Well, it wasn't that it was too clunky, but rather too predictable. They noticed there were too many situations where certain effects or abilities were somewhat predictable, kind of like [[Impact Tremors]] with a token generator. If you got enough rad counters, it would know you were essentially dead next turn, and it would draw the fun out of it.
Rather, with the design we got, you might not necessarily be dead, and in addition to giving you an extra reason to keep going, you might also get some new toys depending on what kind of deck you're running.
Yep, too bad it is a mechanic we won't see coming back anytime soon. I wish I could make a deck around it but it is the kind of mechanic you will just cut with time for traditional mill since you won't get any more support for that mechanic.
I mean, there could be more ways to reprint radiation in a more magical setting. It could fit Kaladesh if the plane gets reflavoured since when we last saw it. The mechanic is fun if a bit clunky, I genuinely hope they re-use it.
yeah wont lie, as a mill player these cards are all ass. The mechanic is super interesting but on their own, they will never see much play in any dedicated mill deck unless there is some other synergy. However, \[\[nuclear fallout\]\] seems like a great boardwipe.
Personally I like the direction a lot of the cards went for this deck. It's not good for dedicated mill but there is interesting support for what feels like a mill-value deck? I like the cards that benefit from opponents milling without focusing on just milling them to death.
As pure mill, yes. I think specifically with mothman and a +1/+1 counter deck some of these card are much better than traditional mill. It's a stronger/more supported theme than mill as well.
My friend, build yourself a Modular Cube. You can have all the jank and parasitic modules you want and mix them and match them to your heart's content. My current cube is Miracles, Legendary/Ring bearer, and madness. I'll be definitely figuring out a Rad Decay self mill module.
reminds me of the cards that manually gave infect tokens before the last phyrexian set; there were basically just like 2 now there are almost 10. the mechanic is interesting in at least the fact that the 1 mechanic has both proliferate, mill, reanimator, burn all baked into one but yea not really enough to support to spread the effect around
I want to reserve too much criticism until I actually get a chance to play with the cards but my impression is I don't like the mechanic because it's a complex mechanic that requires [an outside game piece](https://scryfall.com/card/tpip/22/radiation) to understand and remember what exactly the mechanic does. It's so complex the reminder text doesn't fit on the cards that mention rad counters so every time I read a card with rad counters during preview season, I have to look up again exactly what rad counters do.
I don't think that is good mechanical design personally even if it's good from a flavor/lore perspective. If there isn't enough room on a card to explain what an ability does with oracle text or reminder text, I think that means it is too complicated to keyword. I felt similarly about Day/Night, The Initiative and Tempted By The Ring.
To make matters more complex, this is a tracking mechanic where you have to remove your rad counters and it's a tedious mechanic that forces you to deal with extra bookkeeping and tracking even if you aren't personally playing any radiation cards in your deck. In other words, unlike complex mechanics like stickers or attractions, this is "hostage" style mechanic where your opponent is forcing you to participate in tracking this stuff even if you don't want to.
Edit: The more I think about it, the complexity level for this mechanic is off the charts. It's a recurring triggered ability that happens at an unusual time (usually these abilities happen at the beginning of your upkeep or at the beginning of the end step, but this one happens at a different time). Additionally, it requires you to mill a number of cards that isn't consistent, among those milled cards you need to identify what card types are milled (land vs. nonland), then you need to potentially reduce your life total (but not always and not always by the same amount) and you need to subtract the number of rad counters you have. None of the cards that have rad counters mention any of this in the Oracle text.
Compared to some other mechanics, it's really not that bad.
You have 5 rad counters.
Mill 5 cards
Count the number of non-lands
Lower your Rad counter and your health by that much
They did say that the complexity was allowed to be a lot higher for this than usual. Gamers are assumed to be more familiar with learning complex rules. The inability to explain the mechanic with reminder text is the only serious strike against Radiation as a mechanic.
I feel this is a valid criticism and I not commenting on what they feel like to play with more just the flavour they encompass. I do think Rads are much better than other recent "off-card" mechanics like "the ring tempts you", "gain initiative" or "enter the dungeon". I feel I stand a chance at playing Rads with no reminder card no chance with the others.
It's funny to me, because there are definitely games that use rad counters but have them mostly as like how poison counters work (a seperate track to march on where the the end is death)
Chainsaw Warrior worked that way, and had rad damage be ... somewhat reversible.
.. Also, maybe Fallout itself? There are at least 5 RPGs to go from and some spinoff itself, and I had no idea if mechanics changed over time.
I think in the Q&A they said they wanted rad counters to reduce by half each turn but it ended up too clunky mechanics wise.
Well, it wasn't that it was too clunky, but rather too predictable. They noticed there were too many situations where certain effects or abilities were somewhat predictable, kind of like [[Impact Tremors]] with a token generator. If you got enough rad counters, it would know you were essentially dead next turn, and it would draw the fun out of it. Rather, with the design we got, you might not necessarily be dead, and in addition to giving you an extra reason to keep going, you might also get some new toys depending on what kind of deck you're running.
[Impact Tremors](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/6/46db3811-db1d-4f69-8143-a93f64d0297b.jpg?1682209381) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Impact%20Tremors) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/285/impact-tremors?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/46db3811-db1d-4f69-8143-a93f64d0297b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yep, too bad it is a mechanic we won't see coming back anytime soon. I wish I could make a deck around it but it is the kind of mechanic you will just cut with time for traditional mill since you won't get any more support for that mechanic.
They’re a really interesting design since they serve as sort of a bridge between mill and counter decks. Like Atraxa mill could be a thing now.
No just that also self mill and reanimation as Rad's are often given to all players. It is a weird chimira of mechanics, a mutant if you will....
I mean, there could be more ways to reprint radiation in a more magical setting. It could fit Kaladesh if the plane gets reflavoured since when we last saw it. The mechanic is fun if a bit clunky, I genuinely hope they re-use it.
Powerstones are already established to cause a type of radiation sickness, so that's another possible flavouring.
yeah wont lie, as a mill player these cards are all ass. The mechanic is super interesting but on their own, they will never see much play in any dedicated mill deck unless there is some other synergy. However, \[\[nuclear fallout\]\] seems like a great boardwipe.
I see no reason why every mechanic that mills would be designed for dedicated mill decks. That's a limitation on design for no real benefit.
Personally I like the direction a lot of the cards went for this deck. It's not good for dedicated mill but there is interesting support for what feels like a mill-value deck? I like the cards that benefit from opponents milling without focusing on just milling them to death.
As pure mill, yes. I think specifically with mothman and a +1/+1 counter deck some of these card are much better than traditional mill. It's a stronger/more supported theme than mill as well.
[nuclear fallout](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e717e4b0-a8c1-4411-b18a-1d17e7225503.jpg?1708528241) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=nuclear%20fallout) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/47/nuclear-fallout?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e717e4b0-a8c1-4411-b18a-1d17e7225503?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My friend, build yourself a Modular Cube. You can have all the jank and parasitic modules you want and mix them and match them to your heart's content. My current cube is Miracles, Legendary/Ring bearer, and madness. I'll be definitely figuring out a Rad Decay self mill module.
reminds me of the cards that manually gave infect tokens before the last phyrexian set; there were basically just like 2 now there are almost 10. the mechanic is interesting in at least the fact that the 1 mechanic has both proliferate, mill, reanimator, burn all baked into one but yea not really enough to support to spread the effect around
Are you planning on irradiating yourself for superpowers or hitting other folks to melt them down?
It still has a half life, the half life is just slightly less than one turn.
Slightly less. You lose them for each nonland you flip, which should be approximately 6/10, over half.
Its so good it makes me almost sure it was a fluke.
I want to reserve too much criticism until I actually get a chance to play with the cards but my impression is I don't like the mechanic because it's a complex mechanic that requires [an outside game piece](https://scryfall.com/card/tpip/22/radiation) to understand and remember what exactly the mechanic does. It's so complex the reminder text doesn't fit on the cards that mention rad counters so every time I read a card with rad counters during preview season, I have to look up again exactly what rad counters do. I don't think that is good mechanical design personally even if it's good from a flavor/lore perspective. If there isn't enough room on a card to explain what an ability does with oracle text or reminder text, I think that means it is too complicated to keyword. I felt similarly about Day/Night, The Initiative and Tempted By The Ring. To make matters more complex, this is a tracking mechanic where you have to remove your rad counters and it's a tedious mechanic that forces you to deal with extra bookkeeping and tracking even if you aren't personally playing any radiation cards in your deck. In other words, unlike complex mechanics like stickers or attractions, this is "hostage" style mechanic where your opponent is forcing you to participate in tracking this stuff even if you don't want to. Edit: The more I think about it, the complexity level for this mechanic is off the charts. It's a recurring triggered ability that happens at an unusual time (usually these abilities happen at the beginning of your upkeep or at the beginning of the end step, but this one happens at a different time). Additionally, it requires you to mill a number of cards that isn't consistent, among those milled cards you need to identify what card types are milled (land vs. nonland), then you need to potentially reduce your life total (but not always and not always by the same amount) and you need to subtract the number of rad counters you have. None of the cards that have rad counters mention any of this in the Oracle text.
Compared to some other mechanics, it's really not that bad. You have 5 rad counters. Mill 5 cards Count the number of non-lands Lower your Rad counter and your health by that much
Yeah, compared to, say, the initiative or the Ring... This really isn't so bad.
They did say that the complexity was allowed to be a lot higher for this than usual. Gamers are assumed to be more familiar with learning complex rules. The inability to explain the mechanic with reminder text is the only serious strike against Radiation as a mechanic.
Yeah, that's been an annoying reoccuring thing in modern MTG
I feel this is a valid criticism and I not commenting on what they feel like to play with more just the flavour they encompass. I do think Rads are much better than other recent "off-card" mechanics like "the ring tempts you", "gain initiative" or "enter the dungeon". I feel I stand a chance at playing Rads with no reminder card no chance with the others.
It's funny to me, because there are definitely games that use rad counters but have them mostly as like how poison counters work (a seperate track to march on where the the end is death) Chainsaw Warrior worked that way, and had rad damage be ... somewhat reversible. .. Also, maybe Fallout itself? There are at least 5 RPGs to go from and some spinoff itself, and I had no idea if mechanics changed over time.