Weekly Mechanic #2 - Soulforge & Wizards Stealing My Idea?
Okay, something unexpected happened when I set out to write this week’s Weekly Mechanic. I’m not surprised by what happened, but I was extremely surprised that it happened this early into my series. Specifically, the mechanic I was working on was revealed (with slight tweaks) in the upcoming Magic: The Gathering set spoilers. Wizards showcased my mechanic before I had the chance to put it out to the public—how dare they? Kidding aside, it was truly a strange feeling to open my phone and see a mechanic nearly identical to the one I was tinkering with. I hope this means I’m on the same design track as Wizards’ card designers, as we clearly saw the same potential for design space. Okay, enough grandstanding. Let’s talk about the mechanic I made, the one Wizards made, and the slight differences between them.
In the upcoming Tarkir Dragonstorm, Renew is a keyworded activated ability found on creatures. It allows them to exile themselves from the graveyard to grant their keywords to a creature on the battlefield using keyword counters. Today, March 18, 2025, the mechanic was first spoiled with Qarsi Revenant (shown below).
The mechanic I was working on for this week’s Weekly Mechanic article is something I called Soulforge. Like Renew, Soulforge is a keyworded activated ability that allows a creature to exile itself from the graveyard to grant one of its keywords to a creature on the battlefield using keyword counters. The first design I created using this mechanic was (to no one’s surprise, a black card) called Deathless Soulforger, as seen below.
I believe the reason both Wizards’ card designers and I converged on this design space is that keyword counters were ripe for a revisit. First introduced in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (2020), keyword counters allowed creatures to gain abilities permanently, rather than through temporary effects. This made keywords more flexible and created interesting decision points. Two of my favorite examples are Boot Nipper and Grimdancer (shown below), which let players choose keywords based on board state. Even though this choice seems small, it could dramatically impact the game’s trajectory, rewarding players who correctly anticipated the next few turns. Another reason I think keyword counters were underused is that they naturally fit into all five colours.
For example:
Black gets menace, deathtouch, and lifelink counters.
White gets flying, lifelink, and vigilance counters.
Clearly, Wizards’ designers must have agreed that Keyword counters needed to come back.
Weirdly, my original design had nothing to do with keywords. I originally called it Runeforging, inspired by Death Knights in World of Warcraft. The idea was that you could exile a creature from your graveyard to transform it into an Equipment that granted its keywords to another creature. For example, I initially designed a deathtouch creature that, when exiled from the graveyard, returned as an Equipment that granted deathtouch to the equipped creature. As I refined my design, I realized that keyword counters could achieve my intended effect much more elegantly.
Key Influences: Scavenge & Disturb
Looking at Scavenge (Return to Ravnica) and Disturb (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt), I noticed similarities to Runeforging:
Scavenge was a graveyard-activated ability that turned a creature’s power into +1/+1 counters for another creature.
Disturb allowed creatures to return from the graveyard as transformed versions of themselves.
This led me to simplify Runeforging into Soulforge, replacing Equipment with keyword counters.
One major problem with Soulforge was deciding which keyword to grant if a creature had more than one. In my Runeforging design, the Equipment had all the creature’s keywords, similar to how Renew works. But for Soulforge, I wanted the player to choose one keyword instead of getting all of them. My clunky attempt at solving this issue can be seen with Fallen Screecher (shown below). I also initially designed Soulforge to be exclusive to Spirit creatures, as a callback to Disturb, which let creatures return as Spirits after death.
“The counter granted matches a keyword this creature had.” What an awkward, cursed piece of rules text! I knew I needed to clean up Soulforge’s wording before sharing it publicly. Why did I write such an inelegant sentence? Well... I’ll admit, I use ChatGPT to help refine wording and syntax for my designs. I don’t take it as gospel, but I use it as a data point when structuring new mechanics. Unfortunately, ChatGPT’s suggestion didn’t solve my wording problem, so Soulforge remained a little clunky. My prompt and Chat’s answer can be seen below.
I hope this week’s (shorter) Weekly Mechanic doesn’t disappoint you! Now that I know Wizards will already be using this design space with Renew in Tarkir Dragonstorm, I won’t continue exploring Soulforge. Instead, I’ll bring something entirely new next week—hopefully months before Wizards spoils a similar mechanic again!
Pros:
Nearly identical to an actual Wizards-designed mechanic
Adds a decision point that Renew doesn’t (choosing a keyword)
Graveyard-activated mechanics feel rewarding & clever
Extremely flexible design space—works in any colour
Cons:
Clunky wording
Not very flavorful (and honestly, neither is Renew)
Could be confusing for players unfamiliar with keyword counters
Overall Grade of Soulforge: ???
It’s hard to fully evaluate Soulforge in a vacuum, given that Renew exists. On one hand, I’m thrilled that my design intuition lined up with Wizards’ designers. On the other, this mechanic wasn’t particularly groundbreaking or elegantly worded. Ultimately, I’m just happy that the mechanic I wanted to see in Magic is now playable in the next set. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week (hopefully under different circumstances) for Weekly Mechanic #3!
