Hi guys, here's a set idea that I had lying around and I actually found it pretty interesting. So I'll just post the story/flavor stuff and some cards and see what you guys think.
The Plane of Kivet - Set in a Russian/Middle East-style world, Kivet is a highly sophisticated plane. Cities dot the plane and beautiful landscapes fill the space between civilization. Knowledge is a very important thing to the citizens of this plane and are always looking to gain more. Within these beautiful landscapes lie temples, palaces, and other abandoned structures, lost in time. The always-learning citizens will spend days exploring these ruins for more knowledge. But within these temples not only lie answers to ancient mysteries. A dark secret is about to be unearthed on Kivet and it very well could be the plane's undoing.
Themes/Keywords
The obvious major theme here is cards in hand, seen in Saviors of Kamigawa, and most of the cards will revolve around how many cards you have in your hand and such.
Wisdom - [effect] as long as you have more cards in hand than your opponents.
This is basically a keyword of a common mechanic in Saviors and is sort of like threshold for having a card advantage.
Hellbent - [effect] as long as you have no cards in hand.
Yes, hellbent is back. I was originally saving it for the second set but this way (as pointed out by Jenesis) the set theme supports the mechanics of all colors. So this is on the other end of the spectrum from wisdom, when you don't have cards in hand, it helps you.
Extract <cost> (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may pay its extract cost. If you do, draw a card.)
Pretty much a way of adding a cantrip onto an attacking creature. This one is the one I'm the most unsure of so I'll be looking for advice on it.
Another minor theme is color matters which has no keywords, in this set at least.
Now for the flavor on the colors:
Inhabiting the salt deserts of Ishka are the scattered human tribes. They live nomadic lives, traveling from city to city, ruin to ruin looking for more knowledge. The angels that fly above them are their divine icons, seeing an angel overhead is good luck. Some elves splash into white, representing the meeker of their kind. Two major human clans are present: The Ora Clan led by Zeer the Windhearted and the Maska Clan led by Rhion the Sunsoul. These clans are in constant battle over resources, filled with soldiers and clerics. The architectural style used by the clans mirrors that of the Egyptians, large tomb-temples filled with treasures. The desert countries lie to the east, bordering Hasha.
White will have wisdom abilities focused around life-gain and other white basic abilities. Wisdom can be achieved by bouncing creatures and will introduce the mechanic of exiling cards in graveyards to draw cards (now in white and black).
The vibrant blue seas of the aquatic Hasha continent are home to the sirens, a breed of merfolk who rely on trickery to get the information they want. Masters of spellcraft, the sirens are a force to be reckoned with magic-wise. The occasional drake can be seen flying overhead and krakens live deep beneath the surface. Several rocky islands and outcroppings dot the oceans where some humans reside. This area mirrors the Mediterranean Sea with chains of islands and the occasional seaside temple. The sirens are led by Ihmi, heiress of Zhina, siren emperor. Hasha is at Kivet's center and borders all other areas, mainly the Dusk Colonies and uncharted deserts.
Blue will have basic drawing abilities and lots of ways to gain wisdom. Bouncing and extracting will definitely be used a lot to gain wisdom.
Back on land, dark husks of forests are the homes to demons, spirits, and the Aniukha vampires. Too barren to house green mana, these blank lands house abandoned mausoleums and old chruches where these creatures of the night gather. Some sirens splash into black, the darker of their kind. Treka Bleak-fang leads the vampires through the night as they search for a relic known as the Sanguine Chalice. Their quest will lead them to the odds and ends of Kivet as they realized that this item may be the plane's downfall. The Aniukha can be vicious but are usually diplomatic and cunning, negotiating their way through the world. Dubbed the Dusk Colonies, this world is west of Hasha, bordering the northern volcano continent.
Black will have a combination of hellbent and wisdom with discard and graveyard abilities. To gain hellbent and wisdom, other methods of extract will be used and specters will come back.
On the volcanic mountains of Kivet reside the goblins and hedonist humans of the plane. Large Russian-like cities rise out of the rock, palaces topped with beautiful, twisting minarets. The humans and goblins are barbaric in an artistic way, using their chaotic magic to create, not destroy. Strangely enough, the two tribes work as one when exploring the mountainous temples, led by goblin marshal Bos and lightning-artist Sva. A couple Aniukha splash into red to represent their bloodthirst. The planeswalker Ushik Embit is from the tribes in the volcano cities and unlike her people is always in a creative slump, looking for something to do. They are at the north of the plane but several tribes have traveled down through the Colonies to the forests.
Red will be focused mainly around hellbent and punishing opponents for having fewer cards through wisdom. To get to this, a possible red specter will come and there will be lots of reverse extract (damage dealt turning into discarding cards).
Almost the exact opposite of the world the Aniukha live in, the elves of Kivet inhabit the few remaining forests. Churches and temples mark sites where the Grand Covenant meets, a group of all powerful druids. The Covenant is led by blue-green planeswalker Vist the Enlightened, an archdruid who uses the power of the mind to shape the land. The elves are divided into a hierarchy with the Covenant on top and the Underlings on the bottom. One rebellion leader, Nissa the Forgotten, is plotting a coup over the Covenant and the results could be deadly. Some goblins splash into green to represent their savagery. At the southern point of Kivet, the Oronyo continent borders the bleak deserts of the east.
Green will emphasize the extract mechanic and pumping through wisdom. Wisdom can be reached with creature/land based abilities and lots of extract.
In a stunning explosion, Nissa Revane is knocked out. When she wakes up, she is surrounded by other elves inside some sort of old church. The elves describe their lives as Underlings, the bottom of the social pyramid, and quickly accept her as a leader when she proves her abilities. But Nissa is also shocked to discover that her spark is gone and she cannot leave this plane. Nissa vows to lead the Underlings in an uprising against the Grand Covenant and their planeswalker leader Vist. Meanwhile, the Aniukha vampires are on a quest for the Sanguine Chalice and believe that Reena, a human cleric turned into a vampire, is the key to finding it. Reena is uncertain about joining them and runs away into the hollow forests to hide from it all. She runs into fire-artist Sva at an encampment in the woods. Sva decides to teach Reena how to harness her new powers and to teach her a thing or two about pyromancy. At the same time, the Ora clan has teamed up with a squad of sirens to search for the Goblet of Eons, a mysterious artifact with unlimited power. Little does everyone know but the Sanguine Chalice and Goblet of Eons are just the beginning of the mysteries forming on Kivet...
So the events in this set are stacking up pretty quickly and seem like they could fall down any time...
Now for the cards!
This is leaving 20 slots for basic lands so right now there are 229 slots to be filled.
Moonlit Reaches
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step. t: Add or to your mana pool.
Overgrown Barrens
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step. t: Add or to your mana pool.
Saltkeep Coast
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step. t: Add or to your mana pool.
Submerged Hollow
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step. t: Add or to your mana pool.
Terrestrial Arbor
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step. t: Add or to your mana pool.
...
...
...
Diamond Minaret0
Artifact (U)
You have no maximum hand size. Clear as the sky above, all the citizens gather here to expand their knowledge.
...
...
Maska Guard1WW
Creature - Human Soldier (C) Wisdom - ~ has vigilance as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
...
...
...
Siren Windrider1UU
Creature - Merfolk Wizard (C) Wisdom - ~ has flying as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
...
...
Aniukha Ichorblade1BB
Creature - Vampire Rogue (C) Wisdom - ~ has deathtouch as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
Hollow Cry4B
Sorcery (C)
Target player loses 5 life. Hellbent - If you have no cards in hand, you gain 5 life.
...
Reena the Bloodbane3BB
Legendary Creature - Vampire Shaman
Lifelink, deathtouch (R)
Reveal a red spell or two black spells from your hand: ~ gets +2/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn. Play this ability only once per turn. A monster to her old people and an outcast to her new people, Reena needed to find a family. Instead, she found fire.
3/4
...
Tuska Firedancer1RR
Creature - Goblin Shaman (C) Wisdom - ~ has first strike as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
...
...
...
Covenant Earthspeaker1GG
Creature - Elf Druid (C) Wisdom - ~ gets +2/+2 as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
...
...
...
So any criticism is welcome on the cards, storyline, keywords, or whatever. Also if you have any ideas for cards/story, just PM me or post here. Thanks!
World: I like the flavor, though it's a bit hard to visualize. Where are the different countries in relation to each other? Also, is Hasha a landmass or a body of water?
Names: Watch these. A lot of names end in 'a', though this is probably due to the Russian influence. Some of these sound very similar: Wist/Vizt, Maska/Trazhka, Nissa/Nikisha (and they're both female planeswalkers!) Szada also sounds like Szadek; considering you're using Nissa from the WotC multiverse, people might infer a relation.
Mechanics: Based on the existing color pie, this set seems to heavily favor blue, with bounce (Mostly blue, some white); extract (the "Ophidian" mechanic, mostly blue, some green); and straight card-drawing, which contributes to wisdom. Black has discard to gain wisdom. Red, though, doesn't really have tools to increase hand size, or to encourage the player to hold spells in hand rather than casting them.
What if the "cards in hand" mechanic was expanded to incorporate each color's natural tendencies? Both black and red have cards that punish the opponent for having fewer cards in hand, reward the player for having few to no cards in hand (hellbent), and cards that discard cards for an effect.
Wisdom: Do you get the bonus for having more cards in hand than an opponent, or more cards in hand than each opponent? Same question to the penalty for the lands.
Bouncer Enchantment is broken with any 0-cmc creature, like Memnite. Now if we could give it flash...
In light of the lack of multicolor, Reena's triple-black cost coupled with a double-red cost to activate her ability is really awkward.
@Jenesis - Ok I made a couple changes to the cards, put in Hellbent and took out Bounce, and changed the names to make it less confusing.
More cards will be up later!
Sphinx is really good. Control will play it and be able to protect him just fine, hes a much better finisher then Jwar Isle and thats saying a lot considering how good he alone is. Bazzar Trader.dec now has 16 threaten effects. Thats really, really, really,really good. Really good.
I think Wisdom and Hellbent fit very nicely together in a set; it creates tension. Granted, when the Hellbent deck is playing against the Wisdom deck, both players will be "happy" and not fighting over hand size, but both player's cards will be firing at maximum efficiency, increasing the swing of the game with each spell. Tactfully done.
The trick will be having Hellbent vs Wisdom balanced. No small feat, really.
Cryptic_Hero: I'm definitely willing to help out on this project as a designer. I'm not necessarily familiar with Hellbent nor your new creation Wisdom, but I think I have some good ideas swirling around.
The Plane of Kivet - Set in a Russian/Middle East-style world, Kivet is a highly sophisticated plane. Cities dot the plane and beautiful landscapes fill the space between civilization. Knowledge is a very important thing to the citizens of this plane and are always looking to gain more. Within these beautiful landscapes lie temples, palaces, and other abandoned structures, lost in time. The always-learning citizens will spend days exploring these ruins for more knowledge. But within these temples not only lie answers to ancient mysteries. A dark secret is about to be unearthed on Kivet and it very well could be the plane's undoing.
Themes/Keywords
The obvious major theme here is cards in hand, seen in Saviors of Kamigawa, and most of the cards will revolve around how many cards you have in your hand and such.
Wisdom - [effect] as long as you have more cards in hand than your opponents.
This is basically a keyword of a common mechanic in Saviors and is sort of like threshold for having a card advantage.
Hellbent - [effect] as long as you have no cards in hand.
Yes, hellbent is back. I was originally saving it for the second set but this way (as pointed out by Jenesis) the set theme supports the mechanics of all colors. So this is on the other end of the spectrum from wisdom, when you don't have cards in hand, it helps you.
Extract <cost> (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may pay its extract cost. If you do, draw a card.)
Pretty much a way of adding a cantrip onto an attacking creature. This one is the one I'm the most unsure of so I'll be looking for advice on it.
Another minor theme is color matters which has no keywords, in this set at least.
Now for the flavor on the colors:
White will have wisdom abilities focused around life-gain and other white basic abilities. Wisdom can be achieved by bouncing creatures and will introduce the mechanic of exiling cards in graveyards to draw cards (now in white and black).
Blue will have basic drawing abilities and lots of ways to gain wisdom. Bouncing and extracting will definitely be used a lot to gain wisdom.
Black will have a combination of hellbent and wisdom with discard and graveyard abilities. To gain hellbent and wisdom, other methods of extract will be used and specters will come back.
Red will be focused mainly around hellbent and punishing opponents for having fewer cards through wisdom. To get to this, a possible red specter will come and there will be lots of reverse extract (damage dealt turning into discarding cards).
Green will emphasize the extract mechanic and pumping through wisdom. Wisdom can be reached with creature/land based abilities and lots of extract.
So the events in this set are stacking up pretty quickly and seem like they could fall down any time...
Now for the cards!
This is leaving 20 slots for basic lands so right now there are 229 slots to be filled.
20 Basic Lands, 5 Lands, 10 Multicolor, 14 Artifacts, 40 White, 40 Blue, 40 Black, 40 Red, 40 Green
16 Mythic – 5 Multicolor, 1 Artifact, 2 WUBRG
52 Rare – 5 Multicolor, 2 Artifacts, 9 WUBRG
60 Uncommon – 5 Lands, 6 Artifacts, 10 WUBRG
101 Common – 5 Artifacts, 19 WUBRG
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
t: Add or to your mana pool.
Overgrown Barrens
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
t: Add or to your mana pool.
Saltkeep Coast
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
t: Add or to your mana pool.
Submerged Hollow
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
t: Add or to your mana pool.
Terrestrial Arbor
Land (U)
As long as you have fewer cards in hand than each opponent, ~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
t: Add or to your mana pool.
Artifact (U)
You have no maximum hand size.
Clear as the sky above, all the citizens gather here to expand their knowledge.
Creature - Human Soldier (C)
Wisdom - ~ has vigilance as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
Creature - Merfolk Wizard (C)
Wisdom - ~ has flying as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
Creature - Vampire Rogue (C)
Wisdom - ~ has deathtouch as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
Hollow Cry 4B
Sorcery (C)
Target player loses 5 life.
Hellbent - If you have no cards in hand, you gain 5 life.
Legendary Creature - Vampire Shaman
Lifelink, deathtouch (R)
Reveal a red spell or two black spells from your hand: ~ gets +2/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn. Play this ability only once per turn.
A monster to her old people and an outcast to her new people, Reena needed to find a family. Instead, she found fire.
3/4
Creature - Goblin Shaman (C)
Wisdom - ~ has first strike as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
Creature - Elf Druid (C)
Wisdom - ~ gets +2/+2 as long as you have more cards in hand than each opponent.
2/2
So any criticism is welcome on the cards, storyline, keywords, or whatever. Also if you have any ideas for cards/story, just PM me or post here. Thanks!
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the awesome sig.
Names: Watch these. A lot of names end in 'a', though this is probably due to the Russian influence. Some of these sound very similar: Wist/Vizt, Maska/Trazhka, Nissa/Nikisha (and they're both female planeswalkers!) Szada also sounds like Szadek; considering you're using Nissa from the WotC multiverse, people might infer a relation.
Mechanics: Based on the existing color pie, this set seems to heavily favor blue, with bounce (Mostly blue, some white); extract (the "Ophidian" mechanic, mostly blue, some green); and straight card-drawing, which contributes to wisdom. Black has discard to gain wisdom. Red, though, doesn't really have tools to increase hand size, or to encourage the player to hold spells in hand rather than casting them.
What if the "cards in hand" mechanic was expanded to incorporate each color's natural tendencies? Both black and red have cards that punish the opponent for having fewer cards in hand, reward the player for having few to no cards in hand (hellbent), and cards that discard cards for an effect.
Wisdom: Do you get the bonus for having more cards in hand than an opponent, or more cards in hand than each opponent? Same question to the penalty for the lands.
Bouncer Enchantment is broken with any 0-cmc creature, like Memnite. Now if we could give it flash...
In light of the lack of multicolor, Reena's triple-black cost coupled with a double-red cost to activate her ability is really awkward.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
More cards will be up later!
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the awesome sig.
The trick will be having Hellbent vs Wisdom balanced. No small feat, really.
Let me know what must be done.