Hi everybody!
I've always been interested in how flavour, character and story can be conveyed in Magic, and for me one of the most flavourful blocks will always be Kamigawa. I know it wasn't the most popular of blocks- but I would love to re-explore plane.
Now from a mechanics and design point of view, I am not the most experienced- but I figure there must be others out there looking to help create a distinct and flavourful set. I've included some ideas below, but am interested in having a very communal approach to it all.
Narrative wise this is the premise I've got: The Kami are being manipulated by a powerful force who wants to rebuild the plane itself. This means we can use the concepts from the original Kamigawa block, without being bound by it.
I see Kamigawa working as an interesting tribal block, Spirits being the most obvious and treating Legendary as basically a tribe. You've then got the classes from the first block (samurai and ninjas) and some of the races (rat, snake, goblin and fox) plus merefolk, representing the Kappa (a formally extinct race that has been returned by the altering of the plane).
The 'legendary matters' theme is an interesting one- and while I think they probably went too far with it in the original, it is incredibly flavourful (which, if you haven't sensed, I like) and something I don't think was fully explored. The idea of having cards that interact with legendary creatures, making them cheaper to cast or harder to get rid of could be interesting. Bringing something like 'Grandeur' (from Future Sight) could solve some problems.
Those are simple ideas right now (I know) but like I said, I'm interested in working with a couple of people in developing the set in more details. And I hope people are interested... that would be good.
I'd be interested in also doing this. Here are some ideas:
- Base the Tribal component off class instead of race. Kamigawa lacks many two-colour races but has multicolour classes. (and rewards all Ninja/Samurai decks which they want to do.)
- Take a slightly more Anime Flavour/Tropes while still keeping it Kamigawa-esque. (Inuyasha/Naruto type)
- Bring back Spiritcraft based off Landfall as Spirit tribal mechanic (+1/+1 until end of turn).
- Revive Arcane spells without bringing back Splice onto Arcane (perhaps a Kindle mechanic variant for Arcane? Or this)
- Include Ninja tribal, more Ninjas and expand Ninjas into red.
- Include Samuria tribal, more Samuria and expand Samuria into more green.
- Probably put in one or more spirit dragons with death triggers (possible several in blue as dragons in japan are associated with water.)
-Try adding avenlikee crow people based on the tengu, probably in black with a little in red (white has Araba moths, blue has Soratami). Resonant due to DD use Tengu.
-Possible make the Kappa turtle folk instead of Merfolk as Merfolk tribal has been done.
Creative:
-Warring states period? Time period post Kami war (A generate to recover, several generations? Immidately).
Mechanics:
-Tribal with one Legendary matters theme.
-If Legendary is a theme perhaps make Double faced variants of flip cards to allow more legendaries.
-Similar make a mechanic that grants those creatures a boost if you control a legendary creature. I would use monument as limited getting a single legendary is hard enough (NAME - If you control a legendary creature, name gets x).
-Or a legend matter spells based of dragon-bonus cards in Dragons of Takirs.
Mechanics to Revive (and my thoughts)
-Soulshift (No, Recursive game states at common)
-Spiritcraft (Yes, NWO compatible with lots of design space, but requires Arcane.)
-Bushido (Maybe, evergreen if not flavour so probably some design space left. NWO compatible)
-Samurai (Yes, the flavour win of playing Samuria)
-Arcane with Splice (No, already done)
-Arcane without Splice (Maybe, backwards compatible and flavour advantage.)
-Shrines (maybe another cycle or do something with the subtype. Sliver Enchantments are cool as are strong uncommon ones)
-A Myojin cycle as god
-Ninjas (Yes)
-Ninjutsu (Maybe, most of the design space already has been mined)
-Ki counters (Ki has great flavour, some resonance but no idea what do with it).
-Patron/OFfering/Champion (Maybe if sufficient tribal, small level rare mechanics)
-Sweep/Channel (Maybe, but need flavour reasons.)
-Wisdom (No)
-Epic (Maybe a single cycle? Very hard to design for)
I've always been interested in how flavour, character and story can be conveyed in Magic, and for me one of the most flavourful blocks will always be Kamigawa. I know it wasn't the most popular of blocks- but I would love to re-explore plane.
Now from a mechanics and design point of view, I am not the most experienced- but I figure there must be others out there looking to help create a distinct and flavourful set. I've included some ideas below, but am interested in having a very communal approach to it all.
Narrative wise this is the premise I've got: The Kami are being manipulated by a powerful force who wants to rebuild the plane itself. This means we can use the concepts from the original Kamigawa block, without being bound by it.
I see Kamigawa working as an interesting tribal block, Spirits being the most obvious and treating Legendary as basically a tribe. You've then got the classes from the first block (samurai and ninjas) and some of the races (rat, snake, goblin and fox) plus merefolk, representing the Kappa (a formally extinct race that has been returned by the altering of the plane).
The 'legendary matters' theme is an interesting one- and while I think they probably went too far with it in the original, it is incredibly flavourful (which, if you haven't sensed, I like) and something I don't think was fully explored. The idea of having cards that interact with legendary creatures, making them cheaper to cast or harder to get rid of could be interesting. Bringing something like 'Grandeur' (from Future Sight) could solve some problems.
Those are simple ideas right now (I know) but like I said, I'm interested in working with a couple of people in developing the set in more details. And I hope people are interested... that would be good.
- Base the Tribal component off class instead of race. Kamigawa lacks many two-colour races but has multicolour classes. (and rewards all Ninja/Samurai decks which they want to do.)
- Take a slightly more Anime Flavour/Tropes while still keeping it Kamigawa-esque. (Inuyasha/Naruto type)
- Bring back Spiritcraft based off Landfall as Spirit tribal mechanic (+1/+1 until end of turn).
- Revive Arcane spells without bringing back Splice onto Arcane (perhaps a Kindle mechanic variant for Arcane? Or this)
- Include Ninja tribal, more Ninjas and expand Ninjas into red.
- Include Samuria tribal, more Samuria and expand Samuria into more green.
- Probably put in one or more spirit dragons with death triggers (possible several in blue as dragons in japan are associated with water.)
-Try adding avenlikee crow people based on the tengu, probably in black with a little in red (white has Araba moths, blue has Soratami). Resonant due to DD use Tengu.
-Possible make the Kappa turtle folk instead of Merfolk as Merfolk tribal has been done.
Creative:
-Warring states period? Time period post Kami war (A generate to recover, several generations? Immidately).
Mechanics:
-Tribal with one Legendary matters theme.
-If Legendary is a theme perhaps make Double faced variants of flip cards to allow more legendaries.
-Similar make a mechanic that grants those creatures a boost if you control a legendary creature. I would use monument as limited getting a single legendary is hard enough (NAME - If you control a legendary creature, name gets x).
-Or a legend matter spells based of dragon-bonus cards in Dragons of Takirs.
Mechanics to Revive (and my thoughts)
-Soulshift (No, Recursive game states at common)
-Spiritcraft (Yes, NWO compatible with lots of design space, but requires Arcane.)
-Bushido (Maybe, evergreen if not flavour so probably some design space left. NWO compatible)
-Samurai (Yes, the flavour win of playing Samuria)
-Arcane with Splice (No, already done)
-Arcane without Splice (Maybe, backwards compatible and flavour advantage.)
-Shrines (maybe another cycle or do something with the subtype. Sliver Enchantments are cool as are strong uncommon ones)
-A Myojin cycle as god
-Ninjas (Yes)
-Ninjutsu (Maybe, most of the design space already has been mined)
-Ki counters (Ki has great flavour, some resonance but no idea what do with it).
-Patron/OFfering/Champion (Maybe if sufficient tribal, small level rare mechanics)
-Sweep/Channel (Maybe, but need flavour reasons.)
-Wisdom (No)
-Epic (Maybe a single cycle? Very hard to design for)
White
-Kitsune
Blue
-Moonfolk
-Kappa
Black
-Nezumi
-Ogre
-Demon
-Tengu?
Red
-Akki
Green
-Orochi
All
-Human
-Spirit
-Kirin
-Zubera
Classes:
White:
-Samura
-Cleric
-Monk
-Soldier
-Wizard
-Monk?
Blue
-Wizard
-Ninja
-Advisor
Black
-Samuria
-Ninja
-Warrior
-Shaman
-Wizard
-Rogue
Red:
-Samuria
-Shaman
-Monk
-Warrior
-Nina?
Green:
-Monk
-Shaman
-Warrior
-Samura?
Die Fools!!!
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