The mega sized set will be be ~3x the size of a normal large set, have only two rarity levels, common and uncommon, and be packaged as 1 full art basic land, 10 commons, and 3 uncommons per booster pack.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
I like the idea of a large set that's split up into smaller chunks in some manner. Maybe Huey is composed of "subsets" of a sort, where different factions with different strategies get seeded boosters instead of regular ones? Seems like they could the balance it reasonably, so that even if you're the only one who picked a certain faction you can expect to still feel like your archetype is open. Could be sketchy, but Wizards has showing interest in tweaking limited formats. Alternately, we could get two completely different sets released simultaneously, though I have no idea how the logistics of that would work.
Otherwise, I have to vouch for the idea of a new "medium" set. Small sets are traditionally more poorly received for a number of reasons:
1. They are underused in limited. For example, if you were to do every draft iteration of Theros block, you would have opened 1 pack of JIN, 2 packs of BNG, and a full 6 packs of Theros itself. Hard to generate any attachment to sets you so rarely use.
2. Commons are more likely to be repeated, annoying the casual players, but the rares are more expensive due to the low supply, annoying the tournament players. Thus, nobody wins.
3. Since they need to work in conjunction with a large set, the room for innovation is very limited. New mechanics (Inspired, Fateful Hour) are frequently uninteresting because they don't have enough support. Thus, small middle sets are often indistinguishable from the fall large set.
4. On the flip side, small sets can't be asked to do too much. Dragon's Maze fell flat because it was supposed to support all 10 guilds, complete with 10 card cycles of story-relevant legendary creatures, guild mythics, the return of all guild mechanics at common, plus enough common fixing to support 3 color strategies, which were not viable in either previous set. On top of all this, it had to introduce a complex new mechanic, have enough good commons to lead off the full block draft, and derive resonance from a weird storyline. It was just overstuffed.
Seriously, when was the last truly successful small set? New Phyrexia is the only one I can recall in the last 5 years. If a middle ground can be reached, I think it's time Wizards gives it a shot.
I posted this in the rumor mill thread, but I wanted to share the idea here. What if you drafted the winter and spring sets without the fall set? so the winter set is a bridge between the fall large set and the spring medium or large set. Fall set=WoK winter= KoT Spring= XXX
So you draft 1st WoK WoK WoK then 2nd Kot WoK Wok then KoT XXX XXX.
I also don't know if we've done WoK WoK WoK into Kot Kot Wok. Seems doable, especially if KoT was bigger then the average small set.
YMTC: We need a spikey red enchantment. My creations:
RR
Whenever a player taps a nonbasic land, [Card] deals 2 damage to them.
-or-
R
Whenever a player would gain life, flip a coin. If heads, that player loses that much life instead. If tails sacrifice [card] and that player gains that life as per usual.
Plenty of speculation that it might be a four-set Block.
What if, in order to fit a stand alone product into the calendar (line the third Un- set), the Block was Large-Large. Just two sets. That'd be unique.
Replacing the third set of a block with an Un-Set would be quite unpopular. There's more support for silver border than its opponents give it credit for, but not that much more. Also, they've managed to fit stand alone products into the calendar for years without changing the schedule of their regular sets. UnThree would be best placed in the "Casual Supplement" slot that will this year be Conspiracy.
They might use this structure, except with the 3rd set being Standard legal, as a way of doing Large-Large-Large, but again we're drawn back to that structure.
Replacing the third set of a block with an Un-Set would be quite unpopular. There's more support for silver border than its opponents give it credit for, but not that much more. Also, they've managed to fit stand alone products into the calendar for years without changing the schedule of their regular sets. UnThree would be best placed in the "Casual Supplement" slot that will this year be Conspiracy.
But Conspiracy is not in a "Casual Supplement," per se. It is a multiplayer product, as was Planechase and Archenemy. Un sets weren't designed with multiplayer specifically in mind, although Whoop Ass is meant for multi-game interaction.
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May your games be chaotic and your decks be Rogue.
Replacing the third set of a block with an Un-Set would be quite unpopular. There's more support for silver border than its opponents give it credit for, but not that much more. Also, they've managed to fit stand alone products into the calendar for years without changing the schedule of their regular sets. UnThree would be best placed in the "Casual Supplement" slot that will this year be Conspiracy.
But Conspiracy is not in a "Casual Supplement," per se. It is a multiplayer product, as was Planechase and Archenemy. Un sets weren't designed with multiplayer specifically in mind, although Whoop Ass is meant for multi-game interaction.
So you think it makes more sense for a Un-set to replace one the regularly printed standard legal expansions rather than the slot they've been mostly using for casual variants, purely because they've thus far done casual variants with a multiplayer focus? Multiplayer is just low hanging fruit for causal supplements: there's no sanctioned chaos tournaments so anything multiplayer is automatically casual. Don't assume that just because they've tried a few new multiplayer formats means they're incapable of printing anything else in that slot, and certainly don't assume that because of this they'll cut back their tried and true standard legal sets in favour of something with an admittedly limited market.
Guys, they're not going to do something that fundamentally changes the game in an unworkable way, like 5 booster drafts or "pick your faction from a set" packs, because those don't work for limited unless every faction is 100% equal in terms of power level and chase cards.
A 4 set block would be Large-small Large-small, and they've already done that. They're not going to change the number of cards in the pack so that you can draft a 44 card set out of 4 packs. Nor are they going to force Booster Drafts to be a 60 card selection and cost $5+ more.
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Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.
For a 'unique' block structure, I'm envisioning something like an enhanced version of how odyssey/torment/judgement worked, where torment was predominently a black set.
for a truly unique experience that is outside the normal bounds, they could do this as a set where certain colours are totally excluded from certain sets.
For a 'unique' block structure, I'm envisioning something like an enhanced version of how odyssey/torment/judgement worked, where torment was predominently a black set.
for a truly unique experience that is outside the normal bounds, they could do this as a set where certain colours are totally excluded from certain sets.
They almost certainly won't do this due to the consequences on limited. Note that Blacks "Loner" identity in Innistrad draft caused a lot of imbalance and odd draft environment without limiting its card pool.
Note that they are know more then ever pushing all 10 colour pairs in limited with each getting viable archtypes and support.
I tend to agree that they are going to try large large large, They've already proved that we can have a Large 2nd set, We've had 2 Large 3rd sets and be also given us a short term higher price large draft set in between.
I'm mostly interested to see if there will be a novel story tied in or if we will just spend more time on one plane
If the block is Large x3, how do you distribute color fixing? Does one of the three sets not get multicolor lands? How do you balance Limited in that instance? Are we going to see fifteen new lands printed? Of course, they could do two sets of duals and the wedge trilands in the third, but what are the odds of that happening?
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May your games be chaotic and your decks be Rogue.
If the block is Large x3, how do you distribute color fixing? Does one of the three sets not get multicolor lands? How do you balance Limited in that instance? Are we going to see fifteen new lands printed? Of course, they could do two sets of duals and the wedge trilands in the third, but what are the odds of that happening?
Yes, those would all be options. Avacyn Restored didn't have any dual lands, neither did Rise of the Eldrazi. The latter is especially lauded as a great limited format, so I don't see that as necessarily being a problem. There's also a precedent for dual lands to appear in every set of a block. They needn't be flashy or anything, something like the Refuges from Zendikar (i.e. taplands with a small additional benefit) would serve the purpose just fine. I can see them going either way.
How about this for a unique structure
*good set/good set/good set
Where good set means one that has a small but significant percentage of cards that are playable in Legacy and Modern and yet is fun to draft and play in sealed (cards don't actually have to be good enough to get play in block or standard as they just have to be better than what else is about). While they are at it they could design a set based on game play alone without caring much what it does to flavo(u)r and especially to the storyline or any of that stuff that gets in the way of game play- this would have the added benefit of irritating those people who think it matters what happens in the story. Probably too much to ask......
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Since part of the block structure is its theme, I hope this is the right place to post this:
Has anyone started speculating what the focus of the next block could be? Zendikar had more artifacts and even artifact matter cards, then Mirrodin 2.0 came along, together with a bit of a dark graveyard theme, followed by Innistrad. RTR had some nice enchantments and even enchantment matter cards, now were here in Theros.
The mana base got worse with the release of THS, when Huey releases it could be nearly impossible to make a constructive 3 colored deck. Devotion favors mono colored (or hybrid) permanents with lots of mana symbols, cards that are easier to play in 1/2 color decks.
So I assume Huey Block will focus on mono color, with some enchantments for block interconnectivity.
Theros was pretty much the first and only time where set themes had anything to do with the Codenames.
Actually, if codenames were related to set themes at all, they would lose part of their original point, which is to allow R&D to discuss them without giving spoilers.
I theorize large-large-large and the functional reason for this would be to distribute fetchlands while selling tons of product. large sets=harder to find rares
I just asked MaRo on Tumblr if we'll find out about the block structure at the official announcement (which if history repeats itself will be within the next month or so)
You draft 2 large block together. So you have pack of A and B. Now player 1 has ABA, player 2 has BAB and so on. So oyu draft from two different packs at the same "round"?
Then make the other two set small small
so you draft D-C-B/A ?
It would be confusing and lead to errors, so it is unlikely to happen.
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It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
Huey dewey and louie are identical ducks differentiated largely by colour.
So three equal sized sets with dominant colours perhaps?
Because development-codenames of new sets have always been direct, explicit and obvious hints on how the set turns out.
Mirrodin-block (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) was all about having a nice lunch; Invasion-block (Beijing, Hongkong, Shanghai) was obviously a chinese-themed setting; and the original Ravinca-block (Control, Alt, Delete) introduced computers as a new card-type.
Really?? Do you want to conclude from development-titles to the final set??
I do ! The new block is definitely going to revolve around "Huey" Jensen. It's going to be a multiplayer focused block where the goal of one player is to summon a gigantic Huey Jensen (even bigger than usual) that devours the world, while the other players try to prevent it. The first set will be called "Rise of the Huey" and they will reprint Fetchlands with a picture of Conley Woods on it and the flavor text "Crack Fetch, take two."
Seriously though, with conspiracy coming out, it's not THAT crazy to consider a multi-player focused block...but I don't think I'd care for it. I'm still waiting for the enemy shards block...
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What if, in order to fit a stand alone product into the calendar (line the third Un- set), the Block was Large-Large. Just two sets. That'd be unique.
The mega sized set will be be ~3x the size of a normal large set, have only two rarity levels, common and uncommon, and be packaged as 1 full art basic land, 10 commons, and 3 uncommons per booster pack.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
Otherwise, I have to vouch for the idea of a new "medium" set. Small sets are traditionally more poorly received for a number of reasons:
1. They are underused in limited. For example, if you were to do every draft iteration of Theros block, you would have opened 1 pack of JIN, 2 packs of BNG, and a full 6 packs of Theros itself. Hard to generate any attachment to sets you so rarely use.
2. Commons are more likely to be repeated, annoying the casual players, but the rares are more expensive due to the low supply, annoying the tournament players. Thus, nobody wins.
3. Since they need to work in conjunction with a large set, the room for innovation is very limited. New mechanics (Inspired, Fateful Hour) are frequently uninteresting because they don't have enough support. Thus, small middle sets are often indistinguishable from the fall large set.
4. On the flip side, small sets can't be asked to do too much. Dragon's Maze fell flat because it was supposed to support all 10 guilds, complete with 10 card cycles of story-relevant legendary creatures, guild mythics, the return of all guild mechanics at common, plus enough common fixing to support 3 color strategies, which were not viable in either previous set. On top of all this, it had to introduce a complex new mechanic, have enough good commons to lead off the full block draft, and derive resonance from a weird storyline. It was just overstuffed.
Seriously, when was the last truly successful small set? New Phyrexia is the only one I can recall in the last 5 years. If a middle ground can be reached, I think it's time Wizards gives it a shot.
Cubetutor Link
So you draft 1st WoK WoK WoK then 2nd Kot WoK Wok then KoT XXX XXX.
I also don't know if we've done WoK WoK WoK into Kot Kot Wok. Seems doable, especially if KoT was bigger then the average small set.
Whenever a player taps a nonbasic land, [Card] deals 2 damage to them.
-or-
R
Whenever a player would gain life, flip a coin. If heads, that player loses that much life instead. If tails sacrifice [card] and that player gains that life as per usual.
Fires Rf Salvation
One dominated by each color
Replacing the third set of a block with an Un-Set would be quite unpopular. There's more support for silver border than its opponents give it credit for, but not that much more. Also, they've managed to fit stand alone products into the calendar for years without changing the schedule of their regular sets. UnThree would be best placed in the "Casual Supplement" slot that will this year be Conspiracy.
They might use this structure, except with the 3rd set being Standard legal, as a way of doing Large-Large-Large, but again we're drawn back to that structure.
Her Shop on Etsy
THS-KTK: Rabble Red
RTR-THS: Dega Midrange
INN-RTR: Boros Humans
SOM-INN: B/u Control
Modern: Mono-Black Infect
But Conspiracy is not in a "Casual Supplement," per se. It is a multiplayer product, as was Planechase and Archenemy. Un sets weren't designed with multiplayer specifically in mind, although Whoop Ass is meant for multi-game interaction.
So you think it makes more sense for a Un-set to replace one the regularly printed standard legal expansions rather than the slot they've been mostly using for casual variants, purely because they've thus far done casual variants with a multiplayer focus? Multiplayer is just low hanging fruit for causal supplements: there's no sanctioned chaos tournaments so anything multiplayer is automatically casual. Don't assume that just because they've tried a few new multiplayer formats means they're incapable of printing anything else in that slot, and certainly don't assume that because of this they'll cut back their tried and true standard legal sets in favour of something with an admittedly limited market.
A 4 set block would be Large-small Large-small, and they've already done that. They're not going to change the number of cards in the pack so that you can draft a 44 card set out of 4 packs. Nor are they going to force Booster Drafts to be a 60 card selection and cost $5+ more.
for a truly unique experience that is outside the normal bounds, they could do this as a set where certain colours are totally excluded from certain sets.
They almost certainly won't do this due to the consequences on limited. Note that Blacks "Loner" identity in Innistrad draft caused a lot of imbalance and odd draft environment without limiting its card pool.
Note that they are know more then ever pushing all 10 colour pairs in limited with each getting viable archtypes and support.
I tend to agree that they are going to try large large large, They've already proved that we can have a Large 2nd set, We've had 2 Large 3rd sets and be also given us a short term higher price large draft set in between.
I'm mostly interested to see if there will be a novel story tied in or if we will just spend more time on one plane
I'm going with Large-Large-Large. It's the only one that makes sense.
So three equal sized sets with dominant colours perhaps?
Yes, those would all be options. Avacyn Restored didn't have any dual lands, neither did Rise of the Eldrazi. The latter is especially lauded as a great limited format, so I don't see that as necessarily being a problem. There's also a precedent for dual lands to appear in every set of a block. They needn't be flashy or anything, something like the Refuges from Zendikar (i.e. taplands with a small additional benefit) would serve the purpose just fine. I can see them going either way.
*good set/good set/good set
Where good set means one that has a small but significant percentage of cards that are playable in Legacy and Modern and yet is fun to draft and play in sealed (cards don't actually have to be good enough to get play in block or standard as they just have to be better than what else is about). While they are at it they could design a set based on game play alone without caring much what it does to flavo(u)r and especially to the storyline or any of that stuff that gets in the way of game play- this would have the added benefit of irritating those people who think it matters what happens in the story. Probably too much to ask......
That's not what Occam's Razor means. Also it would cause a lot of problems with limited.
Has anyone started speculating what the focus of the next block could be? Zendikar had more artifacts and even artifact matter cards, then Mirrodin 2.0 came along, together with a bit of a dark graveyard theme, followed by Innistrad. RTR had some nice enchantments and even enchantment matter cards, now were here in Theros.
The mana base got worse with the release of THS, when Huey releases it could be nearly impossible to make a constructive 3 colored deck. Devotion favors mono colored (or hybrid) permanents with lots of mana symbols, cards that are easier to play in 1/2 color decks.
So I assume Huey Block will focus on mono color, with some enchantments for block interconnectivity.
Actually, if codenames were related to set themes at all, they would lose part of their original point, which is to allow R&D to discuss them without giving spoilers.
It would be confusing and lead to errors, so it is unlikely to happen.
---
Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
Seriously though, with conspiracy coming out, it's not THAT crazy to consider a multi-player focused block...but I don't think I'd care for it. I'm still waiting for the enemy shards block...