Earlier this year, I yet again stumbled into one of my favorite vicestrading card games, Magic: the Gathering (M:tG). Despite costing an arm and a leg from your firstborn child to stay competitive year after year (in pretty much any format), the style and mechanics have me poking my head back in every so often to relive the fun.

Speaking of mechanics, one aspect of M:tG I sincerely enjoy is the Keywords. Keywords are actions or attributes distilled into a word or simple phrase that are widely understood by the players. It’s the way these keywords interact with each other and how their inclusion (or exclusion) can inform so much about a card’s story that I enjoy so much. That sounds like we’re describing creature traits (such as Reckless or Etherealness), doesn’t it?

So, why not give it a shot? Let’s see what three popular Magic: the Gathering keywords could look like in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition!

Mind Rot

Magic Mechanic: Mill

Bonus Action (Charge 6)
Target creature within X feet of [creature shorthand] must succeed on a DC X Intelligence saving throw or lose a spell slot up to Xth level.

In Magic: The Gathering, Mill is an ability that forces the target to discard cards from their deck; it’s often used to shut down an opponent’s strategies before they can even touch the board. Mind Rot functions the same way, only at a slower—yet quite effective—pace. Any time you bust out a creature with Mind Rot, your spellcasters will make it a priority to shut them down. You could also target a Paladin—likely hoarding their spell slots for greater uses of Divine Smite—to truly wreak havoc on even their best laid plans.

And because a feature like this would paint the biggest target on the creature’s back, you’d think my next piece of advice would be to put this on a creature with high AC or hit points, right?

Wrong!

Placed on a tough opponent, this feature is brutal and could easily tip the scale from “challenging, but thrilling” to “cheap DM shenanigans”, which is the last thing we want. This feature is a decoy meant to pull attention away from your real threats, the ones that need a buffer round to cast a particularly potent Concentration spell, summon reinforcements, or even make a hasty escape.

Creatures with Mind Rot should be on the frail side; sturdy enough to get one—maybe two—bonus actions off before biting the dust. And if you’re going to include multiple enemies with Mind Rot—or ones that can use it from great range—ensure they go down even faster.

Why? Because even in M:tG, the person having the most fun with a Mill deck is the one using said Mill deck. Unlike the card game—where players usually have a multitude of ways to counteract or take out Mill cards—a feature like Mind Rot doesn’t have an elegant countermeasure in Fifth Edition. So if the party’s only obvious answer to Mind Rot is to neutralize the creature using it, you should make that answer feel rewarding instead of a bitter slog.

My last tip for using Mind Rot is to cap it at one or two levels below your party spellcasters’ highest spell level. Because casters get so few of their highest level slots, sniping those slots is a surefire way to create an antagonistic relationship between you and your players.

Fatigue

Magic Mechanic: Tap

Bonus Action
Choose Bonus Action, Reaction, or Action. Target creature within X feet of [creature shorthand] cannot use the chosen action type until the end of their next turn. Once affected, a creature is immune to this effect for 1 minute.

Where Mill neutralizes threats by preventing them from entering the battlefield, Tap neutralizes existing threats by preventing them from using their abilities. Mill is preventative control while Tap is denial control.

To briefly explain: many cards in Magic: The Gathering must be tapped to attack or activate a special ability. If you can force a card to tap before its controller activates it, the card cannot attack, defend, or (often times) use an ability. It is this aspect we seek to replicate with Fatigue.

Unlike Exhaustion—which represents the cumulative effects of physical and mental stress—Fatigue is a brief moment where the creature winds (martial) and/or addles (spellcasting) a character enough to disrupt their flow in battle.

This action is balanced in two ways:

• As a Bonus Action, this ability can only be used on the creature’s turn. This also prevents it from feeling as punitive as counterspell can.
• By adding the 1 minute immunity, characters can’t be “stunlocked” the whole fight.

Making Fatigue a Bonus Action forces the creature to predict which opponent is the biggest threat and which action type needs to be shut down on/before their next turn. Fatigue, unlike Mind Rot or counterspell, doesn’t drain an adventurer’s resources; it just prevents them from being used. This doesn’t seem like a huge distinction, but anecdotal experience has taught me the latter is far more preferable than the former.

The 1 minute immunity all but guarantees an adventurer is hit by Fatigue only once per battle; enough to provide a window of opportunity without devolving into cheap shenanigans.

With these two limitations in mind, I do not believe a saving throw to resist Fatigue is needed. If you would like to include one, I recommend using Constitution.

Mystic Scope

Magic Mechanic: Scry

Bonus Action
Target creature within X feet of [creature shorthand] must make a DC X Intelligence saving throw. If the target fails, the [creature shorthand] identifies one spell up to Xth level the target can cast or has prepared. In either case, the target knows their mind was read.

In the same way a Nothic’s Weird Insight is a mechanical way to justify their ability to learn secrets, Mystic Scope allows creatures to identify what spells a PC can cast (and react accordingly) in a way that doesn’t break immersion. It’s a simple feature, but let’s do a breakdown anyway so you can make informed adjustments!

In Magic: The Gathering, Scry “allows a player to look at a certain number of cards from the top of their library and put them on the bottom of the library or back on top in any order” (MTG Fandom). Since we’re not dealing with card decks and their intricacies, we only need to focus on Scry’s initial feature: being able to see what’s coming next.

Because all of your abilities are accessible at any time (barring specific usage requirements), Scry doesn’t benefit D&D much in it’s original M:tG form. Glancing at what your opponent can do, however, is a very welcome feature.

While this ability isn’t as rewarding for the DM as it would be for an adventurer, knowing their enemies can detect what spells they can cast will inspire your players to work around these measures in creative ways.

And because wasting an action all but guarantees a utility feature never gets used, I’ve made this a Bonus Action to ensure the creature can do something with the information they’ve gleaned. I imagine this being attached to lower-ranking spellcasters serving an Archmage or scouts for a hive-mind, such as the myconids or mind flayers!

Conclusion

Now that you’ve had a chance to review these features, I’d love to know your thoughts! If you try them out in your games, how were they received? Or, if I’ve unknowingly re-invented an existing feature, point it my way!

I’ve enjoyed this exercise enough to make it a continuing installment, though I might stretch my legs a little with a different subject for the next post. If there are Keywords you would like to see in the next list, drop them in the comments below!

Blessed be and until next time,

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