Alright… I read the comprehensive rules on Prepare and I take it all back. What a complete mess this is on the backend 😭.

722.3c
As a permanent with a prepare spell gains the prepared designation or phases in prepared, its controller creates a copy of that object in exile, except that copy has only the characteristics of that permanent’s prepare spell, ignoring other exceptions to the copying process that apply to that permanent. Those characteristics become the copy’s normal characteristics. This copy remains in exile for as long as the prepared permanent remains on the battlefield and has the prepared designation. This is an exception to rule 704.5e

Exhaust is doing a similar thing; I like that Prepared is easier to interact with, that it triggers 'casts' things and like you mention - there's the chance for an extra hoop. I still think the issue with Landfall is 100% how they're using it and not the basic idea of triggering when a land enters. For example, if you just had to pay a mana cost for most of the existing landfall cards they suddenly become much more reasonable.

I remember having a similar issue in one of our game designs where I was trying to figure out how to do a mechanic around pirates to represent "loot." I kept thinking about something like MTG's Energy design, but ran into the problems you mention here.

Because the nature of the game has a kind of "churn" built in, it finally hit me the method to split up the mechanic. I put the "generate" portion of the resource on the cards that would persist around turn after turn, then the "spend" portion of the mechanic on cards that were temporary. (To translate into MTG terms - imagine it was enchantment or artifacts that gave you energy, then it was instants or sorceries that spent it.) This worked out the balance really well.

missed opportunity to say "that's all I have prepared for you today."

As someone who only plays limited, I'm happy to see more non-creature spells. However, I see a risk that non-creature spells will get drafted less if you can get a prepared creature instead, and as a result, board states where neither player can attack will occur more often.

10:25 - enter TCC “Everything is Kicker”
Prepared is kicker?
Of course! If you do what the creatures wants, then that’s the kicker cost, then you can pay the other kicker cost later and cast its spell, it’s a double kicker!

I do like the added value that Prepared spells offer onto creatures. Where Adventures require you to cast the spell first and only after it's "On an Adventure" can you cast the creature.

there is prepared counters in prerelease kits and some precons i believe. we just pull the card a bit out of the sleeve when its prepared

I cut one of those tiny moleskin notebooks into even tinier ‘spell books’ the size of the prepared text box that I shift between the two halves of the card to indicate whether or not it’s prepared

I would love to see a card you have to put some kind of effort into getting Prepared and then the creature also has to sacrifice itself to its own prepared spell. There's a lot of story potential there. Like accepting one's death.

Definitely agree that this opens up a lot of new design space, feels a bit like when they moved from hexproof to ward. Fits the need they have (making creatures stickier or giving more value to creatures, etc) but leaves the requirements for the extra value pleasantly open ended

Another nice advantage of the prepared mechanic is that it's basically a Boolean value, it only has two states.

This means that tracking it can be as simple as just grabbing a penny or something and putting it on the creature. No need for dice or any fancy tracking objects.

You actually get lil prepared tokens at pre release events where its relevant c:

I find prepared to be a super compelling way to deal with power creep in a clever way, so much that it could replace much of the "when this enters" or "when X happens".

It allows you to keep abilities resource locked, to print increasingly powerful effects while gated and creates a new puzzle box for players to consider. Creatures that enter prepared still require you to pay for said effect, keeping the game from turning into a Yugioh craziness cascade.

I cant wait to see how the mechanic develops and whether or not WOTC really understands how good the mechanic could be as a new standard template.

Landfall - target creature you control becomes prepared.

actually come to think of it a lot of my favourite mechanics involve paying mana for stuff on the field. Monstrosity is a good one too, sort of like creatures casting their own enchantments.

Great content as always!

It's always really cool when WotC finds a new axis for design and storytelling. The Prepared state is a little weird, but the potential is there.

I love that prepared can be super thematic for certain sets/planes (like Strixhaven) without being parasitic. There’s also a lot of design space for other cards to interact by making things prepared/unprepared.

Honestly, 'prepared' is very cool, but it's like Kicker with huge upside. It's an ETB that doesn't need to be triggered, and basically creates more flexible 2-for-1's. For example, imagine playing a card that was a 2/2 for 2, but had Unsummon as a prepared spell. That's Man-o-War with huge upside because it can be a 2/2 on 2 where you can effect the board a turn earlier, and then cast the prepared spell whenever suits, rather than feeling like you need a target. It obviously depends on the spell and the efficiency of the threat vs. mana value, but my concern is that this is still a power-crept mechanic disguising itself as 'having to pay for spells'. The only time this doesn't apply is when you lock 'prepared' behind some condition to make it prepared, which is a good fail-safe, but seems to only be on overpowered prepared spells, and only sometimes. The only decks that get nerfed by 'prepared' are ones that flicker creatures, and even then you still get a portion of the card available to you again (which if the spell is cheap, can be effective). I still think it's an awesome and very flavourful mechanic, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily always solving power level problems. In a lot of cases, it continues to allow WOTC to print efficient threats, but now with a sorcery/instant attached to it, allowing different procs like prowess/casting noncreature spells/copying instants and sorceries etc.