This has custom template which humbly I say is superior to the Wizards one, while following the same layout.
Why superior?
Because it has the next step in evolution, historically speaking. Templates started in modern so washed out that you could barely distinguish white from artifact, back in mirrodin. They gradually became darker until the current iteration.
Template for MSE will be released in the near future.
The darker, more dramatic scheme I made also fits with the theme...
This is an an underground set, as the name implies.
In this world catastrophes have beset the surface. Civilization has fallen. Human survivors have gone to the underground caverns and thrive only in fundamentalist cults. The color wheel is off balance. Lizards dwell in grottos covered by fungi, and prey on the weak. And in the crypts, deathless necromancers experiment their only hope for eternal life and power. Meanwhile, deep within the watery abyss of the world, a race a of merfolk recover the lost relics of the ancient world. This is Therlessa.
The set is not yet finished and thus is presented unclassified, but the outline is clear.
This set has some interesting ideas but just feels disjointed, all over the place, needlessly complex and like it is trying to do way too much. Too many random and seemingly one-off mechanics, some of which serve no real purpose or are poorly explained (legendary sorcery, bunch of random subtypes on everything, the new basic land types with a lot of rules baggage, etc.)
I like your template. It's a fairly simple change but it looks neat and is fitting for your underground setting. Can it be downloaded somewhere?
I did notice that the light gradient covers the text box on the blue cards, but not on the other colors. I think every color should have that because it looks great. I also think the card backgrounds could be even darker overall, but leave the text the same brightness. The white text is a little hard to read on some of the cards when it's right in the middle of the brightest area in the center of the card.
You have some neat ideas, here. I like the bottom of the library/graveyard stuff, and the "kills a creature" triggers.
The new basic land types are intriguing, but I think they are too problematic outside of the set.
There are indeed a lot of weird, random creature types and one-of block keywords. On an individual basis, though, the cards are nifty and have cool flavor.
EDIT: Missed some of your mechanics. That should emphasise just how many there are that it is difficult to keep count.
First of all, the central theme of an underground world with a post-apocalyptic origin is a perfectly good one. However, I don’t think you have done a particularly good job at executing on that theme. You need your set themes to work together in an organised way to help create an environment that actually plays in ways that reinforce that central theme. If the world is dark and ominous, try to have things that are threatening and suspenseful in play. Major mechanical themes should represent important aspects of the world. Some things you have do well at this, others are out place.
Your mechanics are all over the place. You have far too many, instead of three to six, you have a dozen. Many of these mechanics are also serving no apparent purpose for your set’s themes and should not be included.
Land Types
While this does appear to be an important theme, having FIVE new types is still undoubtedly excessive. New basic land types are a problematic mechanic even if there’s only one, but five is out of hand. Stick to one land type.
Also, make sure that the reward and punishment cards for the type are well balanced (not necessarily meaning equal in number), so that the lands are not simply better or worse than basic lands. The Abyss lands seem to only have drawback from Abysswalk, so why would you run them? The Crypts meanwhile, only seem to have advantages.
EDIT: Other Noncreature Subtypes
You have a variety of subtypes, like 'Necromancer' on your cards that don't serve enough of a purpose. You need to treat the addition of these subtypes more seriously, as with the returning mechanics.
Plots are the exception in that they might have a place, but some serious changes might be necessary. Namely, that purely generic costing sorceries (which seems to be the theme for plots?) is a very dangerous territory to play in, and I’m not sure why that should be done here (what does plotting have to do with colorlessness?). The idea of a plot subtype is itself quite doable, but you will need to be wary of traps, as they are a similarly flavoured subtype (weirdly, you have mixed the two in Dark Intrigues, but that card doesn’t use the actual trap mechanic). If you want to do this as a subtype, you really should have cards that mechanically reference them to help make it worthwhile and you might as well for limited fun.
Killing and Lethal Damage
The problem with this mechanic is that it’s a generic conditional for a basic mechanical effect, meaning it doesn’t really serve an evergreen purpose or have the interest to be a set specific mechanic.
I recommend finding a more specific, single mechanic to use if you want to pursue this area. Something like: Triumph - Whenever a creature a dealt damage by [this creature] this turn dies, [effect]
This is based off real cards, like Sengir Vampire. This means we know it works intuitively, whereas I suspect the kills a creature mechanic will prove to work unintuitively. It’s also more structured meaning the focus is in exploring a specific area, which is I think going to prove more interesting too.
Something in this area is likely going to end up being a workhorse mechanic, meaning it’s not going to be most exciting and interesting mechanic in set, it’s not going to draw people in, but it will play well and help make the environment work. In this case, there’s the bonus of helping encourage combat and prevent board stalls.
Bottom of the Library
This is an excellent choice of theme. The bottom of the library is an interesting area to explore while still being familiar and doable, and it fits your world perfectly. The physical bottom part represents being underground, and involving hidden cards plays into searching through the underground as well as recovering lost info and relics from before the post apocalyptic event.
The biggest problem with this mechanic is that it’s not. Which is to say, you have no named mechanic that even involves a major theme (for comparison, Kaladesh may not have had a named artifacts matter mechanic, but it did have two major named mechanics that involved artifacts), and therefore a lot of people will not notice that this is a major theme at all. There’s really no reason here not to make a named mechanic, especially considering I think this is your best theme, and therefore should be emphasized in my opinion.
A slightly more minor issue is that many of your cards that involve the bottom of the library don’t take advantage of the theme. They use the bottom of the library in a redundant way, where unless you introduce other cards that specifically make it matter, it might as well be the top of the library they are interacting with. Two good ways to make them not redundant, and therefore much more interesting, is by having them interact with both the top and the bottom e.g. choosing where to put cards, switching the two, and by sending cards from battlefield, hand or graveyard to the bottom providing extra difficulty in retrieving them.
If you want, you can borrow a mechanic of mine I developed from exploring the same area.
Uncover [n] (Look at the bottom [n] cards of your library. Put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
It’s a good example of what I think the right direction is for this theme (if I do say so myself)
Armor, Regeneration, Berserker, Tiring, Unwary, EDIT: Spore counters
I have lumped these cards together because they all share the same basic problem- there’s just too many of them. Standard sets have three to six mechanics, barring extreme exceptions. You have six mechanics just here.
Berserker, Tiring and Unwary are just basic effects commonly used in sets that have simply no reason to be keyworded. Just use them as they are.
Armor is an odd keyword, and I don’t see why it’s here. Recommend cutting.
‘Regeneration’ is a weird variant of regenerate (a mechanic that has now been phased out) that functions like indestructible. Use indestructible instead.
EDIT: Spore counters are the exception in that they could easily work here just as long as you do them right.
Fear, Shroud, Provoke, Shadow, Convoke, Entwine, Improvise, Split Second
Again, way too many mechanics here. Six whole returning set mechanics and two returning evergreens is just completely out of line.
Fear and Shroud have been phased out for good reasons. Fear because of its narrowness (becoming Intimidate) and because of the swing factor of color mattering (Intimidate replaced by Menace). Weirdly, you use Menace, Fear’s ultimate successor, in the set as well, on the same card even. Shroud was replaced by Hexproof because Shroud is less intuitive, and with the proper use of conditionals like granting it as an ability, Hexproof can be quite doable and is simpler when used with such conditionals. Neither mechanic deserves to come back here.
Convoke, Split Second and Entwine don’t seem to have any business being here, and should probably just be cut.
Shadow is not the best choice because it doesn’t play very well (this is the opinion of the real designers). Maybe it could be worth it if you are willing to put in the effort to make it play well and are sure it fits the flavour.
Improvise could kinda make sense here with a theme about relics and improvised tools to survive, but it’s probably not the best choice either.
As there is most interest on the template, there are a few stray pixels I would like to fix before releasing, like on top of the artifacts.
About the gradient lacking in others cards than blue, it's actually there, just not too noticeable.
I had to turn down the gradient for most cards as I feared too dark textboxes may lead in difficulties in reading (as text is still black). Maybe this would be countered by doing an even darker version with white text.
Mainly I expect to work into making the image field "extensible" onto the lower half optionally before release, and applying this to some cards. I have already succeeded in adding this functionality to another template.
I am also glad you liked the set flavorwise.
About the card design itself:
Firstly I would like to apologize so to speak because some things about the mechanics I left unexplained. The rules clarifications on the cards don't get exported, nor you know there are other sets which use some of this stuff.
My only "Hardcounter" to any allegation is that I don't see any problem at all with new basic land types. These are just expats for the normal plains, forests, etc. which would not be available in an underground habitat. Wastes was introduced into the main game as a sixth basic land and nothing changed because of it. If there would be any terrible problem mechanically, I would like to hear it, but so far cannot think of any...
The rest of the things can be discussed, and are mostly opinions, but maybe you can hear my reasoning on some points.
For example, Legendary Sorceries, Instants, etc. can only resolve their effects once per player per game. This is the mechanic that most closely resembles the rule for permanents. If you cast it again after it resolved, it will be countered. It is a new rule but not too much of a stretch.
Plots are colorless because I wanted them to give the sensation mostly of creatures acting instead of players. If you see, they tend to require creatures doing stuff, or do stuff in regards to them. There is already at least a colorless instant in MTG and is much more powerful than my poor underpowered cards... (even, most of my cards are deliberately underpowered)
About other types added, there's a whole set with Performer tribal, I kid you not. It makes sense in context (this is on a plane where art warps reality)
Other keyword abilities that you feel are "Insufficiently used" to be keyworded are actually "evergreen" abilities, like Armor [Number] (Whenever this permanent would be dealt damage, prevent [number] of that damage), which are used across different (custom) sets. And normally have their reminder text there.
I have at least six sets and that's not counting the many I have lost to hard drive failure... (there was an old set of mine posted here, but even that vanished with Imageshack ending their hosting of the images. Ahhh, should have used text spoilers...)
Spore Counters: Already used before on Thallids and actually way more annoying then because of all the upkeep and putting/taking with free abilities... in this case you only put them/take them/count them when directed to do so by one-time card effects.
The rest of returning mechanics... well, I just like that, like it worked on Time Spiral. Maybe "minimalistic" players don't prefer that, but if WOTC did it, so can I. The variety keeps the game interesting, and things like Split Second aren't demanding, they require no counters, etc.
Convoke has been made an evergreen mechanic (sortof) by WOTC and printed on core sets.
Regeneration is the same, this is an evergreen mechanic like Indestructible (Basically is a forced 0: Regenerate and has been printed a few times without keywording), Tiring just replaces "Enters the battlefield tapped", "Unwary" is just "this creature can't block" (opposite of Defender) etc.- None of these are a mechanical challenge or "set mechanic", it's just like when Wizards decides to apply retroactively a keyword.
Shadow, somewhat I would like to avoid that one, but I just love the flavor, as they are living literally in the shadows deprived of the Sun, it makes sense that some creatures work with that. Anyways, Shadow is still a low complexity mechanic which requires you to remind nothing extra, take no steps, and at worst means "this creature can't block or be blocked" if there are no others.
About the complexity I don't have any "excuse", but I rather like complex cards as it opens the game for more interaction. I know for example the Vault land mechanic seems daunting, yet in practice is not very complicated.
In any case, I recognize simplicity is still important and I see myself trying to trim down the cards a little when possible
Two good ways to make them not redundant, and therefore much more interesting, is by having them interact with both the top and the bottom e.g. choosing where to put cards, switching the two
But there are cards that do that in this very set, I suggest you look at that closely.
Divinatory Glyphs is the obvious example, and it's a one-drop.
Also, you are missing a very important detail, and it is that you never draw the card from the bottom of your library normally - so unless it's interacted with, it will remain constant, unlike the card at the top of the library which will tend to change -at least- once per turn. Stuff like Lantern Control being in the meta now shows this key distinction.
...ah, perhaps when I can order the cards by colors, this will be seen more clearly...
Why superior?
Because it has the next step in evolution, historically speaking. Templates started in modern so washed out that you could barely distinguish white from artifact, back in mirrodin. They gradually became darker until the current iteration.
Template for MSE will be released in the near future.
The darker, more dramatic scheme I made also fits with the theme...
This is an an underground set, as the name implies.
In this world catastrophes have beset the surface. Civilization has fallen. Human survivors have gone to the underground caverns and thrive only in fundamentalist cults. The color wheel is off balance. Lizards dwell in grottos covered by fungi, and prey on the weak. And in the crypts, deathless necromancers experiment their only hope for eternal life and power. Meanwhile, deep within the watery abyss of the world, a race a of merfolk recover the lost relics of the ancient world. This is Therlessa.
The set is not yet finished and thus is presented unclassified, but the outline is clear.
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UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I did notice that the light gradient covers the text box on the blue cards, but not on the other colors. I think every color should have that because it looks great. I also think the card backgrounds could be even darker overall, but leave the text the same brightness. The white text is a little hard to read on some of the cards when it's right in the middle of the brightest area in the center of the card.
You have some neat ideas, here. I like the bottom of the library/graveyard stuff, and the "kills a creature" triggers.
The new basic land types are intriguing, but I think they are too problematic outside of the set.
There are indeed a lot of weird, random creature types and one-of block keywords. On an individual basis, though, the cards are nifty and have cool flavor.
• Recent Card Ideas • My Drawings at DeviantArt
First of all, the central theme of an underground world with a post-apocalyptic origin is a perfectly good one. However, I don’t think you have done a particularly good job at executing on that theme. You need your set themes to work together in an organised way to help create an environment that actually plays in ways that reinforce that central theme. If the world is dark and ominous, try to have things that are threatening and suspenseful in play. Major mechanical themes should represent important aspects of the world. Some things you have do well at this, others are out place.
Your mechanics are all over the place. You have far too many, instead of three to six, you have a dozen. Many of these mechanics are also serving no apparent purpose for your set’s themes and should not be included.
Land Types
While this does appear to be an important theme, having FIVE new types is still undoubtedly excessive. New basic land types are a problematic mechanic even if there’s only one, but five is out of hand. Stick to one land type.
Also, make sure that the reward and punishment cards for the type are well balanced (not necessarily meaning equal in number), so that the lands are not simply better or worse than basic lands. The Abyss lands seem to only have drawback from Abysswalk, so why would you run them? The Crypts meanwhile, only seem to have advantages.
EDIT: Other Noncreature Subtypes
You have a variety of subtypes, like 'Necromancer' on your cards that don't serve enough of a purpose. You need to treat the addition of these subtypes more seriously, as with the returning mechanics.
Plots are the exception in that they might have a place, but some serious changes might be necessary. Namely, that purely generic costing sorceries (which seems to be the theme for plots?) is a very dangerous territory to play in, and I’m not sure why that should be done here (what does plotting have to do with colorlessness?). The idea of a plot subtype is itself quite doable, but you will need to be wary of traps, as they are a similarly flavoured subtype (weirdly, you have mixed the two in Dark Intrigues, but that card doesn’t use the actual trap mechanic). If you want to do this as a subtype, you really should have cards that mechanically reference them to help make it worthwhile and you might as well for limited fun.
Killing and Lethal Damage
The problem with this mechanic is that it’s a generic conditional for a basic mechanical effect, meaning it doesn’t really serve an evergreen purpose or have the interest to be a set specific mechanic.
I recommend finding a more specific, single mechanic to use if you want to pursue this area. Something like:
Triumph - Whenever a creature a dealt damage by [this creature] this turn dies, [effect]
This is based off real cards, like Sengir Vampire. This means we know it works intuitively, whereas I suspect the kills a creature mechanic will prove to work unintuitively. It’s also more structured meaning the focus is in exploring a specific area, which is I think going to prove more interesting too.
Something in this area is likely going to end up being a workhorse mechanic, meaning it’s not going to be most exciting and interesting mechanic in set, it’s not going to draw people in, but it will play well and help make the environment work. In this case, there’s the bonus of helping encourage combat and prevent board stalls.
Bottom of the Library
This is an excellent choice of theme. The bottom of the library is an interesting area to explore while still being familiar and doable, and it fits your world perfectly. The physical bottom part represents being underground, and involving hidden cards plays into searching through the underground as well as recovering lost info and relics from before the post apocalyptic event.
The biggest problem with this mechanic is that it’s not. Which is to say, you have no named mechanic that even involves a major theme (for comparison, Kaladesh may not have had a named artifacts matter mechanic, but it did have two major named mechanics that involved artifacts), and therefore a lot of people will not notice that this is a major theme at all. There’s really no reason here not to make a named mechanic, especially considering I think this is your best theme, and therefore should be emphasized in my opinion.
A slightly more minor issue is that many of your cards that involve the bottom of the library don’t take advantage of the theme. They use the bottom of the library in a redundant way, where unless you introduce other cards that specifically make it matter, it might as well be the top of the library they are interacting with. Two good ways to make them not redundant, and therefore much more interesting, is by having them interact with both the top and the bottom e.g. choosing where to put cards, switching the two, and by sending cards from battlefield, hand or graveyard to the bottom providing extra difficulty in retrieving them.
If you want, you can borrow a mechanic of mine I developed from exploring the same area.
Uncover [n] (Look at the bottom [n] cards of your library. Put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
It’s a good example of what I think the right direction is for this theme (if I do say so myself)
Armor, Regeneration, Berserker, Tiring, Unwary, EDIT: Spore counters
I have lumped these cards together because they all share the same basic problem- there’s just too many of them. Standard sets have three to six mechanics, barring extreme exceptions. You have six mechanics just here.
Berserker, Tiring and Unwary are just basic effects commonly used in sets that have simply no reason to be keyworded. Just use them as they are.
Armor is an odd keyword, and I don’t see why it’s here. Recommend cutting.
‘Regeneration’ is a weird variant of regenerate (a mechanic that has now been phased out) that functions like indestructible. Use indestructible instead.
EDIT: Spore counters are the exception in that they could easily work here just as long as you do them right.
Fear, Shroud, Provoke, Shadow, Convoke, Entwine, Improvise, Split Second
Again, way too many mechanics here. Six whole returning set mechanics and two returning evergreens is just completely out of line.
Fear and Shroud have been phased out for good reasons. Fear because of its narrowness (becoming Intimidate) and because of the swing factor of color mattering (Intimidate replaced by Menace). Weirdly, you use Menace, Fear’s ultimate successor, in the set as well, on the same card even. Shroud was replaced by Hexproof because Shroud is less intuitive, and with the proper use of conditionals like granting it as an ability, Hexproof can be quite doable and is simpler when used with such conditionals. Neither mechanic deserves to come back here.
Convoke, Split Second and Entwine don’t seem to have any business being here, and should probably just be cut.
Shadow is not the best choice because it doesn’t play very well (this is the opinion of the real designers). Maybe it could be worth it if you are willing to put in the effort to make it play well and are sure it fits the flavour.
Improvise could kinda make sense here with a theme about relics and improvised tools to survive, but it’s probably not the best choice either.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
As there is most interest on the template, there are a few stray pixels I would like to fix before releasing, like on top of the artifacts.
About the gradient lacking in others cards than blue, it's actually there, just not too noticeable.
I had to turn down the gradient for most cards as I feared too dark textboxes may lead in difficulties in reading (as text is still black). Maybe this would be countered by doing an even darker version with white text.
Mainly I expect to work into making the image field "extensible" onto the lower half optionally before release, and applying this to some cards. I have already succeeded in adding this functionality to another template.
I am also glad you liked the set flavorwise.
About the card design itself:
Firstly I would like to apologize so to speak because some things about the mechanics I left unexplained. The rules clarifications on the cards don't get exported, nor you know there are other sets which use some of this stuff.
My only "Hardcounter" to any allegation is that I don't see any problem at all with new basic land types. These are just expats for the normal plains, forests, etc. which would not be available in an underground habitat. Wastes was introduced into the main game as a sixth basic land and nothing changed because of it. If there would be any terrible problem mechanically, I would like to hear it, but so far cannot think of any...
The rest of the things can be discussed, and are mostly opinions, but maybe you can hear my reasoning on some points.
For example, Legendary Sorceries, Instants, etc. can only resolve their effects once per player per game. This is the mechanic that most closely resembles the rule for permanents. If you cast it again after it resolved, it will be countered. It is a new rule but not too much of a stretch.
Plots are colorless because I wanted them to give the sensation mostly of creatures acting instead of players. If you see, they tend to require creatures doing stuff, or do stuff in regards to them. There is already at least a colorless instant in MTG and is much more powerful than my poor underpowered cards... (even, most of my cards are deliberately underpowered)
About other types added, there's a whole set with Performer tribal, I kid you not. It makes sense in context (this is on a plane where art warps reality)
Other keyword abilities that you feel are "Insufficiently used" to be keyworded are actually "evergreen" abilities, like Armor [Number] (Whenever this permanent would be dealt damage, prevent [number] of that damage), which are used across different (custom) sets. And normally have their reminder text there.
I have at least six sets and that's not counting the many I have lost to hard drive failure... (there was an old set of mine posted here, but even that vanished with Imageshack ending their hosting of the images. Ahhh, should have used text spoilers...)
Spore Counters: Already used before on Thallids and actually way more annoying then because of all the upkeep and putting/taking with free abilities... in this case you only put them/take them/count them when directed to do so by one-time card effects.
The rest of returning mechanics... well, I just like that, like it worked on Time Spiral. Maybe "minimalistic" players don't prefer that, but if WOTC did it, so can I. The variety keeps the game interesting, and things like Split Second aren't demanding, they require no counters, etc.
Convoke has been made an evergreen mechanic (sortof) by WOTC and printed on core sets.
Regeneration is the same, this is an evergreen mechanic like Indestructible (Basically is a forced 0: Regenerate and has been printed a few times without keywording), Tiring just replaces "Enters the battlefield tapped", "Unwary" is just "this creature can't block" (opposite of Defender) etc.- None of these are a mechanical challenge or "set mechanic", it's just like when Wizards decides to apply retroactively a keyword.
Shadow, somewhat I would like to avoid that one, but I just love the flavor, as they are living literally in the shadows deprived of the Sun, it makes sense that some creatures work with that. Anyways, Shadow is still a low complexity mechanic which requires you to remind nothing extra, take no steps, and at worst means "this creature can't block or be blocked" if there are no others.
About the complexity I don't have any "excuse", but I rather like complex cards as it opens the game for more interaction. I know for example the Vault land mechanic seems daunting, yet in practice is not very complicated.
In any case, I recognize simplicity is still important and I see myself trying to trim down the cards a little when possible
But there are cards that do that in this very set, I suggest you look at that closely.
Divinatory Glyphs is the obvious example, and it's a one-drop.
Also, you are missing a very important detail, and it is that you never draw the card from the bottom of your library normally - so unless it's interacted with, it will remain constant, unlike the card at the top of the library which will tend to change -at least- once per turn. Stuff like Lantern Control being in the meta now shows this key distinction.
...ah, perhaps when I can order the cards by colors, this will be seen more clearly...