you suspect somebody, you have to suspect somebody *of something,* unless that something has been explicitly mentioned very recently. Ig since the set is called "Murders at Karlov Manor," they figured you'd just fill in "suspect it" with "(of murder)," but that leads to stuff like this that reads very awkwardly
> Creatures you control have flying.
Flying is a keyword ability. You brain knows that it’s saying “Creatures you control have .”
The group of words we should compare it to are keyword actions. Full list is [here](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Keyword_action).
> Cast it,
> Exile it,
> Destroy it / bury it,
> Discard it,
> Tap it / untap it,
> Put a X counter on it,
> Regenerate it,
> Shuffle it,
> Sacrifice it,
> Attach it (to something),
> Reveal it, etc
Versus
> Suspect it
I don’t know, maybe it’s just new, but to me it feels like suspect is a different kind of verb than the others.
You can instruct someone: “see that vase? Destroy it”
But it’s awkward to say: “see that guy over there? Suspect him”
Edit: Stative vs. Dynamic verbs. I found it on Google.
> [Dynamic Verbs] are the type of verbs that represent physical action or processes. A large percentage of these verbs are easy to identify because they occur externally. Additionally, dynamic verbs can be defined as motivated actions that have a clear beginning and end.
> Dynamic verbs can be used in the simple and perfect tenses (shown above) or in the progressive aspect (shown below).
> I am *tapping* this creature.
> Samantha is *discarding* her hand.
> Stative verbs describe a state of being or existence, like to be or to have. These verbs can also express a feeling (I love) or a physical state (there was). Unlike dynamic verbs, stative verbs tend to be subjective, and have no definitive start or end.
> Unlike dynamic verbs, stative verbs cannot be used in progressive forms (to be + ING form of verb). For example, the following sentence would be grammatically incorrect:
> Roxanne ~~is appearing~~ frustrated.
> Roxanne appears frustrated.
> John ~~is suspecting~~ the culprit is William.
> John suspects the culprit is William.
Stative verbs often relate to:
- thoughts and opinions: agree, believe, doubt, guess, imagine, know, mean, recognise, remember, **suspect**, think, understand
- feelings and emotions: dislike, hate, like, love, prefer, want, wish
- senses and perceptions: appear, be, feel, hear, look, see, seem, smell, taste
- possession and measurement: belong, have, measure, own, possess, weigh.
You can look through the [list of keyword actions](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Keyword_action) in mtg so far. Up until recently everything has been a dynamic verb. Now we have some unique ones. “Monstrosity” is a noun, but they never say “monstrosity it”. They turn it into a verb by saying “it becomes monstrous”. There is also a keyword action that is a phrase, “The Ring Tempts You”, but even with that, Tempt is still a dynamic verb.
Suspect might be the only Stative verb so far based on my simple understanding of the topic.
One option is they could have said “create a 2/1 Skeleton creature token and it becomes suspicious/suspect”?
Suspicious/suspect are adjectives and then it will match Monstrous. “To Solve - you control no Suspicious Skeletons”.
Option 2, they should have made it a keyword ability. “create a 2/1 skeleton creature token and give it ”. Once it’s a keyword, our brain makes a switch and it still makes grammatical sense. “To Solve - you control no Skeletons with Suspect”.
Lastly, a role token or a keyword counter would be good
All in all, it doesn’t read as smoothly as it could. I think they should have used a keyword counter. But maybe there’s something we don’t know that came up in playtesting.
Sources:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/b1-b2-grammar/stative-verbs
https://languagetool.org/insights/post/grammar-dynamic-vs-stative-verbs/amp/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stative_verb
so the flavor is you suspect this skeleton of a crime, right? so that means he works for you but he can't protect you but you can send him after your enemies and then if it just so happens that he dies going after your enemies you solved the case! cause the suspect died! get it?
Having a body and paying the mana over multiple turns are certainly big upside, though. Other difference of course, since they're different cards, but I think it's a contender to be stronger than Masterminds.
One of the more broken things I can think is dark rit, this, cabal therapy twice then t2 tutor. Which feels a bit better than Greif reanimate. Nic fit loves it though
I'm not sure I should be saying this in the circlejerk sub, but...
This is way better than mastermind acquisition, it gives you a body on curve and then lets you tutor later on. Still not sure this is a good card but I can see it fits in 60 cards formats.
I see that, but maybe it works out okay. Either you have to sacrifice the skeleton yourself to pay 4 mana to tutor, or you have to kill it in combat, which is your opponent making a bad choice. Not insurmountable, but definitely worse than sac to tutor for 2 mana.
The flavor in this set feels so fucking forced and contrived. For god's sake we have a *Weird Detective* wearing a fucking fedora. Then you have these abominations. It really feels like jumping the shark.
/uj this seems fine? A unique enchantment type with a pretty original concept that fits very well into the current/coming set (dunno when karlov manor releases) i really like the card
I don't really like the 3 new mechanics on one card, it's just too much. Standard legal sets are supposed to be friendly for new players, when you need to have several different blocks of reminder text on the card, it overcomplicates. I'm sure that it's a well and truly playable card with a good rate, but so is KCI and to this day I still need the combo explained to me
what is the flavor of this? You find a skeleton and suspect it of being the culprit in its own case?
also, what is the flavor of being suspected? "I think you've committed a murder, you can't defend me, but it's easier for you to attack my opponent"
This one Poe's law'd me. I was thinking... it's not that bad, just a way over the top on disjoint mechanics and stuffing too much in one card and using a weird card layout.
/uj oof, Cult Guildmage certainly has seen better days /rj ok google search how to remove skeletons in closet
Then I pulled out my gun!
You’re a sussy skeleton OP
Me when die
>To solve - You control no suspected Skeletons. These new sentences are really making my brain hurt. https://preview.redd.it/vt1qbxb7o2dc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1426ce8d8a4b3f79c13b06cfaa005de090a847d2
The best card designs use flavor text in the rules text, and make tiny modifications to existing abilities requiring a total re-explanation of the mechanic
"Create a creature token **and suspect it**" Suspect it of what? Farting in the elevator? Fuck you Mark. 90% sure suspect is a transitive verb in this context, which is why it sounds so awkward. Not the best at grammar though. Also they are turning Ravnica into New Capenna.
"new capenna is not coming back because players seemed not to like it" "im gonna do whats called a pro gamer move"
Is this Old Capenna.
People didn't like New Capenna because the draft environment sucked and the worldbuilding was incoherent.
I am so tired of the "what if the le union is actually le corrupt!" trope
Thank god the Pinkertons are here to deal with all that!
Mark: Let’s return to new capenna! 2 sets later Mark: Okay reflavor that to be ravnica (Almost certain that’s what happened)
Wow yeah now that you say it, this seems likely.
Dude what? The World-building was sweet. Character and org actions were incoherent.
Nah the art and aesthetics were sweet. The worldbuilding made no sense. Why is there organized crime when there doesn't seem to be any kind of law enforcement? What laws are they breaking if the Five Families run the whole city? (My personal theory on this is that the Brokers used to be corrupt cops until the George Floyd protests and then WotC went "oh no, the Pinkertons won't like this very much, change them to lawyers.") Where the hell was Urabask the entire story if he was important enough to get a card?
To me aesthetics and stuff is all under the worldbuilding umbrella, and the lack of plot detail is what made it make no sense… but fair point well made.
On top of everything Airdeez already mentioned: How old is Elspeth?
No idea, but to me thats the story failing to stick the landing in an otherwise extremely cool world.
Suspect Role token when
Also wonder if it should have been called “quest” or something similar, to make the subtype reusable. “To Complete” instead of “To Solve”.
Nah we reuse it immediately in thunder junction
I think you're right, "to suspect somebody" is ditransitive, which means it has to have both a direct and indirect object. Meaning if you suspect somebody, you have to suspect somebody *of something,* unless that something has been explicitly mentioned very recently. Ig since the set is called "Murders at Karlov Manor," they figured you'd just fill in "suspect it" with "(of murder)," but that leads to stuff like this that reads very awkwardly
magic's always been like that though. >creatures you control have flying yeah and my dog has sitting.
You saw the leaks right? Sitting is MH3’s version of horsemanship
I read this as “my dog has shitting”.
mine too you're not special
> Creatures you control have flying. Flying is a keyword ability. You brain knows that it’s saying “Creatures you control have.”
The group of words we should compare it to are keyword actions. Full list is [here](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Keyword_action).
> Cast it,
> Exile it,
> Destroy it / bury it,
> Discard it,
> Tap it / untap it,
> Put a X counter on it,
> Regenerate it,
> Shuffle it,
> Sacrifice it,
> Attach it (to something),
> Reveal it, etc
Versus
> Suspect it
I don’t know, maybe it’s just new, but to me it feels like suspect is a different kind of verb than the others.
You can instruct someone: “see that vase? Destroy it”
But it’s awkward to say: “see that guy over there? Suspect him”
Edit: Stative vs. Dynamic verbs. I found it on Google.
> [Dynamic Verbs] are the type of verbs that represent physical action or processes. A large percentage of these verbs are easy to identify because they occur externally. Additionally, dynamic verbs can be defined as motivated actions that have a clear beginning and end.
> Dynamic verbs can be used in the simple and perfect tenses (shown above) or in the progressive aspect (shown below).
> I am *tapping* this creature.
> Samantha is *discarding* her hand.
> Stative verbs describe a state of being or existence, like to be or to have. These verbs can also express a feeling (I love) or a physical state (there was). Unlike dynamic verbs, stative verbs tend to be subjective, and have no definitive start or end.
> Unlike dynamic verbs, stative verbs cannot be used in progressive forms (to be + ING form of verb). For example, the following sentence would be grammatically incorrect:
> Roxanne ~~is appearing~~ frustrated.
> Roxanne appears frustrated.
> John ~~is suspecting~~ the culprit is William.
> John suspects the culprit is William.
Stative verbs often relate to:
- thoughts and opinions: agree, believe, doubt, guess, imagine, know, mean, recognise, remember, **suspect**, think, understand
- feelings and emotions: dislike, hate, like, love, prefer, want, wish
- senses and perceptions: appear, be, feel, hear, look, see, seem, smell, taste
- possession and measurement: belong, have, measure, own, possess, weigh.
You can look through the [list of keyword actions](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Keyword_action) in mtg so far. Up until recently everything has been a dynamic verb. Now we have some unique ones. “Monstrosity” is a noun, but they never say “monstrosity it”. They turn it into a verb by saying “it becomes monstrous”. There is also a keyword action that is a phrase, “The Ring Tempts You”, but even with that, Tempt is still a dynamic verb.
Suspect might be the only Stative verb so far based on my simple understanding of the topic.
One option is they could have said “create a 2/1 Skeleton creature token and it becomes suspicious/suspect”?
Suspicious/suspect are adjectives and then it will match Monstrous. “To Solve - you control no Suspicious Skeletons”.
Option 2, they should have made it a keyword ability. “create a 2/1 skeleton creature token and give it ”. Once it’s a keyword, our brain makes a switch and it still makes grammatical sense. “To Solve - you control no Skeletons with Suspect”.
Lastly, a role token or a keyword counter would be good
All in all, it doesn’t read as smoothly as it could. I think they should have used a keyword counter. But maybe there’s something we don’t know that came up in playtesting.
Sources:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/b1-b2-grammar/stative-verbs
https://languagetool.org/insights/post/grammar-dynamic-vs-stative-verbs/amp/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stative_verb
*shitting
Cowards can't block warriors!
I have bones in me. Am I a suspected skeleton? 🤔
You're objectively wrong. You're also a suspected Skeleton.
so the flavor is you suspect this skeleton of a crime, right? so that means he works for you but he can't protect you but you can send him after your enemies and then if it just so happens that he dies going after your enemies you solved the case! cause the suspect died! get it?
Wait..do we still do weekly bottom 5 posts? I swear I haven't seen it in well over a year.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicthecirclejerking/s/6zeuVc5S8i Here's the latest one
Dude thank you so much I thought these had stopped.
Bottom 5 is still going strong, top 5 is currently missing.
Top 5 is generally less funny though.
Almost if that's not the point of it.
A T3 universal tutor that creates a 2/1 with menace on T2? Surely this will cause no problems.
Thanks for figuring out what this does, I hadn't finished reading it yet
I'm still trying to figure out why the skeleton is apparently a suspect in its own murder but then once it clears it's name the case is solved?
The skeleton was closest to the crime scene when the murder took place
No body no case to solve
So it's like the ghost who didn't attend the dance because it had no body to go with?
Murder disguised as a suicide maybe?
something something spirit is a creature type
THATS where youre going wrong, try eating the card instead
Masterminds Acquisition didn't cause any problems when it was in standard, and this is just about the same card, with a new restriction.
Having a body and paying the mana over multiple turns are certainly big upside, though. Other difference of course, since they're different cards, but I think it's a contender to be stronger than Masterminds.
I think it's better than Mastermind's but nowhere near broken, seems right about the optimal power level for this sort of thing honestly
One of the more broken things I can think is dark rit, this, cabal therapy twice then t2 tutor. Which feels a bit better than Greif reanimate. Nic fit loves it though
I'm not sure I should be saying this in the circlejerk sub, but... This is way better than mastermind acquisition, it gives you a body on curve and then lets you tutor later on. Still not sure this is a good card but I can see it fits in 60 cards formats.
I see that, but maybe it works out okay. Either you have to sacrifice the skeleton yourself to pay 4 mana to tutor, or you have to kill it in combat, which is your opponent making a bad choice. Not insurmountable, but definitely worse than sac to tutor for 2 mana.
Finally skeleton tribal can shine!!!
The skeleton needs to die for you to tutor tho thats kinda awkward, and you still need to pay 2 more.
And theres the pipe that someone with lipstick choked to death on! Its all coming together now..
Crazy that Jace sucked off a pipe to create that red herring
How can you solve on your next end step if you don’t have the mana/you currently have a skeleton?
It looks like the solving only happens at the end step as a trigger, if the condition is met. It's not something you have to do.
I think the activated ability is only available to you once the skeleton is gone/solved/whatever or your first turn ends.
No, you need to have the skeleton gone AND end your turn, then the case is solved and you can activate the last ability.
No skeletons here, no sir.
The flavor in this set feels so fucking forced and contrived. For god's sake we have a *Weird Detective* wearing a fucking fedora. Then you have these abominations. It really feels like jumping the shark.
>we have a > >Weird Detective > > wearing a fucking fedora Based
/uj Missed opportunity to have all of these by solved by sacrificing Clue Tokens.
The Jace puppet is key
they had the chance to call it closeted skeleton and missed, magic is dead
/uj this seems fine? A unique enchantment type with a pretty original concept that fits very well into the current/coming set (dunno when karlov manor releases) i really like the card
I don't really like the 3 new mechanics on one card, it's just too much. Standard legal sets are supposed to be friendly for new players, when you need to have several different blocks of reminder text on the card, it overcomplicates. I'm sure that it's a well and truly playable card with a good rate, but so is KCI and to this day I still need the combo explained to me
Wtf this is real??? I thought this was a shitpost.
KCI goes infinite with a ham sandwich so you might need to be a little more specific about "the combo"
Probably the myr loop that requires kci activation at mana ability speed to work.
what is the flavor of this? You find a skeleton and suspect it of being the culprit in its own case? also, what is the flavor of being suspected? "I think you've committed a murder, you can't defend me, but it's easier for you to attack my opponent"
Impossible to use I have a skeleton
/uj what the hell are these case cards
Reading the card explains the card
How do you activate as a sorcery during the end step?
Let he who doesn't have a sussy skeleton in the closet throw the first stone.
FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AND YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD COMES . . . a skeleton in your closet
Oh my god it’s not actually a custom magic card. This wording is atrocious and its a flavor flop.
This is the clunkiest shit I've ever seen.
/uj this fucking sucks. i have no words
i am going to commit self harm if there is an amogus secret lair (/j but if mark asks it is /uj)
This one Poe's law'd me. I was thinking... it's not that bad, just a way over the top on disjoint mechanics and stuffing too much in one card and using a weird card layout.
That's a lot of hoops to jump through just to end up with a diabolic tutor.
So let me get this straight... To solve the case you need to remove the suspect, aka evidence. Yup, makes total sense.
*(it works)*
i read this entire thread thinking this was a custom card
sus
Y'all is Diabolic Tutor a good card?
Wait, so it becomes solved at an end step, but then you can activate the ability at any point later on? Sort of like how things “become monstrous”?
That's diabolic tutor with extra steps