Since the start of "modern block design," which I will consider to be Invasion block, each block has an overarching theme that it is tightly based upon. Most sets since that time have had a theme that was a mechanical part of the game, whether it be gold cards, artifacts, or creature types. Only one block so far, however, has had a theme that was more abstract, and that was Timespiral. "Nostalgia" and "Time" are both recognizable concepts, yet they aren't solidly defined game mechanics. While there is some more design space in the game-mechanic themed block (say an enchantment block, or a "attacking" block), the good ones have been used, and now re-used. Themes such as those in Timespiral are plenty, and present a promising new untapped pool of Magic block design.
So my set (eventually block, if I find enough time and inspiration), Concord, is taking a stab at this untapped design space. Concord will be themed on "trade and commerce". What does this mean on a Magic card? I'm still working that out a little bit, but I have a pretty good rough draft. Here's a few questions I asked myself, and the answers I found.
Q: What does a trade/commerce themed world look like?
A: It's centered around a large city, but there also has to be access to natural resources outside in the world. There needs to be something valuable to trade.
Q: What are the natural resources, in game mechanics?
A: Lands doesn't really work, because you don't need to do anything extra to get or play lands. Same deal with cards. I have thus settled on +1/+1 counters as the "goods". Everyone wants some +1/+1 counters, and you can add and remove them with ease. We also need a way to get +1/+1 counters in play easily. Reinforce was nice, but never really made it in constructed. So here's what I'm going to use:
Supply #
On permanents: (When this card enters the battlefield, you may put # +1/+1 counter[s] on target creature.)
On non-permanents: (You may put # +1/+1 counter[s] on target creature.)
-After some thought, and your suggestions, I figured this probably should trigger as the spell resolves/enters the battlefield. This also makes the power level of cards easier to evaluate, as you can just figure it's a little more powerful than if you just had the counter built in to the p/t. Afterall, there's no reason that a blacksmith can't just grab some of his swords he has around if he gets in a fight.
-Instants shouldn't have this ability very much.
Here are some examples of commons with supply:
Q: How is this resource (+1/+1 counters) used?
A: Some people convert the raw material, +1/+1 counters, into goods. Same concept and the Fertilid cycle from Morningtide. In addition, some cards just care if they have a +1/+1 counter. Flavor wise, they use the raw material themselves.
Some examples:
Q: What else happens in a trade/commerce themed world?
A: People work together to make money.
Collude [mana cost] (You may play this card for its collude cost if you have played another spell this turn)
-Again, thanks for the suggestions. This version is both cleaner, has less quirky rules issues, and meshes better with cards not in the set. You can't quite get the crazy bargains I had planned for some cards, but most of them didn't have to cost too much more.
Here are some examples of commons with Collude:
Q: What else else goes on in a trade/commerce themed world?
A: Some colors have smaller mechanical identities, to flesh out individual cards and give them an identity in limited. White has a small taxing sub-theme, for example:
STATUS:
I'm entering cards into MSE. I still have a little under half of the uncommons to design, and about 1/3 of the rares. Then of course I need to test them out, as well as find out what is missing from the set, and what is just not working out. I'll put up a full list of the cards before I start testing on my own, but between now and then, I'll put out some spoilers other than the concept cards above. Some of them will just be cool, some of them will show off the set themes.
Here are some selected previews, and a few words about them.
As I was trying to think of more mechanics to flesh out the set, I realized that Supply will often leave you with small creatures sitting around the battlefield, while your bigger threat with +1/+1 counters does all of the work. This makes paying costs for cards like Soul Trapper more realistic. Granted, this is probably a card you would probably be happy to play in limited regardless. There are a good amount of these types of costs throughout the set, however most of them are tacked on to activated abilities, so you aren't punished too much by having no creatures in play.
There are a few "mini game" cards in the set. While these cards are fun on their own, they feel like they make more flavor sense in this set. They sort of fit the theme of "good deals can be found by those savvy enough". Silvergill Adept is a very good card, but only works with a bunch of merfolk. Now you can get that effect in any deck, so long as you are clever enough to pull it off. There is a cycle at rare that I'll dub the "predictors". You'll see them shortly. This card was, of course, inspired by Predict.
Another card that follows the "good deals to be had" theme. Double is an ability word, it has no actual rules text. It just serves to link together like cards. Currently there is a cycle of Double cards at rare, and a cycle at uncommon.
A flashy mythic rare. If you're on the defensive side of this, you will really need to change your game-plan so long as it is in play. Obviously the card will need testing to make sure it isn't too much. My vision of mythic rares is to have cool cards that you want to play with, and can build certain decks that they're really good in, but aren't cards that you have to run if you want to compete.
And to finish it off, here is a card that reinforces the largest theme of the set, +1/+1 counters.
I hope you like what you see, more will be coming very soon.
I must say, I'm not so keen on Collude. To begin with, I think it's rather limited in usefulness since you'll need to have two (or more) cards you want to play that have Collude, and unless you make Collude a commonly used keyword or put it on very useful spells, I just don't see it activating often enough to warrant it being there. Secondly, playing large amounts of spells at the same time may cause some confusion with regard to the stack. I understand that the idea behind it is that "things work together", but I think that there are better ways to go about this (Splice, for instance).
Might I suggest using "supply" counters or some other kind of arbitrary counters? (like storage, charge, and quest, just some random name for a counter)
The reason is that with +1/+1 counters coming into play so often, creatures will just keep on growing and growing until they're ridiculously big. You'll end up with eldrazi sized creatures as a normal occurrence. That would all be fine and dandy if they didn't have to comply with both life totals and burn spells. Having so many giant sized creatures around would nerf almost all creatures in existence, while buffing things like instant removal and death touch.
It might work, barely, in a vacuum, but you should really design it to work with the rest of magic as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
As far as collude goes, I do have plans to make plenty of good ones that you would want to play, as well as some really splashy rare ones that make the trouble worth it. I also have a colorless land with Collude 1, so that will help smooth things out in constructed.
For supply counters, I wanted +1/+1 counters because then the cards will be compatible with stuff outside of the set. Plus with +1/+1s, every creature benefits from them, rather than just a small amount. As far as power level, most of them are going to just have Supply 1, which isn't going to cause gigantic creatures all over the place. There's also plenty of ways to limit the power of +1/+1 counters, such as the white spell I have posted above, as well as a black and a red spell I have in the file that removes all +1/+1 counters from a permanent (as well as another effect, they'll be good).
I like the idea of using +1/+1 counters as commerce. This is something similar to a mechanic in another CCG, "A Game of Thrones", in which gold counters on some creatures can be used both as a resource or something else specific to the card text. This opens up a fair amount of design space around +1/+1 counters.
I'm not too fond of collude. I understand the concept from a flavor standpoint, but I feel like either the cards will be costed too aggressively and will end up being broken, or they will be costed too conservatively and the mechanic will be a nonfactor in gameplay. Perhaps there is a better mechanic that can fit the flavor or a better way to implement a similar mechanic (like the suggestion of splice).
Most importantly, I think you've hit upon the next avenue of set design exploration. Too many custom sets focus on a specific mechanic or area of gameplay (such as "this matters" sets). In the future, I think sets built flavorfully around a world will end up being both innovative and aesthetically pleasing. Currently, I am working on a set designed around the Plane card, Immersturm. This concept of building mechanics that fit the world, rather than the other way around, has led to some interesting discoveries.
The notion of a trading world was tapped in Mercadian Masks, which focused on paying for goods (spending mana repeatedly) and non-mana spells (trading alternative resources; 'bartering'). You could look to some of that block for inspiration, although obviously the power level would need to be a higher as MM was fairly weak overall.
In terms of mechanics:
Supply - This mechanic can be quite strong and so I would limit its appearance on too many aggressively costed cards. I'm also hesitant about having abilities trigger whilst cards are on the stack, except if its to copy them. From the flavourful cards you've provided, it would make more sense if added to the card's effects, and thus would not work so well on creatures unless it triggered when they entered the battlefield.
+1/+1 counters - In your set, is having more money represented by being bigger and stronger than others? Because that's how this mechanic looks to me. If the counters were something else, say, charge counters, then you could still have fun effects without having obscenely large creatures everywhere, which doesn't make much sense from a flavourful perspective. Whilst charge counters would be rather set-specific, they appear in other sets too (i.e. Mirrodin) and you get brownie points for the multiple meanings of 'charge'.
You could also have Supply add charge counters (optionally) instead of +1/+1 counters. If you do, Supply will still have interaction with older sets (again, Mirrodin but also others), and you could even cost the cards more aggressively or simply power them up, as you won't always have a charge counter target.
Collude - Thematically I love this; it makes for very fun gameplay. I love casting multiple things in one turn and also having cheaper spells, although the restriction on this is hard to pull off. It looks like a turbo-charged Splice. Perhaps, to expand it out more whilst keeping to the same idea, you could word it as such:
Collude X (You may pay X and cast this from your hand as you cast a creature spell that shares a colour with this.)
This way, the Colluder is still colluding with a creature, but now it's any old creature. It would have to be of the same colour to keep the mechanic within line but still allow it to be competitive.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gaymer
Custom Card / Set Reviewer
When reviewing custom cards / sets, I look for (a) flavour, (b) function, and (c) cohesiveness, generally through a risk focus.
The reason supply still feels overpowered is that even in small doses large quantities of counters warp the metagame. For instance, burn spells get significantly weaker once creatures start to get bigger. You can't print larger burn spells, since this set has to be coherent with the rest of magic, but you also can't print too many spells that, for instance, ignore counters when burning, because then the counters would have less meaning and would lower the universal effect of +1/+1 counters.
Personally, I think any card with supply needs to be over-costed. For instance; 2W would usually buy you a 3/3, but the flexibility of being able to move one of those +1/+1 counters around should bump the cost up to at least 3W.
As for collude, I like the idea, but I don't know how you would balance it without making it overpowered.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Collude - Thematically I love this; it makes for very fun gameplay. I love casting multiple things in one turn and also having cheaper spells, although the restriction on this is hard to pull off. It looks like a turbo-charged Splice. Perhaps, to expand it out more whilst keeping to the same idea, you could word it as such:
Collude X (You may pay X and cast this from your hand as you cast a creature spell that shares a colour with this.)
This way, the Colluder is still colluding with a creature, but now it's any old creature. It would have to be of the same colour to keep the mechanic within line but still allow it to be competitive.
That's a good idea, and I shall look into it. It broadens the appeal of the mechanic a lot, and makes it so I don't have to stuff my set with collude cards. It however will probably take away a lot of the luster on the higher-end stuff, as you won't be able to get quite the steals you would otherwise.
As far as Supply goes, it's really a sticking point that it be +1/+1 counters. I think the cards can be balanced properly such that it doesn't result in oversized creatures all over the place and it still makes the cards with supply worth playing. I think something you have to consider, is that while you do get a creature that's a bit larger, you're also spending a card to do so, and you're left with an effect on that card (ignoring supply) that isn't quite worth the mana you paid for it.
Someone said they were worried about supply triggering on the cast, not when it enters the battlefield. I think it's fine, the only thing it limits is the ability to stop the pumping with counterspells. The main reason it is this way is so that you can't just pump the creature you played with its own supply. Cascade is a mechanic that triggered on the cast, and that was perfectly fine (note, the fact that it triggered when you cast the card was fine. I'm not making claims on the power level of cards with cascade).
So my set (eventually block, if I find enough time and inspiration), Concord, is taking a stab at this untapped design space. Concord will be themed on "trade and commerce". What does this mean on a Magic card? I'm still working that out a little bit, but I have a pretty good rough draft. Here's a few questions I asked myself, and the answers I found.
Q: What does a trade/commerce themed world look like?
A: It's centered around a large city, but there also has to be access to natural resources outside in the world. There needs to be something valuable to trade.
Q: What are the natural resources, in game mechanics?
A: Lands doesn't really work, because you don't need to do anything extra to get or play lands. Same deal with cards. I have thus settled on +1/+1 counters as the "goods". Everyone wants some +1/+1 counters, and you can add and remove them with ease. We also need a way to get +1/+1 counters in play easily. Reinforce was nice, but never really made it in constructed. So here's what I'm going to use:
Supply #
On permanents: (When this card enters the battlefield, you may put # +1/+1 counter[s] on target creature.)
On non-permanents: (You may put # +1/+1 counter[s] on target creature.)
-After some thought, and your suggestions, I figured this probably should trigger as the spell resolves/enters the battlefield. This also makes the power level of cards easier to evaluate, as you can just figure it's a little more powerful than if you just had the counter built in to the p/t. Afterall, there's no reason that a blacksmith can't just grab some of his swords he has around if he gets in a fight.
-Instants shouldn't have this ability very much.
Here are some examples of commons with supply:
Q: How is this resource (+1/+1 counters) used?
A: Some people convert the raw material, +1/+1 counters, into goods. Same concept and the Fertilid cycle from Morningtide. In addition, some cards just care if they have a +1/+1 counter. Flavor wise, they use the raw material themselves.
Some examples:
Q: What else happens in a trade/commerce themed world?
A: People work together to make money.
Collude [mana cost] (You may play this card for its collude cost if you have played another spell this turn)
-Again, thanks for the suggestions. This version is both cleaner, has less quirky rules issues, and meshes better with cards not in the set. You can't quite get the crazy bargains I had planned for some cards, but most of them didn't have to cost too much more.
Here are some examples of commons with Collude:
Q: What else else goes on in a trade/commerce themed world?
A: Some colors have smaller mechanical identities, to flesh out individual cards and give them an identity in limited. White has a small taxing sub-theme, for example:
I'm entering cards into MSE. I still have a little under half of the uncommons to design, and about 1/3 of the rares. Then of course I need to test them out, as well as find out what is missing from the set, and what is just not working out. I'll put up a full list of the cards before I start testing on my own, but between now and then, I'll put out some spoilers other than the concept cards above. Some of them will just be cool, some of them will show off the set themes.
Here are some selected previews, and a few words about them.
As I was trying to think of more mechanics to flesh out the set, I realized that Supply will often leave you with small creatures sitting around the battlefield, while your bigger threat with +1/+1 counters does all of the work. This makes paying costs for cards like Soul Trapper more realistic. Granted, this is probably a card you would probably be happy to play in limited regardless. There are a good amount of these types of costs throughout the set, however most of them are tacked on to activated abilities, so you aren't punished too much by having no creatures in play.
There are a few "mini game" cards in the set. While these cards are fun on their own, they feel like they make more flavor sense in this set. They sort of fit the theme of "good deals can be found by those savvy enough". Silvergill Adept is a very good card, but only works with a bunch of merfolk. Now you can get that effect in any deck, so long as you are clever enough to pull it off. There is a cycle at rare that I'll dub the "predictors". You'll see them shortly. This card was, of course, inspired by Predict.
Another card that follows the "good deals to be had" theme. Double is an ability word, it has no actual rules text. It just serves to link together like cards. Currently there is a cycle of Double cards at rare, and a cycle at uncommon.
A flashy mythic rare. If you're on the defensive side of this, you will really need to change your game-plan so long as it is in play. Obviously the card will need testing to make sure it isn't too much. My vision of mythic rares is to have cool cards that you want to play with, and can build certain decks that they're really good in, but aren't cards that you have to run if you want to compete.
And to finish it off, here is a card that reinforces the largest theme of the set, +1/+1 counters.
I hope you like what you see, more will be coming very soon.
The reason is that with +1/+1 counters coming into play so often, creatures will just keep on growing and growing until they're ridiculously big. You'll end up with eldrazi sized creatures as a normal occurrence. That would all be fine and dandy if they didn't have to comply with both life totals and burn spells. Having so many giant sized creatures around would nerf almost all creatures in existence, while buffing things like instant removal and death touch.
It might work, barely, in a vacuum, but you should really design it to work with the rest of magic as well.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
For supply counters, I wanted +1/+1 counters because then the cards will be compatible with stuff outside of the set. Plus with +1/+1s, every creature benefits from them, rather than just a small amount. As far as power level, most of them are going to just have Supply 1, which isn't going to cause gigantic creatures all over the place. There's also plenty of ways to limit the power of +1/+1 counters, such as the white spell I have posted above, as well as a black and a red spell I have in the file that removes all +1/+1 counters from a permanent (as well as another effect, they'll be good).
I'm not too fond of collude. I understand the concept from a flavor standpoint, but I feel like either the cards will be costed too aggressively and will end up being broken, or they will be costed too conservatively and the mechanic will be a nonfactor in gameplay. Perhaps there is a better mechanic that can fit the flavor or a better way to implement a similar mechanic (like the suggestion of splice).
Most importantly, I think you've hit upon the next avenue of set design exploration. Too many custom sets focus on a specific mechanic or area of gameplay (such as "this matters" sets). In the future, I think sets built flavorfully around a world will end up being both innovative and aesthetically pleasing. Currently, I am working on a set designed around the Plane card, Immersturm. This concept of building mechanics that fit the world, rather than the other way around, has led to some interesting discoveries.
In terms of mechanics:
Supply - This mechanic can be quite strong and so I would limit its appearance on too many aggressively costed cards. I'm also hesitant about having abilities trigger whilst cards are on the stack, except if its to copy them. From the flavourful cards you've provided, it would make more sense if added to the card's effects, and thus would not work so well on creatures unless it triggered when they entered the battlefield.
+1/+1 counters - In your set, is having more money represented by being bigger and stronger than others? Because that's how this mechanic looks to me. If the counters were something else, say, charge counters, then you could still have fun effects without having obscenely large creatures everywhere, which doesn't make much sense from a flavourful perspective. Whilst charge counters would be rather set-specific, they appear in other sets too (i.e. Mirrodin) and you get brownie points for the multiple meanings of 'charge'.
You could also have Supply add charge counters (optionally) instead of +1/+1 counters. If you do, Supply will still have interaction with older sets (again, Mirrodin but also others), and you could even cost the cards more aggressively or simply power them up, as you won't always have a charge counter target.
Collude - Thematically I love this; it makes for very fun gameplay. I love casting multiple things in one turn and also having cheaper spells, although the restriction on this is hard to pull off. It looks like a turbo-charged Splice. Perhaps, to expand it out more whilst keeping to the same idea, you could word it as such:
Collude X (You may pay X and cast this from your hand as you cast a creature spell that shares a colour with this.)
This way, the Colluder is still colluding with a creature, but now it's any old creature. It would have to be of the same colour to keep the mechanic within line but still allow it to be competitive.
Custom Card / Set Reviewer
When reviewing custom cards / sets, I look for (a) flavour, (b) function, and (c) cohesiveness, generally through a risk focus.
Personally, I think any card with supply needs to be over-costed. For instance; 2W would usually buy you a 3/3, but the flexibility of being able to move one of those +1/+1 counters around should bump the cost up to at least 3W.
As for collude, I like the idea, but I don't know how you would balance it without making it overpowered.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
That's a good idea, and I shall look into it. It broadens the appeal of the mechanic a lot, and makes it so I don't have to stuff my set with collude cards. It however will probably take away a lot of the luster on the higher-end stuff, as you won't be able to get quite the steals you would otherwise.
As far as Supply goes, it's really a sticking point that it be +1/+1 counters. I think the cards can be balanced properly such that it doesn't result in oversized creatures all over the place and it still makes the cards with supply worth playing. I think something you have to consider, is that while you do get a creature that's a bit larger, you're also spending a card to do so, and you're left with an effect on that card (ignoring supply) that isn't quite worth the mana you paid for it.
Someone said they were worried about supply triggering on the cast, not when it enters the battlefield. I think it's fine, the only thing it limits is the ability to stop the pumping with counterspells. The main reason it is this way is so that you can't just pump the creature you played with its own supply. Cascade is a mechanic that triggered on the cast, and that was perfectly fine (note, the fact that it triggered when you cast the card was fine. I'm not making claims on the power level of cards with cascade).