I imagine dinosaur sets have been done before, but I still wanted to give it a try.
So here it is, I present you:
Dinotopia
(Working title)
Right now all I have is a general idea of what the set should be like and some proto-mechanics that I will go into more detail later.
For now, however, I'll just give you some information about the set in general and a rough roadmap for this set's creation.
1.) Introduction
Dinotopia (working title) is a set that is centered about dinosaurs first and foremost.
Design goal
The design goal for Dinotopia is to create a gameplay that really feels like the player is witnessing the food chain in action. Animals eat other animals until the strongest emerges at the top of the food chain. This will be the core of the set, although there will be unrelated minor mechanics and themes that hit upon important prehistoric tropes.
World
Dinotopia is not set on a known world. While it might have been easy to choose Muraganda, I want this to be my own plane free from restrictions set by Muraganda. Does Magic need two dinosaur worlds? No, but then again my world will never be an official Magic world, so I don't care.
Scope
The world of Dinotopia is about dinosaurs, not about prehistoric life in general. This means I had to set myself a limit as to what I want to allow in the world. I went with everything that came before the end of the dinosaurs. So there are no large mammals at all. There are still animals that are technically from before the dinosaurs, but I think that is fine, since they would likely never get their own world without dinosaurs.
This means that the wildlife will be inspired by dinosaurs, dimetrodonts, giant amphibians and insects, armored fish and the cambrian fauna, just to name a few. However, there will be no mammoths, sabre-toothed cats or gylptodonts.
I'll also play a lot with expectations. So while birds actually did exist side by side with non-bird dinosaurs, in Dinotopia the only birds will be archaeopteryx-like bird-dinosaur hybrids.
Set sructure
Dinotopia will be a single stand-alone set and not part of a block. I'm not even sure if the themes could support a whole block, but I also lack the resources and nerves to do three sets in one go. Dinotopia's internal structure is pretty much straight-forward. It has the same set-up as a standard large set.
Roadmap:
Introduction
First drafts for mechanics and themes
Some information about the world (I'm a Vorthos, deal with it)
Setting up the commons
Draft archetypes
Uncommons
Some more detailed story fluff (optional)
Rares
Wrap-up
You may have noticed that "playtesting" is kind of missing completely. The reason for this is that in past projects it was very difficult to find people who volunteered to playtest. If people sign up for it I'd be overjoyed, but I can hardly plan such involved participation of others.
I guess there's not a lot to give feedback on yet, but in the next update I will lay out some of the themes and also present some drafts for possible keywords. Stay tuned.
"The design goal for Dinotopia is to create a gameplay that really feels like the player is witnessing the food chain in action. Animals eat other animals until the strongest emerges at the top of the food chain"
If you don't use devour, I will destroy you .
"The design goal for Dinotopia is to create a gameplay that really feels like the player is witnessing the food chain in action. Animals eat other animals until the strongest emerges at the top of the food chain"
If you don't use devour, I will destroy you .
Yeah, devour was the first thing that came to mind and feels like a perfect fit, but after some brainstorming I'm slowly questioning if that is really a good mechanic for the set. But I will go into more detail later today.
Please note that these mechanics and themes are only first drafts and will likely evolve over the course of the sets development. So, when I continue with the next points in the future, don't think the mechanics will be final at that point. Anyway, off we go:
Predators & Prey
A huge part of Dinotopia is about things eating other things, so I want the keywords and themes to reflect that.
Devour
My first idea was to use devour as a central piece for this theme. So if I have devour, I also want to have cards and themes that directly work well with devour. Prey animals for instance might have death triggers. Also tokens would be very useful for this. As I thought about tokens, I got the idea for a keyword that produced tokens whose main existence was to be used as devour bait:
Nest X (To nest X, put X 0/1 colorless Egg creature tokens with defender onto the battlefield. They have "When this creature dies, you gain 1 life.")
Example:
Defend the Nest [2W]
Instant
~ deals 3 damage to target attacking or blocking creature. Nest 2.
While I like the flavour of it, I think this mechanic combination has two problems. First, it is somewhat parasitic. The eggs don't do much other than blocking, so you'd probably not use them outside of a devour deck. Second, once you cast a creature with devour and amass counters on it, you're unlikely to use it as devour fodder for another creature. While it is not a big thing, I still wanted to explore other venues, to see if I could find something more suitable.
Food chain
In order to properly make the players feel like going through a food chain, I wanted to make a keyword that encourages players to keep feeding their creatures to other, bigger creatures. Enter the food chain:
Foodchain X (Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice this creature and put X +1/+1 counters on the other creature. That creature gains foodchain X.)
Example:
Plated Placoderm [1U]
Creature - Fish
Foodchain 1
1/2
I'm probably way off with the balancing, but that's not the point. The interesting thing with this keyword is that you can either use your foodchain creatures to be fed to a single creature devour-style or you can actually lay down the curve and chain into an ever larger apex predator. My only gripe with this keyword is that it may have some memory issues, with the keyword granting ability. I plan to use as few +1/+1 counter cards as possible to mitigate this, but still.
Now that I have a possible candidate for a keyword for the prey animals, I need a mechanic for the predators as well. Technically I came up with the "apex predator" mechanic first, but it builds nicely onto foodchain:
Apex predator - This creature gets or does stuff if it has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
Examples:
Tyrannodon [3GGG]
Creature - Saurian Apex predator - [1GG]: Tyrannodon fights target creature you don't control. Activate this ability only if Greater Tyrannodon has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
7/5
Imperiosuchus [3BB]
Creature - Crocodile Apex predator - ~ has lifelink as long as it has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
5/3
Honestly, I'm not sure how well this ability plays, so I'll have to figure that out in playtests, but I think it gets the point across. There can only be one apex predator.
Now I have two different sets of mechanics that I can try out. Just from a gutfeeling, I like foodchain & apex predator more, but we'll see what the first playtest results will yield. (If anyone is up for it, that would be nice. I think MWS works well for playtests with others.)
Other mechanics
While the above mechanics will be the core, there are some that will assume a more secondary role in the set.
Purge
Both of the above mechanic sets send creatures to the graveyard. To make use of this and to also show the carrion-eating side of the foodchain, I came up with the Purge keyword:
Purge (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may exile a creature card from your graveyard.)
Example:
Scavenging Daggerback [2R]
Creature - Saurian
Purge
When ~ purges a creature card, it deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
2/1
This mechanic is essentially a rip-off of Exploit (and ironically enough works well with it). I didn't want to give the purging creature +1/+1 counters, because both devour and foodchain already make creatures bigger, and I don't think there needs to be another mechanic that mines the same design space. Plus, it could become very confusing with Foodchain.
Fossils
Since this set is about dinosaurs (and some other prehistoric animals) I wanted to include fossils as a mechanical element. Unfortunately I am not entirely sure what exactly they should do. (Not the best prerequisite, I know.)
The idea was to make them artifacts that can be "imprinted" with other cards, preferably cards from the graveyard. Since I want the imprint process to be the same among all cards, I think a new keyword would be better than using imprint, although it would also work well, even flavour-wise.
Right now I have two different versions of fossils:
a) Fossils exile cards from your graveyard. While this makes sense and gives the player control over what to fossilize, it also steps a bit on the toes of Purge. While fossils are very likely to be something permanent and purge will be more spell-like in nature, they may work together, but they still use up the same resources during gameplay.
Example:
Helix Fossil [2]
Artifact
Fossilize a creature card (When this enters the battlefield, you may exile a creature card in your graveyard.)
Whenever you cast a spell that shares a creature type with the fossilized card, you may draw a card.
b) Fossils exile random cards, such as the top card of your library. While I really like the random aspect of this, it makes designing fossils a lot harder, because you need to find effects that work on lands, creatures, instants, planeswalkers and everything else. Plus the design space for imprint-like cards is already severely limited.
Example:
Clutch Fossil [2]
Fossil (When this enters the battlefield, exile the top card of your library.)
[2], Discard a card that shares a card type with the fossilized card: Draw a card.
Apart from that there is another problem right now: I'm not entirely sure what fossils should do, once you have them in play. Again, the easy route is imprint-like abilities, but most of those have been done already.
So considering I don't know yet what fossils should do and how that should be applied, it feels like I have to cut them from the set, unless I find another solution. That would be a shame, because I really like the idea of having fossils as artifacts. Maybe someone of you has a genius idea.
Themes
Building on the design vision and the keywords, there are some themes that emerge from that:
Graveyard (Especially creatures)
Strengthening creatures (Auras, equipment)
Big creatures
Loners (sacrificing all creatures into one)
Saurian tribal (aw yeah!)
The Unwritten
While I have posted quite a few ideas, there are still lacking some. I am aiming for around four to five mechanics. Preferably one of the mechanics is an older mechanic brought back, like WotC started doing some years back.
What's missing right now for instance is a non-creature mechanic. Unless I find a way to keep the fossils, all the mechanics will be creature-centric. (Nest can be put on spells, but in the end it creates and enhances creatures.)
At any rate, I'm looking forward to your feedback.
It sounds like you aren't sold on Devour, which is understandable given its lukewarm reception during Alara block. However, I think if I were using Devour I'd take inspiration from Exploit to make it more compelling. I 100% agree that Devour is the perfect returning mechanic for a set/block about the food chain. I also think that it is too similar to your Food chain mechanic to use both of them.
Apex Predator is a fun idea that's come up a couple times with different names. The consensus from people who have playtested it (of which I am not one) is that it should apply to each creature with the highest power - pretty sure this can be achieved by changing "has" from your wording to "shares".
Not to borrow too heavily from Alara block, but Unearth would fit Fossils really well and synergize with Devour. That said, how do fossils make sense lore-wise in this world? If dinosaurs are still living breathing monsters, have they been around long enough to deposit fossil bones in the ground? I'm sure there's a way to make it work, but without a bit of explanation it feels off.
I'd help with finding your noncreature mechanic, but I'm not sure what role you want it to fill.
It sounds like you aren't sold on Devour, which is understandable given its lukewarm reception during Alara block. However, I think if I were using Devour I'd take inspiration from Exploit to make it more compelling. I 100% agree that Devour is the perfect returning mechanic for a set/block about the food chain. I also think that it is too similar to your Food chain mechanic to use both of them.
It's not that I'm not sold on Devour. It's just that I feel it's not the right mechanic to center a block on. Devour needs a specific environment to truly shine. You need to have lots of small creatures or tokens and death triggers to make Devour worthwhile. Afterall you don't want to sacrifice your 3/3 creatures to a Devour 1 creature. If you apply all that it warps the entire set to suit Devour instead of the broader theme of predation.
I think Devour works very well as a minor mechanic in a set, instead of as the focus, like it was done in Alara. It is a perfect mechanic to have its own draft archetype, but not so much as the central element of a whole set.
Having that said, I'm still going to figure out what I want to go with after I have playtested Foodchain and Devour respectively.
Apex Predator is a fun idea that's come up a couple times with different names. The consensus from people who have playtested it (of which I am not one) is that it should apply to each creature with the highest power - pretty sure this can be achieved by changing "has" from your wording to "shares".
That actually makes sense. Flavourfully you would want only one apex predator on the battlefield at all times, but from a gameplay perspective you don't want multiples to cancel each other out.
Not to borrow too heavily from Alara block, but Unearth would fit Fossils really well and synergize with Devour.
Unearth does indeed synergize with Devour, which was probably the reason why both mechanics appeared in Alara together. The thing is that this restricts fossils to being creatures. I wouldn't mind too terribly, but I think it would be interesting to have fossils be actual artifacts. If Devour actually makes it in, I'll consider Unearth as a possibility. Until then, the search continues.
That said, how do fossils make sense lore-wise in this world? If dinosaurs are still living breathing monsters, have they been around long enough to deposit fossil bones in the ground? I'm sure there's a way to make it work, but without a bit of explanation it feels off.
I'm not sure this actually needs an explanation. Dinosaurs and fossils are linked to each other strongly in the people's minds. It's just a trope I'm playing with, not an important plotpoint.
I'd help with finding your noncreature mechanic, but I'm not sure what role you want it to fill.
Not sure myself honestly. Right now it just feels so imbalanced to have all mechanics appear on creatures or dealing with creatures. Some more variety would be welcome, but in the sets current state I don't even have any holes to fill, so I can't tell what the set needs.
I think using Evolve and Devour would be better than using 'Foodchain', which just seems like a weird hybrid in many ways. Evolve can even help support Devour by creating a stronger emphasis on +1/+1 counter strategies, which would be a fine thing to push in a set like this. Not to say that you should use these mechanics specifically, but they should definitely be high on your list as they fit very well mechanically and thematically for the overall set themes.
'Purge' is too low of a cost, it doesn't really have any interesting decision making like Exploit does where you are unsure when to play the creature and when to sacrifice and what when you do play it. With purge, you almost always wait until you can use it and you almost always do when you can, not very interesting. You could potentially up the number of cards you need to exile if you want to see how that plays.
Fossils isn't a theme I think players will really get behind, nor one that makes a lot of sense, yes fossils are from prehistory but being in prehistory doesn't have any relation to the presence of those fossils, more so the lack of them. Fossils would work extremely well in a later set set in the future to show the past, but unless you are doing that, the fossils concept is probably just fine as a cycle or something rather than a major element. That way you can include the concept because it is relevant, without giving it a significance that it shouldn't have.
One suggestion that comes to mind immediately is that this plane should probably be Muraganda (see Muraganda Petroglyphs). Not that the 'vanilla matters' or 'basic land matters' concepts suggested by known Muraganda cards should be major themes, but you should consider having a few cards with those themes as well. Having a new plane gives more space for identity, but not by any significant degree seeing as Arkhos and Moonseng have already been represented by being replaced by Theros and Tarkir, demonstrating that you can take some liberties and make some significant changes. You can even change the name and just imply and state that they are the same, as was done with the previous examples.
I think using Evolve and Devour would be better than using 'Foodchain', which just seems like a weird hybrid in many ways. Evolve can even help support Devour by creating a stronger emphasis on +1/+1 counter strategies, which would be a fine thing to push in a set like this. Not to say that you should use these mechanics specifically, but they should definitely be high on your list as they fit very well mechanically and thematically for the overall set themes.
I'm not too sure about Evolve to be honest. It doesn't really fit the set mechanically and flavourwise. Yes, it synergizes well with Devour, but the set's theme wants your creatures to become stronger by eating other creatures, not just by having them around. Plus Evolve makes as much sense in a dinosaur set as in a regular mammal-dominated set. The flavour only really works with conjunction with something like the Simic or in a setting that spans multiple eras.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I thought about Evolve too and if I find that the set needs/wants it, I might include it, but right now I want to explore other routes, because I'm not too convinced it really fits.
'Purge' is too low of a cost, it doesn't really have any interesting decision making like Exploit does where you are unsure when to play the creature and when to sacrifice and what when you do play it. With purge, you almost always wait until you can use it and you almost always do when you can, not very interesting. You could potentially up the number of cards you need to exile if you want to see how that plays.
You do have an interesting point. Purge right now feels like a non-decision. Mmh...
Fossils isn't a theme I think players will really get behind, nor one that makes a lot of sense, yes fossils are from prehistory but being in prehistory doesn't have any relation to the presence of those fossils, more so the lack of them. Fossils would work extremely well in a later set set in the future to show the past, but unless you are doing that, the fossils concept is probably just fine as a cycle or something rather than a major element. That way you can include the concept because it is relevant, without giving it a significance that it shouldn't have.
This was exactly what I was planning actually. I didn't want to have more than just a few fossils anyway. Maybe just ~5 cards. Fossils are by no means a major part of the set, but having some would be nice.
One suggestion that comes to mind immediately is that this plane should probably be Muraganda (see Muraganda Petroglyphs). Not that the 'vanilla matters' or 'basic land matters' concepts suggested by known Muraganda cards should be major themes, but you should consider having a few cards with those themes as well. Having a new plane gives more space for identity, but not by any significant degree seeing as Arkhos and Moonseng have already been represented by being replaced by Theros and Tarkir, demonstrating that you can take some liberties and make some significant changes. You can even change the name and just imply and state that they are the same, as was done with the previous examples.
Is it really such a big deal if it's Muraganda or not? Also, isn't what I'm doing essentially what they did with Arkhos and Mongseng?
The reason why I don't want to use Muraganda, is because I want to create the world from scratch without any baggage from Muraganda. Even though Muraganda is largely unknown, we still have a few flavour snippets. Muraganda Petroglyphs specifically says people on the world use scrolls and build libraries. I don't think that makes a lot of sense in a world that's supposed to be truly primal. The sapient races on Dinotopia are nothing more than wandering tribes still in the stone-age. Another thing is how the flavour around The Mimeoplasm mentions elves and scar-witches. I intend to use neither in my set. So basically the problem is, that if I used Muraganda, people would already come in expecting certain things and I can either cater to that, even though it wouldn't fit the world I'm trying to build or I simply break with the expectations and invalidate cards that referenced Muraganda before. Starting with a blank slate saves everyone quite some trouble.
About Evolve, why doesn't it fit? In a primal world, survival of the fittest, the basis of evolution, is a more prominent effect. It's the same flavour as Devour, the strong survive, just in devour the weak get eaten whereas in evolve the weak become the strong. It's actually a nice parallel. The mechanical suitability is fine, just 'eating creatures to survive' is not enough of a theme for a set, it's a component theme of the larger primal dinosaur world theme, which evolve fits. But yes, by no means do you have it to use, there is plenty of reasons not to.
I was arguing against the mechanic ideas basically, if it's just a cycle or so, then a mechanic would be very unnecessary. I think a horizontal cycle of fossils would be cool, and the slot of 'mana-rocks' in a set would be a good place to put the concept. For example:
Black/Green Fossil ( )
Artifact (U)
As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME, exile a creature card from your graveyard.
: Add or to your mana pool.
, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Return a creature card exiled with CARDNAME to your hand.
As I said, it doesn't have to be called Muraganda or include all the parts of Muraganda, but you should allude to it by thematics (which is pretty much already done) and in the abstract consider it the replacement. It's more of a formality than any technical difference, but it's nice to clarify that it is the replacement and let it fill that slot so players can enjoy it in that way.
About Evolve, why doesn't it fit? In a primal world, survival of the fittest, the basis of evolution, is a more prominent effect. It's the same flavour as Devour, the strong survive, just in devour the weak get eaten whereas in evolve the weak become the strong. It's actually a nice parallel. The mechanical suitability is fine, just 'eating creatures to survive' is not enough of a theme for a set, it's a component theme of the larger primal dinosaur world theme, which evolve fits. But yes, by no means do you have it to use, there is plenty of reasons not to.
I suppose people associate a prehistoric setting with evolution, but it just makes my inner biologist cringe to have people think evolution can somehow stop. Technically evolution still happens even in modern times, but yeah, I guess there's a big association with prehistoric life for most people. After I figure out if I actually do want to use devour or not I can decide wether or not to use Evolve.
I was arguing against the mechanic ideas basically, if it's just a cycle or so, then a mechanic would be very unnecessary. I think a horizontal cycle of fossils would be cool, and the slot of 'mana-rocks' in a set would be a good place to put the concept. For example:
Black/Green Fossil ( )
Artifact (U)
As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME, exile a creature card from your graveyard.
: Add or to your mana pool.
, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Return a creature card exiled with CARDNAME to your hand.
This looks very good. I think I'm gonna yoink this. Might even cut a mana from that, since having to have a creature in the graveyard is a pretty hard restriction in the early game.
As I said, it doesn't have to be called Muraganda or include all the parts of Muraganda, but you should allude to it by thematics (which is pretty much already done) and in the abstract consider it the replacement. It's more of a formality than any technical difference, but it's nice to clarify that it is the replacement and let it fill that slot so players can enjoy it in that way.
I'm sorry, but I am not sure if I follow. So, basically you're fine if I make a new world and call it differently, but I still should allude to Muraganda?
About Evolve, why doesn't it fit? In a primal world, survival of the fittest, the basis of evolution, is a more prominent effect. It's the same flavour as Devour, the strong survive, just in devour the weak get eaten whereas in evolve the weak become the strong. It's actually a nice parallel. The mechanical suitability is fine, just 'eating creatures to survive' is not enough of a theme for a set, it's a component theme of the larger primal dinosaur world theme, which evolve fits. But yes, by no means do you have it to use, there is plenty of reasons not to.
I suppose people associate a prehistoric setting with evolution, but it just makes my inner biologist cringe to have people think evolution can somehow stop. Technically evolution still happens even in modern times, but yeah, I guess there's a big association with prehistoric life for most people. After I figure out if I actually do want to use devour or not I can decide wether or not to use Evolve.
I know exactly what you mean, trust me, biology is a field of interest for me. However, while evolution still takes place, it's more dramatically obvious in the whole 'survival of the fittest' way so I wouldn't call it a mistake to associate evolution with prehistoric life.
I was arguing against the mechanic ideas basically, if it's just a cycle or so, then a mechanic would be very unnecessary. I think a horizontal cycle of fossils would be cool, and the slot of 'mana-rocks' in a set would be a good place to put the concept. For example:
Black/Green Fossil ( )
Artifact (U)
As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME, exile a creature card from your graveyard.
: Add or to your mana pool.
, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Return a creature card exiled with CARDNAME to your hand.
This looks very good. I think I'm gonna yoink this. Might even cut a mana from that, since having to have a creature in the graveyard is a pretty hard restriction in the early game.
Go ahead and use it, I didn't suggest it for my benefit after all .
As I said, it doesn't have to be called Muraganda or include all the parts of Muraganda, but you should allude to it by thematics (which is pretty much already done) and in the abstract consider it the replacement. It's more of a formality than any technical difference, but it's nice to clarify that it is the replacement and let it fill that slot so players can enjoy it in that way.
I'm sorry, but I am not sure if I follow. So, basically you're fine if I make a new world and call it differently, but I still should allude to Muraganda?
Yes. All I am saying is this should be officially labelled as a Muraganda replacement because it's weird to have two 'primal dinosaur worlds' even if they are significantly different. (Yes, the multiverse is supposedly infinite, but that doesn't mean they should make another world exactly like Mirrodin except with 1 more rock even though that entirely feasibly exists in an infinite multiverse, so the same applies.)
I know exactly what you mean, trust me, biology is a field of interest for me. However, while evolution still takes place, it's more dramatically obvious in the whole 'survival of the fittest' way so I wouldn't call it a mistake to associate evolution with prehistoric life.
Yes. All I am saying is this should be officially labelled as a Muraganda replacement because it's weird to have two 'primal dinosaur worlds' even if they are significantly different. (Yes, the multiverse is supposedly infinite, but that doesn't mean they should make another world exactly like Mirrodin except with 1 more rock even though that entirely feasibly exists in an infinite multiverse, so the same applies.)
I thought that was somewhat implied. I'm obviously not making any mention of Muraganda in my set, like a planeswalker who comes from Muraganda and is overjoyed to find another plane with dinosaurs. I'm pretty much ignoring Muraganda in this set, so people can make up their own headcanon about the planes' relationship.
Evolve and Devour together? How exactly does that fit?
With Evolve, you want to play your evolvers early and keep evolving them by playing creatures every turn, ideally with unusual stats to ensure Evolve.
Devour however wants you to amass puny tokens to feed to your Dragons, or Dinosaurs in that case.
Populate and Unearth would work much better with Devour, Evolve is kinda antisynergetic to it. Of course, thematically it fits, but that's a weak reason to include it.
I think Evolve and Devour are fine in the same set. There might be some anti-synergy, but there's also synergy. "If I devour X guys, this entering the battlefield will still trigger evolve." Regardless of synergy or not, the set can contain both, and the contrast could be interesting to play around. One "faction" that grows its weak into strong, another that devours its weak to be even stronger... for example.
Factionwise, sure. Like two different groups of dinosaurs who each found a way to get stronger. Interesting idea.
In the same deck however? Doubt that you would have any advantage. Evolve is already slowish, eating your creatures or playing tokenmakers slows you down even more.
BTW, will there be factions? Mono or Multicoloured?
So after some playtesting I have some opinions about the mechanics I presented earlier:
Devour & Nest
The thing about devour and nest is that these two mechanics worked well together. Very well. So well infact, that it almost felt like cheating. It's basically as if you put cycling on cards with madness. Not only do you get your cake, but you eat it too. Usually sacrificing creatures, even if they're 1/1s, feels like a sacrifice, because you're actually giving up something that you could use to damage your opponent, but when you sacrifice eggs you have nothing of that plus you get an extra life! Ok, granted the extra life could be removed, but then they'd be strictly worse Eldrazi Spawn tokens. I am not entirely sure whether that is a good or bad thing, but it sure feels off.
Another problem is that the egg tokens do very little besides feeding your devour creatures, which makes devour feel less like devour but more like "Get a bigger creature if you played nest cards before." Conversely to how well eggs play with devour, they do literally nothing in any other situation. Except chump-blocking and being used as a sacrifice outlet.
The problem isn't all about the eggs though. Even without the eggs, devour is still a very swingy mechanic. Sometimes you simply steamroll your opponent with a 12/12 and sometimes you have nothing to devour, so you are forced to cast your overcosted devour creature without any food. I think Alara handled devour very well in that it delegated it into a subtheme of the set, a draft archetype, but for Dinotopia I want something more substantial, and I don't think Devour can be the foundation for an entire set. At least not without warping the whole environment to suit devour's needs. (It's almost as if it is devouring the sets design space. *rimshot*)
Foodchain & Apex predator
Foodchain and apex predator fared better in my opinion. Foodchain really felt like I envisioned the set to play like. You lay down a creature, then another eating that one, then a bigger one eating THAT one and so on, until you arrive at the top of the food chain, bonus points if it's an actual apex predator. It plays similarly to those corny cartoons where one thing eats the next one until you have the giant tyrannosaurus roaring at the camera with a bloody face. The "There's always a bigger fish" feeling is really there, instead of devour's "Imma gobble up everything! At once! Because that is how the foodchain works!" feeling.
As for apex predator, it was okay. I think without foodchain I would totally cut it from the game, because it would basically read "If you are on curve, do stuff, else don't" With foodchain and its inherent "Build your own monster" shtick, apex predator could really shine. First I paired these two mechanics together simply because apex predator doesn't work with devour and I wanted to test both, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it work so well with foodchain. On top of that you almost always end a foodchain-chain with an apex predator, which is pretty cool. The fact that it harmonizes so well with foodchain makes me want to use foodchain even more.
However apex predator has its flaws. Namely, that its design space is insanely limited. Infact I had trouble coming up with any decent commons. Power-pump effects are literally out of the question and little else remains at common. Apex predator is one of those mechanics whose design-space is mostly depleted after just a single set. Luckily for me that is not a problem at all though.
By the way, through playtesting it was apparent that foodchain needed to change. This is the updated version: Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice this creature and move all +1/+1 counters plus an extra one from this creature onto the other creature. That creature gains foodchain.
The changes are the following:
a) There is no number. Each foodchain ability is now identical. This is done for multiple reasons, but mostly because it's very difficult to track the exact amount this ability grants to the next creature.
b) The next creature gets an additional counter. This may read somewhat clunky in the reminder text and I'm still looking for a way to streamline it, but I felt it was important that you not only move the same counters from one level to the next, but that you get something extra along the way, to provide more incentive to use it. Plus, without a number to go with the keyword, it nees to do something even without external sources of +1/+1 counters.
Other mechanics
While I was playtesting the above mechanics, I had some time to think about the other mechanics.
Purge
As DJK3654 pointed out, there is not much of a choice to be made with Purge, so it is an inherently uninteresting gameplay element. Additionally it steps on the toes of both fossils (see below) and another theme I have planned for Dinotopia. So I purged Purge from the set.
Fossils
Yes yes, these are still a thing. I know I won't have many fossils, but I think they'll have a similar function like imprint, which I might bring back, maybe. Alternatively, since all fossils will likely grab stuff from the graveyard, I can just make a new keyword to distinguish it from imprint. Fossils are not a thing that really need a named mechanic, but I don't see the harm in doing so, unless I'm getting crammed for mechanics. And it doesn't look like that right now.
(In my opinion imprint should simply be an evergreen keyword action.)
Returning mechanic
Like Wizards does with every block, I also intend to bring back a mechanic (maybe two, with imprint). And since devour is likely not making the cut, I have to find a new one. (You can destroy me now, DJK3654.)
The mechanic I have in mind right now is Provoke. It synergizes really well with foodchain, and it also provides an alternative to killing creatures, since removal likely won't be as effective and numerous in the set. Bounce and cheap kill spells are no fun in a set with foodchain action. (Same goes for devour, actually.)
Another alternative is Evolve. Evolve works okay with foodchain, although it's not love on first sight. Provoke remains my favourite right now. Further playtesting will reveal how much I will like Provoke.
So, that wraps up this update. All sorts of feedback is welcome, especially ideas on the questions posed above. (Or, rather, implied.)
If you want here's a keyword from a set I was working on,
Predator (Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
It works really well with fight/provoke/combat mechanics in general, and plays very nicely with Foodchain, as if it's granted Foodchain by another creature, it can transfer the counters it racked up from its predator kills to the next big creature.
@Flisch.
*Destroys you*
Anyway, Devour doesn't have to be the focus I just think it fits really as part of the set. You don't have to use it, I just thought it fit so well.
Provoke is no good because fight obsoletes it. It's doesn't add enough to the set.
-
I don't like PasstheChips's predator suggestion as it seems too limited in use. One of the major problems being that it is reliant on opponent controlled aspects. Maybe an ability word version would be more doable though: Predator- Whenever a creature dealt damage by (this creature) this turn dies, (effect)
If you want here's a keyword from a set I was working on,
Predator (Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
It works really well with fight/provoke/combat mechanics in general, and plays very nicely with Foodchain, as if it's granted Foodchain by another creature, it can transfer the counters it racked up from its predator kills to the next big creature.
Also flavor.
I was aiming for one mechanic for the prey animals and one mechanic for the predators. Right now both slots are filled, but if I find that I still need a combat centric or +1/+1 counter themed mechanic, I guess I'll try out a version of this. Thanks.
@Flisch.
*Destroys you*
Anyway, Devour doesn't have to be the focus I just think it fits really as part of the set. You don't have to use it, I just thought it fit so well.
I know, but I want a mechanic that serves as the focus of the set. Devour is not that. It's not that I think Devour is a bad mechanic (though I do think it has some minor flaws), but I don't think Dinotopia is the right place for it.
Provoke is no good because fight obsoletes it. It's doesn't add enough to the set.
Yes, that was also something that came to my mind, however provoke allows me to cheat the system. Fight can only be used by green and maybe red as per traditional colour pie, but being a non-evergreen keyword, provoke allows me to "bleed" fight into colours other than those two. It just feels less weird for players to see a blue provoke creature than a blue fight creature, even though the result is somewhat similar.
If I decide to use Provoke, I'll treat fight in a similar way to how deathtouch was handled in Shadowmoor with Whither. Meaning that it will take a bit of a backseat to let the block mechanic shine.
Frogeater Raptor4GG
Creature - Lizard (U)
Prey - 1G, Exile this card from your hand: Put a 2/2 green Frog creature token onto the battlefield. You may cast this card if you sacrifice that token in addition to paying its cost. Prey only as a sorcery.
6/6
Hey, thanks everyone for your suggestions. I haven't posted in the last few days, because I'm currently too busy with other stuff, but once I know what mechanic I'll bring back I can figure out what kind of mechanic I still need for the set. Hopefully I'll be able to test evolve, provoke and some other mechanics in some time. Haven't been able to do that yet.
1. If you do want this to play into some of the space of Muraganda without being called it, maybe Legend's mechanic above or Gorra's conjuncture mechanic may interest you?
I'm not a huge fan of vanilla-matters mechanics. Dinotopia is a primal world, not a simple one. Additionally, making a vanilla theme matter and interesting is a tough challenge. One could go the token route with populate, but it seems like Dinotopia wants to be more a battlecruiser set than a going-wide set.
2. As a non-creature mechanic, have you considered Jon Loucks' Dig from GDS2? It might be a stretch in terms of flavor, but it seems like something primordial humans might be doing.
I can see myself using something similar, if it turns out Dinotopia wants a mana-smoothing mechanic, but I believe it's too early to tell at the moment. Thanks for the heads-up.
3. Any consideration to representing fossils / eggs through DFCs?
I have to be honest: I utterly detest DFCs. I think they play very good, in theory, but in practise they are a huge mess, even before you start playing. With DFCs it seems like the game tried to do something that the medium does not quite allow, at least not in an elegant way.
So no, no DFCs for me. But I think the exiling things from a graveyard and using them in some way is a nice enough design for fossils. And eggs were never really the focus. I only had the nest mechanic to help out devour. Without devour eggs will boil down to one-off flavour frostings for certain cards, but there won't be a mechanical representation.
4. It would be funny to represent early Humans through Populate.
Could also be reasonable with Devour although it sounds like Foodchain is where things are at now following recent playtests.
Everyone seems to like devour so much. I really want to test foodchain with some of you guys to see what other people think about it. I only could do it solitaire, so the feedback is very limited and probably biased. But if someone was up for it, give me a call, and I'll try to arrange some time.
So I tested out Evolve and Provoke together with the two "established" mechanics Foodchain and Apex predator.
Provoke
Provoke was kind of boring. Sure it did its job and it did it well, but it's really nothing special. Especially in a world where fighting is a thing. (As DJK3654 mentioned.) It does something admirable though: It allows for removal to be plentiful (in form of provoke creatures) without oppressing the foodchain mechanic, which is very vulnerable to removal. However, the same effect can be achieved by adjusting the normal removal spells in the environment, so provoke is not essential.
Evolve
Evolve in itself works fine. (No surprise there.) However it works not very well with foodchain and apex predator. Foodchain makes the evolve creature bigger and stops it from evolving most of the time and evolving creatures often stops your apex predators from being apex predators. So it's rather anti-synergistic with the other mechanics.
Additionally, while it was never an issue during testplays, I'm still somewhat wary of possible memory issues with +1/+1 counters on creatures that are not part of a foodchain. Interestingly trying to tackle this issue made me come up with a mechanic that is very close to what already exists: Proliferate.
Proliferate is the next mechanic I'll test as a returning mechanic, but I got a good feeling.
Nevertheless, if anyone else feels like there's a good candidate, feel free to suggest some.
So here it is, I present you:
(Working title)
Right now all I have is a general idea of what the set should be like and some proto-mechanics that I will go into more detail later.
For now, however, I'll just give you some information about the set in general and a rough roadmap for this set's creation.
1.) Introduction
Dinotopia (working title) is a set that is centered about dinosaurs first and foremost.
Design goal
The design goal for Dinotopia is to create a gameplay that really feels like the player is witnessing the food chain in action. Animals eat other animals until the strongest emerges at the top of the food chain. This will be the core of the set, although there will be unrelated minor mechanics and themes that hit upon important prehistoric tropes.
World
Dinotopia is not set on a known world. While it might have been easy to choose Muraganda, I want this to be my own plane free from restrictions set by Muraganda. Does Magic need two dinosaur worlds? No, but then again my world will never be an official Magic world, so I don't care.
Scope
The world of Dinotopia is about dinosaurs, not about prehistoric life in general. This means I had to set myself a limit as to what I want to allow in the world. I went with everything that came before the end of the dinosaurs. So there are no large mammals at all. There are still animals that are technically from before the dinosaurs, but I think that is fine, since they would likely never get their own world without dinosaurs.
This means that the wildlife will be inspired by dinosaurs, dimetrodonts, giant amphibians and insects, armored fish and the cambrian fauna, just to name a few. However, there will be no mammoths, sabre-toothed cats or gylptodonts.
I'll also play a lot with expectations. So while birds actually did exist side by side with non-bird dinosaurs, in Dinotopia the only birds will be archaeopteryx-like bird-dinosaur hybrids.
Set sructure
Dinotopia will be a single stand-alone set and not part of a block. I'm not even sure if the themes could support a whole block, but I also lack the resources and nerves to do three sets in one go. Dinotopia's internal structure is pretty much straight-forward. It has the same set-up as a standard large set.
Roadmap:
You may have noticed that "playtesting" is kind of missing completely. The reason for this is that in past projects it was very difficult to find people who volunteered to playtest. If people sign up for it I'd be overjoyed, but I can hardly plan such involved participation of others.
I guess there's not a lot to give feedback on yet, but in the next update I will lay out some of the themes and also present some drafts for possible keywords. Stay tuned.
If you don't use devour, I will destroy you .
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
Yeah, devour was the first thing that came to mind and feels like a perfect fit, but after some brainstorming I'm slowly questioning if that is really a good mechanic for the set. But I will go into more detail later today.
2.) First drafts for mechanics and themes
Please note that these mechanics and themes are only first drafts and will likely evolve over the course of the sets development. So, when I continue with the next points in the future, don't think the mechanics will be final at that point. Anyway, off we go:
Predators & Prey
A huge part of Dinotopia is about things eating other things, so I want the keywords and themes to reflect that.
Devour
My first idea was to use devour as a central piece for this theme. So if I have devour, I also want to have cards and themes that directly work well with devour. Prey animals for instance might have death triggers. Also tokens would be very useful for this. As I thought about tokens, I got the idea for a keyword that produced tokens whose main existence was to be used as devour bait:
Nest X (To nest X, put X 0/1 colorless Egg creature tokens with defender onto the battlefield. They have "When this creature dies, you gain 1 life.")
Example:
Instant
~ deals 3 damage to target attacking or blocking creature. Nest 2.
While I like the flavour of it, I think this mechanic combination has two problems. First, it is somewhat parasitic. The eggs don't do much other than blocking, so you'd probably not use them outside of a devour deck. Second, once you cast a creature with devour and amass counters on it, you're unlikely to use it as devour fodder for another creature. While it is not a big thing, I still wanted to explore other venues, to see if I could find something more suitable.
Food chain
In order to properly make the players feel like going through a food chain, I wanted to make a keyword that encourages players to keep feeding their creatures to other, bigger creatures. Enter the food chain:
Foodchain X (Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice this creature and put X +1/+1 counters on the other creature. That creature gains foodchain X.)
Example:
Creature - Fish
Foodchain 1
1/2
I'm probably way off with the balancing, but that's not the point. The interesting thing with this keyword is that you can either use your foodchain creatures to be fed to a single creature devour-style or you can actually lay down the curve and chain into an ever larger apex predator. My only gripe with this keyword is that it may have some memory issues, with the keyword granting ability. I plan to use as few +1/+1 counter cards as possible to mitigate this, but still.
Now that I have a possible candidate for a keyword for the prey animals, I need a mechanic for the predators as well. Technically I came up with the "apex predator" mechanic first, but it builds nicely onto foodchain:
Apex predator - This creature gets or does stuff if it has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
Examples:
Creature - Saurian
Apex predator - [1GG]: Tyrannodon fights target creature you don't control. Activate this ability only if Greater Tyrannodon has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
7/5
Creature - Crocodile
Apex predator - ~ has lifelink as long as it has the greatest power among creatures on the battlefield.
5/3
Honestly, I'm not sure how well this ability plays, so I'll have to figure that out in playtests, but I think it gets the point across. There can only be one apex predator.
Now I have two different sets of mechanics that I can try out. Just from a gutfeeling, I like foodchain & apex predator more, but we'll see what the first playtest results will yield. (If anyone is up for it, that would be nice. I think MWS works well for playtests with others.)
Other mechanics
While the above mechanics will be the core, there are some that will assume a more secondary role in the set.
Purge
Both of the above mechanic sets send creatures to the graveyard. To make use of this and to also show the carrion-eating side of the foodchain, I came up with the Purge keyword:
Purge (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may exile a creature card from your graveyard.)
Example:
Creature - Saurian
Purge
When ~ purges a creature card, it deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
2/1
This mechanic is essentially a rip-off of Exploit (and ironically enough works well with it). I didn't want to give the purging creature +1/+1 counters, because both devour and foodchain already make creatures bigger, and I don't think there needs to be another mechanic that mines the same design space. Plus, it could become very confusing with Foodchain.
Fossils
Since this set is about dinosaurs (and some other prehistoric animals) I wanted to include fossils as a mechanical element. Unfortunately I am not entirely sure what exactly they should do. (Not the best prerequisite, I know.)
The idea was to make them artifacts that can be "imprinted" with other cards, preferably cards from the graveyard. Since I want the imprint process to be the same among all cards, I think a new keyword would be better than using imprint, although it would also work well, even flavour-wise.
Right now I have two different versions of fossils:
a) Fossils exile cards from your graveyard. While this makes sense and gives the player control over what to fossilize, it also steps a bit on the toes of Purge. While fossils are very likely to be something permanent and purge will be more spell-like in nature, they may work together, but they still use up the same resources during gameplay.
Example:
Artifact
Fossilize a creature card (When this enters the battlefield, you may exile a creature card in your graveyard.)
Whenever you cast a spell that shares a creature type with the fossilized card, you may draw a card.
b) Fossils exile random cards, such as the top card of your library. While I really like the random aspect of this, it makes designing fossils a lot harder, because you need to find effects that work on lands, creatures, instants, planeswalkers and everything else. Plus the design space for imprint-like cards is already severely limited.
Example:
Fossil (When this enters the battlefield, exile the top card of your library.)
[2], Discard a card that shares a card type with the fossilized card: Draw a card.
Apart from that there is another problem right now: I'm not entirely sure what fossils should do, once you have them in play. Again, the easy route is imprint-like abilities, but most of those have been done already.
So considering I don't know yet what fossils should do and how that should be applied, it feels like I have to cut them from the set, unless I find another solution. That would be a shame, because I really like the idea of having fossils as artifacts. Maybe someone of you has a genius idea.
Themes
Building on the design vision and the keywords, there are some themes that emerge from that:
The Unwritten
While I have posted quite a few ideas, there are still lacking some. I am aiming for around four to five mechanics. Preferably one of the mechanics is an older mechanic brought back, like WotC started doing some years back.
What's missing right now for instance is a non-creature mechanic. Unless I find a way to keep the fossils, all the mechanics will be creature-centric. (Nest can be put on spells, but in the end it creates and enhances creatures.)
At any rate, I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Apex Predator is a fun idea that's come up a couple times with different names. The consensus from people who have playtested it (of which I am not one) is that it should apply to each creature with the highest power - pretty sure this can be achieved by changing "has" from your wording to "shares".
Not to borrow too heavily from Alara block, but Unearth would fit Fossils really well and synergize with Devour. That said, how do fossils make sense lore-wise in this world? If dinosaurs are still living breathing monsters, have they been around long enough to deposit fossil bones in the ground? I'm sure there's a way to make it work, but without a bit of explanation it feels off.
I'd help with finding your noncreature mechanic, but I'm not sure what role you want it to fill.
It's not that I'm not sold on Devour. It's just that I feel it's not the right mechanic to center a block on. Devour needs a specific environment to truly shine. You need to have lots of small creatures or tokens and death triggers to make Devour worthwhile. Afterall you don't want to sacrifice your 3/3 creatures to a Devour 1 creature. If you apply all that it warps the entire set to suit Devour instead of the broader theme of predation.
I think Devour works very well as a minor mechanic in a set, instead of as the focus, like it was done in Alara. It is a perfect mechanic to have its own draft archetype, but not so much as the central element of a whole set.
Having that said, I'm still going to figure out what I want to go with after I have playtested Foodchain and Devour respectively.
That actually makes sense. Flavourfully you would want only one apex predator on the battlefield at all times, but from a gameplay perspective you don't want multiples to cancel each other out.
Unearth does indeed synergize with Devour, which was probably the reason why both mechanics appeared in Alara together. The thing is that this restricts fossils to being creatures. I wouldn't mind too terribly, but I think it would be interesting to have fossils be actual artifacts. If Devour actually makes it in, I'll consider Unearth as a possibility. Until then, the search continues.
I'm not sure this actually needs an explanation. Dinosaurs and fossils are linked to each other strongly in the people's minds. It's just a trope I'm playing with, not an important plotpoint.
Not sure myself honestly. Right now it just feels so imbalanced to have all mechanics appear on creatures or dealing with creatures. Some more variety would be welcome, but in the sets current state I don't even have any holes to fill, so I can't tell what the set needs.
'Purge' is too low of a cost, it doesn't really have any interesting decision making like Exploit does where you are unsure when to play the creature and when to sacrifice and what when you do play it. With purge, you almost always wait until you can use it and you almost always do when you can, not very interesting. You could potentially up the number of cards you need to exile if you want to see how that plays.
Fossils isn't a theme I think players will really get behind, nor one that makes a lot of sense, yes fossils are from prehistory but being in prehistory doesn't have any relation to the presence of those fossils, more so the lack of them. Fossils would work extremely well in a later set set in the future to show the past, but unless you are doing that, the fossils concept is probably just fine as a cycle or something rather than a major element. That way you can include the concept because it is relevant, without giving it a significance that it shouldn't have.
One suggestion that comes to mind immediately is that this plane should probably be Muraganda (see Muraganda Petroglyphs). Not that the 'vanilla matters' or 'basic land matters' concepts suggested by known Muraganda cards should be major themes, but you should consider having a few cards with those themes as well. Having a new plane gives more space for identity, but not by any significant degree seeing as Arkhos and Moonseng have already been represented by being replaced by Theros and Tarkir, demonstrating that you can take some liberties and make some significant changes. You can even change the name and just imply and state that they are the same, as was done with the previous examples.
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
I'm not too sure about Evolve to be honest. It doesn't really fit the set mechanically and flavourwise. Yes, it synergizes well with Devour, but the set's theme wants your creatures to become stronger by eating other creatures, not just by having them around. Plus Evolve makes as much sense in a dinosaur set as in a regular mammal-dominated set. The flavour only really works with conjunction with something like the Simic or in a setting that spans multiple eras.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I thought about Evolve too and if I find that the set needs/wants it, I might include it, but right now I want to explore other routes, because I'm not too convinced it really fits.
You do have an interesting point. Purge right now feels like a non-decision. Mmh...
This was exactly what I was planning actually. I didn't want to have more than just a few fossils anyway. Maybe just ~5 cards. Fossils are by no means a major part of the set, but having some would be nice.
Is it really such a big deal if it's Muraganda or not? Also, isn't what I'm doing essentially what they did with Arkhos and Mongseng?
The reason why I don't want to use Muraganda, is because I want to create the world from scratch without any baggage from Muraganda. Even though Muraganda is largely unknown, we still have a few flavour snippets. Muraganda Petroglyphs specifically says people on the world use scrolls and build libraries. I don't think that makes a lot of sense in a world that's supposed to be truly primal. The sapient races on Dinotopia are nothing more than wandering tribes still in the stone-age. Another thing is how the flavour around The Mimeoplasm mentions elves and scar-witches. I intend to use neither in my set. So basically the problem is, that if I used Muraganda, people would already come in expecting certain things and I can either cater to that, even though it wouldn't fit the world I'm trying to build or I simply break with the expectations and invalidate cards that referenced Muraganda before. Starting with a blank slate saves everyone quite some trouble.
I was arguing against the mechanic ideas basically, if it's just a cycle or so, then a mechanic would be very unnecessary. I think a horizontal cycle of fossils would be cool, and the slot of 'mana-rocks' in a set would be a good place to put the concept. For example:
Black/Green Fossil ( )
Artifact (U)
As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME, exile a creature card from your graveyard.
: Add or to your mana pool.
, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Return a creature card exiled with CARDNAME to your hand.
As I said, it doesn't have to be called Muraganda or include all the parts of Muraganda, but you should allude to it by thematics (which is pretty much already done) and in the abstract consider it the replacement. It's more of a formality than any technical difference, but it's nice to clarify that it is the replacement and let it fill that slot so players can enjoy it in that way.
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
I suppose people associate a prehistoric setting with evolution, but it just makes my inner biologist cringe to have people think evolution can somehow stop. Technically evolution still happens even in modern times, but yeah, I guess there's a big association with prehistoric life for most people. After I figure out if I actually do want to use devour or not I can decide wether or not to use Evolve.
This looks very good. I think I'm gonna yoink this. Might even cut a mana from that, since having to have a creature in the graveyard is a pretty hard restriction in the early game.
I'm sorry, but I am not sure if I follow. So, basically you're fine if I make a new world and call it differently, but I still should allude to Muraganda?
I know exactly what you mean, trust me, biology is a field of interest for me. However, while evolution still takes place, it's more dramatically obvious in the whole 'survival of the fittest' way so I wouldn't call it a mistake to associate evolution with prehistoric life.
Go ahead and use it, I didn't suggest it for my benefit after all .
Yes. All I am saying is this should be officially labelled as a Muraganda replacement because it's weird to have two 'primal dinosaur worlds' even if they are significantly different. (Yes, the multiverse is supposedly infinite, but that doesn't mean they should make another world exactly like Mirrodin except with 1 more rock even though that entirely feasibly exists in an infinite multiverse, so the same applies.)
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
Hrmph. Yeah, I guess. We'll see.
I thought that was somewhat implied. I'm obviously not making any mention of Muraganda in my set, like a planeswalker who comes from Muraganda and is overjoyed to find another plane with dinosaurs. I'm pretty much ignoring Muraganda in this set, so people can make up their own headcanon about the planes' relationship.
With Evolve, you want to play your evolvers early and keep evolving them by playing creatures every turn, ideally with unusual stats to ensure Evolve.
Devour however wants you to amass puny tokens to feed to your Dragons, or Dinosaurs in that case.
Populate and Unearth would work much better with Devour, Evolve is kinda antisynergetic to it. Of course, thematically it fits, but that's a weak reason to include it.
In the same deck however? Doubt that you would have any advantage. Evolve is already slowish, eating your creatures or playing tokenmakers slows you down even more.
BTW, will there be factions? Mono or Multicoloured?
No, there's nothing like that, at least not mechanically.
So after some playtesting I have some opinions about the mechanics I presented earlier:
Devour & Nest
The thing about devour and nest is that these two mechanics worked well together. Very well. So well infact, that it almost felt like cheating. It's basically as if you put cycling on cards with madness. Not only do you get your cake, but you eat it too. Usually sacrificing creatures, even if they're 1/1s, feels like a sacrifice, because you're actually giving up something that you could use to damage your opponent, but when you sacrifice eggs you have nothing of that plus you get an extra life! Ok, granted the extra life could be removed, but then they'd be strictly worse Eldrazi Spawn tokens. I am not entirely sure whether that is a good or bad thing, but it sure feels off.
Another problem is that the egg tokens do very little besides feeding your devour creatures, which makes devour feel less like devour but more like "Get a bigger creature if you played nest cards before." Conversely to how well eggs play with devour, they do literally nothing in any other situation. Except chump-blocking and being used as a sacrifice outlet.
The problem isn't all about the eggs though. Even without the eggs, devour is still a very swingy mechanic. Sometimes you simply steamroll your opponent with a 12/12 and sometimes you have nothing to devour, so you are forced to cast your overcosted devour creature without any food. I think Alara handled devour very well in that it delegated it into a subtheme of the set, a draft archetype, but for Dinotopia I want something more substantial, and I don't think Devour can be the foundation for an entire set. At least not without warping the whole environment to suit devour's needs. (It's almost as if it is devouring the sets design space. *rimshot*)
Foodchain & Apex predator
Foodchain and apex predator fared better in my opinion. Foodchain really felt like I envisioned the set to play like. You lay down a creature, then another eating that one, then a bigger one eating THAT one and so on, until you arrive at the top of the food chain, bonus points if it's an actual apex predator. It plays similarly to those corny cartoons where one thing eats the next one until you have the giant tyrannosaurus roaring at the camera with a bloody face. The "There's always a bigger fish" feeling is really there, instead of devour's "Imma gobble up everything! At once! Because that is how the foodchain works!" feeling.
As for apex predator, it was okay. I think without foodchain I would totally cut it from the game, because it would basically read "If you are on curve, do stuff, else don't" With foodchain and its inherent "Build your own monster" shtick, apex predator could really shine. First I paired these two mechanics together simply because apex predator doesn't work with devour and I wanted to test both, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it work so well with foodchain. On top of that you almost always end a foodchain-chain with an apex predator, which is pretty cool. The fact that it harmonizes so well with foodchain makes me want to use foodchain even more.
However apex predator has its flaws. Namely, that its design space is insanely limited. Infact I had trouble coming up with any decent commons. Power-pump effects are literally out of the question and little else remains at common. Apex predator is one of those mechanics whose design-space is mostly depleted after just a single set. Luckily for me that is not a problem at all though.
By the way, through playtesting it was apparent that foodchain needed to change. This is the updated version:
Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice this creature and move all +1/+1 counters plus an extra one from this creature onto the other creature. That creature gains foodchain.
An example card:
Creature - Insect
Foodchain
1/1
The changes are the following:
a) There is no number. Each foodchain ability is now identical. This is done for multiple reasons, but mostly because it's very difficult to track the exact amount this ability grants to the next creature.
b) The next creature gets an additional counter. This may read somewhat clunky in the reminder text and I'm still looking for a way to streamline it, but I felt it was important that you not only move the same counters from one level to the next, but that you get something extra along the way, to provide more incentive to use it. Plus, without a number to go with the keyword, it nees to do something even without external sources of +1/+1 counters.
Other mechanics
While I was playtesting the above mechanics, I had some time to think about the other mechanics.
Purge
As DJK3654 pointed out, there is not much of a choice to be made with Purge, so it is an inherently uninteresting gameplay element. Additionally it steps on the toes of both fossils (see below) and another theme I have planned for Dinotopia. So I purged Purge from the set.
Fossils
Yes yes, these are still a thing. I know I won't have many fossils, but I think they'll have a similar function like imprint, which I might bring back, maybe. Alternatively, since all fossils will likely grab stuff from the graveyard, I can just make a new keyword to distinguish it from imprint. Fossils are not a thing that really need a named mechanic, but I don't see the harm in doing so, unless I'm getting crammed for mechanics. And it doesn't look like that right now.
(In my opinion imprint should simply be an evergreen keyword action.)
Returning mechanic
Like Wizards does with every block, I also intend to bring back a mechanic (maybe two, with imprint). And since devour is likely not making the cut, I have to find a new one. (You can destroy me now, DJK3654.)
The mechanic I have in mind right now is Provoke. It synergizes really well with foodchain, and it also provides an alternative to killing creatures, since removal likely won't be as effective and numerous in the set. Bounce and cheap kill spells are no fun in a set with foodchain action. (Same goes for devour, actually.)
Another alternative is Evolve. Evolve works okay with foodchain, although it's not love on first sight. Provoke remains my favourite right now. Further playtesting will reveal how much I will like Provoke.
So, that wraps up this update. All sorts of feedback is welcome, especially ideas on the questions posed above. (Or, rather, implied.)
Predator (Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
It works really well with fight/provoke/combat mechanics in general, and plays very nicely with Foodchain, as if it's granted Foodchain by another creature, it can transfer the counters it racked up from its predator kills to the next big creature.
Also flavor.
*Destroys you*
Anyway, Devour doesn't have to be the focus I just think it fits really as part of the set. You don't have to use it, I just thought it fit so well.
Provoke is no good because fight obsoletes it. It's doesn't add enough to the set.
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I don't like PasstheChips's predator suggestion as it seems too limited in use. One of the major problems being that it is reliant on opponent controlled aspects. Maybe an ability word version would be more doable though:
Predator- Whenever a creature dealt damage by (this creature) this turn dies, (effect)
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
I was aiming for one mechanic for the prey animals and one mechanic for the predators. Right now both slots are filled, but if I find that I still need a combat centric or +1/+1 counter themed mechanic, I guess I'll try out a version of this. Thanks.
I know, but I want a mechanic that serves as the focus of the set. Devour is not that. It's not that I think Devour is a bad mechanic (though I do think it has some minor flaws), but I don't think Dinotopia is the right place for it.
Yes, that was also something that came to my mind, however provoke allows me to cheat the system. Fight can only be used by green and maybe red as per traditional colour pie, but being a non-evergreen keyword, provoke allows me to "bleed" fight into colours other than those two. It just feels less weird for players to see a blue provoke creature than a blue fight creature, even though the result is somewhat similar.
If I decide to use Provoke, I'll treat fight in a similar way to how deathtouch was handled in Shadowmoor with Whither. Meaning that it will take a bit of a backseat to let the block mechanic shine.
Frogeater Raptor 4GG
Creature - Lizard (U)
Prey - 1G, Exile this card from your hand: Put a 2/2 green Frog creature token onto the battlefield. You may cast this card if you sacrifice that token in addition to paying its cost. Prey only as a sorcery.
6/6
Basic Instinct N (2: This creature gets +N/+N and loses all abilities until end of turn. Activate this ability only as a sorcery.)
I'm not a huge fan of vanilla-matters mechanics. Dinotopia is a primal world, not a simple one. Additionally, making a vanilla theme matter and interesting is a tough challenge. One could go the token route with populate, but it seems like Dinotopia wants to be more a battlecruiser set than a going-wide set.
I can see myself using something similar, if it turns out Dinotopia wants a mana-smoothing mechanic, but I believe it's too early to tell at the moment. Thanks for the heads-up.
I have to be honest: I utterly detest DFCs. I think they play very good, in theory, but in practise they are a huge mess, even before you start playing. With DFCs it seems like the game tried to do something that the medium does not quite allow, at least not in an elegant way.
So no, no DFCs for me. But I think the exiling things from a graveyard and using them in some way is a nice enough design for fossils. And eggs were never really the focus. I only had the nest mechanic to help out devour. Without devour eggs will boil down to one-off flavour frostings for certain cards, but there won't be a mechanical representation.
Everyone seems to like devour so much. I really want to test foodchain with some of you guys to see what other people think about it. I only could do it solitaire, so the feedback is very limited and probably biased. But if someone was up for it, give me a call, and I'll try to arrange some time.
So I tested out Evolve and Provoke together with the two "established" mechanics Foodchain and Apex predator.
Provoke
Provoke was kind of boring. Sure it did its job and it did it well, but it's really nothing special. Especially in a world where fighting is a thing. (As DJK3654 mentioned.) It does something admirable though: It allows for removal to be plentiful (in form of provoke creatures) without oppressing the foodchain mechanic, which is very vulnerable to removal. However, the same effect can be achieved by adjusting the normal removal spells in the environment, so provoke is not essential.
Evolve
Evolve in itself works fine. (No surprise there.) However it works not very well with foodchain and apex predator. Foodchain makes the evolve creature bigger and stops it from evolving most of the time and evolving creatures often stops your apex predators from being apex predators. So it's rather anti-synergistic with the other mechanics.
Additionally, while it was never an issue during testplays, I'm still somewhat wary of possible memory issues with +1/+1 counters on creatures that are not part of a foodchain. Interestingly trying to tackle this issue made me come up with a mechanic that is very close to what already exists: Proliferate.
Proliferate is the next mechanic I'll test as a returning mechanic, but I got a good feeling.
Nevertheless, if anyone else feels like there's a good candidate, feel free to suggest some.