UR[b]Blue/Red Burn Combo[/b]UR Searing Memory and Study the AEther really make the backbone of this surprisingly powerful archetype that is rewarded for playing a larger number of instants and sorceries. Using Blue and Red's powerful but temporary vanishing creature to hold off early attack and get some damage through. The deck can use Quas Nova so take a large chunk of life and then take advantage of it's high CMC to burn away an opponent's life when returned with Searing Memory. Backing up this strategy with looting and Defensive creatures allow you to get out this impressive combo.
WB[b]White/Black Gold Counter Control[/b]WB
White and black together have the most defensive and powerful control deck of the format with its range of removal and ability to quickly get gold counters with cards such as Bounty. Unlike White/Blue control this deck doesn't usually aim to win via getting to ten gold counters but rather uses cards such as Soulslave Merchant and Debt Baron to wreck havoc. Picking up common cards such as Cash Street Sentry also allows this deck to stabilize against some of the more aggressive decks.
The deck can also play more aggressively by using Writ of Supremacy to gain advantage in combat and then force the opponent into tough choices with cards like Bounty and Counselor's Toll.
BR[b]Black/Red Vanishing + Sacrifice Aggro[/b]BR
Taking advantage of the great synergy between Vanishing creatures and recursion spells creates a aggro/midrange deck that can push out every point of extra damage via Grimeflame Ritual and how it synegizes with Vanishing and black's sacrifice engines. Cards such as Vaporous Return make the usually temporary vanishing threats into nearly permanent powerhouses that can overwhelm a weak board state. Also getting one of black's evasive threats geared up with a Consuming Passion can simply end gains in short order.
GW[b]Green/White Glorious Weenies[/b]GW
Taking advantage of reshapes synergy with all the +1/+1 counters in this color combination can make for a powerful weenie deck with both colors having a range of commons that add +1/+1 counters among one or more creatures. Commons such as Earthsoul Bear form a good core while Caravan Mastodon can get you some extra bodies to buff up. Finally Unity of Autumn allows for powerful blowouts that really let this take over the combat step.
GU[b]Green/Blue Reshape Tempo/b]GU
Taking advantage of some of he aggressive blue cards such as Tidal Ingus, the evasion that blue can grant and the wealth of decent bodies in green. This deck can quickly surprise an opponent thinking of going on the defensive. If backed up with some of blue's bounce based removal or green's mana ramp this can control the tempo of the game, never allowing the opponent a chance to catch up. Reshape and bounce form a strong base to allow you to always have a wide variety of options depending of the situation. This flexibility is also mirrored in Dreamscape Emissary, which can provide a variety of roles: from voltron aggressor to utility creature.
The first, Trade Nexus replaces Obilesk of Existence that I was not really happy with and felt both narrow and not very well designed. This card however feels fits into the set and provides a wealth of options for you while creating interesting politics in multiplayer games. Trade Nexus4
Artifact (R) T: Each opponent gains 1 life then you gain 2 life. 2, T: Each opponent draws a card, then you draw two cards. 4, T: Each opponent may return a creature card from his or her graveyard to his or her hand, then you may return up to two creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.
The next card is replacing the 2nd red mythic: Earthwake. It felt very powerful but just wasn't splashy enough. The replacement card however couldn't be much splashier if you tried. Reliquary of Exuberance10
Artifact (M)
If you would gain life, you gain twice that much life instead.
If you would draw a card, draw two cards instead.
If you tap a permanent for mana, it produces twice as much of that mana instead.
Been fairly busy with university at the moment but I have a large playtest next week to help test the large amount of minor tweaks I've made.
Until my playtests are done I've been avoiding changing the stats of cards too much but I've have a few cards to show off what I've been working on: The names and flavor text.
So some cards to show off:
Counselor’s Decree
Sorcery (U)
Exile target creature that dealt damage this turn. You get a gold counter (Once per turn you may spend a gold counter for 1. A player with ten or more gold counters wins the game.) A contract in Mercalis is law. To break one is to break your right to exist.
Parliment General
Creature — Human Knight (U)
First Strike
Whenever Parliment General or another creature you control enters the battlefield, reshape. (Choose a counter on a permanent or player. Remove that counter from it or put another of those counters on it.) The battle was shaped to victory not with his sword but his political influence.
2/2
Mana-Trade Courier
Artifact Creature — Golem (C) : Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Mana-Trade Courier doesn’t untap during your next untap step. Gathering foreign mana. These neutral constructs travel Mercalis providing a rare but vital service for every marketplace.
0/2
Cobbled Traderoute
Land (C)
As Cobbled Traderoute enters the battlefield, you may pay 2. If you do, you get a gold counter. (Once per turn you may spend a gold counter for 1. A player with ten or more gold counters wins the game.) : Add 1 to your mana pool. Roads are the veins of Mercalis and trade is its blood.
Also to go with my reflavouring of reshape to better fit into the world I have changed one of the uncommon lands in my set. The card is still mechanically the same but fits far better into what it does.
Trading Den
Land (U) : Add 1 to your mana pool. , Sacrifice Trading Den: Reshape. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery. (Choose a counter on a permanent or player. Remove that counter from it or put another of those counters on it.)
Had a great 8 player playtest session.
Have some cards that I would love additional opinions on as they got very mixed reactions.
See my thread: Contentious Cards
So I've been doing a few different playtests with my set at the local game store over the last few weeks. Gameplay has been really good and I'm really happy with the vast majority of the cards.
I will be updating the card spoilers in a few days to reflect the development changes I've made.
I also plan on doing a report on what cards players found fun/unfun and what I learnt during my playtests.
However today I want to share a message exchange I had where I answered a few questions about my set and how I went about its creation.
This conversation was via PM between me and gpks00
When did you first start?: I created the set skeleton and card file on 19th of September 2013 with some preliminary notes and card ideas being designed a few weeks earlier.
How long did this set take to create? I have been designing since September with most of the work done over October and November 2013. I completed the bulk of the set by the start of December and have been doing development tweaks and playtesting ever since.
Have you printed any of these cards? just with printer or have you found a way to print them as cards close to actual MTG cards? I do about 70% of my playtest sessions with full colour printouts of my cards using the MSE (Magic Set Editor) program. Each page consists of 9 cards that I then guillotine and then put each card into a sleeve infront of a real magic card. By 8 player drafts need 24 boosters of 14 cards so when I do a new playtest I print and sleeve over 360 cards. The other 30% of my playtests are using Cockatrice. These playtests are a lot more important early on when I am only designing commons to make sure that the gameplay is fun and balanced.
I assume you used MWS? Is the quality from there good enough to print these as cards?: Like I mentioned before I use MSE, the printing quality is fine through sometimes you need to adjust the brightness settings as they can turn out a bit dark by default.
did you work with certain %s for creatures, spells, etc. per color? Yes. I highly reccomend searching for Mark Rosewater's Nuts and Bolts articles as well as his Recent Design Skeleton podcast.
Approximately for commons you want between 50-55% creatures with white getting the largest share. Each colour also needs to be balanced number wise for both common and uncommon.For example I have EXACTLY 19 commons for each colour as any imbalance does weird thing to any limited environment.
did you do this project all on your own? All work on the set was done by me but I couldn't have done it without the constant feedback by local playgroup. I also use this forum a lot to bounce ideas and get additional feedback.
how long through your set until you got help or input from someone else?: Very early. If you put weeks and weeks of work into a mechanic or set of cards only to do your first playtests and find it isn't fun you have to be brutally honest with yourself and take it out. I learnt this from an abandoned set I was developing call Dreamshift that simply didn't work. I didn't do enough playtests until nearly a month into design. I therefore scrapped it and started this set. Getting feedback super early is very important. Don't 100% rely on verbal feedback from someone just looking at a card or mechanics. Get playtesting data which is far more reliable that a player's card evaluation skills.
Hope that helps and feel free to ask anymore questions.
Currently reading through, and really loving the set, although the gold counters scare me a little. Seeing cards like bounty that can give you 2 gold counters for B if you are a little clever. Probably not as bad as poison counters with infect (I'll keep looking) but if I'm not super busy I should have some costing feedback today.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Editing now that I got to give it a good read, plus drafted a friend into looking at it. He was terrified that the gold counters are broken, I'm a lot less skeptical although I am a little concerned with how some of the gold is costed... I would expect it to add 1 to the cost of spells more often than not. Commisioned Killing is a great example, it is a murder which is already cheap, and you will very likely get some 'change' after paying for it.
Ups, going home now, so busy, I'll pick this up later on another post.
I'm definitely starting to finish up on this project. I planning on writing up a Post-Mortem of what I learn't. What I can do better. What I think went well/badly etc...
Always looking for more feedback before I start on my next project.
Talking of my next project I want to announce a new set I've been working on for the last month or two.
Introduction
Coins of Mercalis was my first fully completed large set and my second ever attempt at designing a custom set rather than individual card. I started with a set skeleton and card file on 19th of September 2013 with some preliminary notes and card ideas being designed a few weeks earlier.
Quite a few of the initial designs including the reshape mechanic came from my earlier attempt at a custom set: Dreamshift. From Dreamshift I learn the importance of a set skeleton as well as early testing to ensure mechanics and commons are fun.
What went right The Mechanics
Each mechanic in Coins of Mercalis played a key role to the gameplay of the set and had interesting interactions both within itself and with the wider range of cards in magic.
Gold counters was the star mechanic that initially inspired the creation of the set and also the mechanic that had the most precarious balance in terms of interactivity, developmental concerns and parasitic characteristics. Initially I had the mechanic acting like Eldrazi spawn for any color mana and a loss of interactivity that really made the gameplay less fun. This was however where the Reshape mechanic really shined to give both players a way of interacting with these mana sources. This increased interactivity allowed my to add the 10 counter win condition to give the mechanic the much needed splahyness to get players excited and create good gameplay were they can feel closer to winning by just getting more gold counters even if they don't have anything to spend them on. However with this I also needed to limit the use of gold counters to once per turn for development reasons. The change of gold to colorless mana only was a bit last minute and I believe may have been a mistake if I had crafted the set differently. However I did it because I didn't want the ability to make 3 or 4 color decks too easily, especially outside of green. The colorless restriction however did really keep the mechanic from warping the limited environment to a direction I didn't want and satisfied the color pie stretching of ramp outside of green. If I had of made gold give any color mana I would make the set super multicolored maybe using 4 color "archs" and allowing green access to them. However I still worry about green having gold from a vorthos perspective. Maybe if I had flavored it as something other than gold.
Reshape was the solid yet not very splashy backbone of the set that was constantly underestimated in both playtests and by people here on the forums, when it played a crucial role of providing a ton of interesting interactions with the different counters in the set. It ended up being useful in all colors and nearly every archetype and my playtesters definitely gave feedback on how it always over-performed. My only designer wrinkle was how this broke a important rule of poison counters when taken outside my limited format.
Vanishing was a pet returning mechanic that made the transition along with Reshape from my Dreamshift set due to how well they played together. I really liked the synergy the two mechanics had and I believe my "on the brink of vanishing" cards in red really helped push the design space of the mechanic while really fitting into red's gameplay and flavor.
The final mechanic to be entered into the set's design was Glorious which went through a few iterations to get a combat matters mechanic to provide a middle ground between the super fast Vanishing and the super slow Gold Counter decks. The mechanic played really well and allowed for interesting use of combat tricks to help units survive combat but the use of the number on the mechanic representing the "limit" was far more confusing than I expected. When played with they quickly understood but when drafting or viewing the cards for the first time they often misread the mechanic to either think Glorious X meant it put X counters on after combat, or that it put a single counter on at the start of combat rather than the end. The way players misunderstood the mechanic has however given me several new mechanic ideas to explore in future sets.
Playtesting
Playtesting was a core part of the set and formed the basis of a lot of my developmental changes. I playtested the mechanics early but I didn't do my first proper playtest until all the commons were done and over half the uncommons. In the future I would like to do a lot more commons only playtests.
Most playtesting took place with printed proxies in sleeves and then formed into booster packs while remaining as random as possible. Sometimes I would print extra of a certain card that needed playtesting and this worked well later on but was a waste of time earlier when the set was so fluid.
I played a few sealed games but nearly 90% of my playtests have been booster drafts with between 2 - 10 people. These really helped develop the archetypes and allowed my to create useful uncommons that rewarded what players wanted to do in certain color combinations. I also got each playtester to write each first and last pick of a pack as well as any cards they especially liked/disliked. Getting them to do this during testing was important compared to after the draft is over as gut reaction is really really important.
Limited Environment
Each draft we did was fun with a medium paced format that promoted two color play while allowing for splashes. The decks ranged from fast aggro decks using glorious and vanishing, grindy control decks using gold counters, and odd combo decks like the blue/red spells, burn + vanishing deck which was viable if other strategies were being overdrafted. I will be definitely keeping a full 24 boosters of Coins of Mercalis for drafting for the forseeable future (with minor variation between play sessions) as my playgroup really enjoys playing.
What went wrong Splashiness
I feel that one of the biggest place I went wrong in my creation of this set is the rares and mythic rares not having enough "wow" factor. By nature of my game design background I am extremely aware of the importance of design rules. However I believe this may have made me slightly too timid when making big splashy effects that are required for mythics. I was aware of this later in development when I did additional playtesting as often when showing players a bunch of rares I got a "that ok" or "thats cool" but rarely ever got the "thats awesome!" response except on my two favorite planeswalkers: Stanis & Katie. Because of this I redeveloped a lot of the mythics several times but I believe a lot of the rares ended up neglected for attention to their splashiness.
When it came to splashiness of the the mechanics I was very happy with a lot of the responses I had from players about gold counters even after having to cut back the mechanic several times to its final version. The lure of the alt win condition really got people excited to have a few gold counters even if they never had enough to come even close to winning. However the inclusion of reshape left many players feel "meh" as it is a purely functional mechanic with only loose flavor ties and a minor effect if you don't connect it to how gold counters work. Unlike Proliferate it has no "best case mentality" were ever opponent creature has a -1/-1 counter that you double like in Scars of Mirrodin.
In my next set I'm going to be sure to make every rare a bit more splashy and try and push boundaries a little more.
Definitely the most important lesson I've learned.
Story
From the first creation of the gold counter mechanic I had a bustling market world in mind. The card file was originally called "market cards" and one of my first inclusions was Bounty. However while I believe I succeed in creating an interesting world, I never developed characters or a storyline to hint at what was happening. Besides for hints of possible places I could go in some of the elemental cards and the Mythic angel. (only including a single angel was a very deliberate decision.) I didn't have a clear plan of each of my characters and how each planeswalker fitted into the story. This lead me to end up rewriting a lot of the flavor text late in development but while I managed to correctly reflavor Vanishing and Reshape I still didn't do more character or storyline development. Fr my next project I plan on having a clear plan of all my characters as well as plan for any future sets that may be set in the same timeline.
Complexity
While overall I think I did a fairly good job at my complexity at common (especially for a custom set) I was definitly really interested in MARO's "red flag" podcast and will be using that to far more strictly enforce NWO in my next project.
Parasitic Designs
This is another minor thing that needs improving but cards that relied on the spending of gold counters (the rare Trademaster cycle for example) ended up being a little too parasitic and removed precious room required to let the gold mechanic shine. I will be try and limite any parasitic designs in the future to one card per rarity per mechanic. This means no crazy cycles of parasitic cards like the Trademasters.
Conclusion
Overall I found this a really great experience that made me really appreciate the fine art of designing for limited formats while trying to fufill the other goals of your set. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback. I'll be updating the text version and visual spoiler for the final time in the next few days as well as releasing the MSE file. I would highly reccomend looking at the MSE were I keep notes on changes of cards and issues that arose in playtests. Thanks everyone.
First of all- great job! I really like the set. I haven't looked at everything yet, but I've noticed some interesting things in the commons. If you're done I guess it doesn't really matter, but I thought you'd want to know anyway.
All of blue's instants cost 1U to cast (unless you count Lighthouse Keeper) and red's instants also cost 1R except for the 7-mana Quas Nova.
Earthsoul Bear is almost strictly better than Mosswood Shambler to such a degree that it feels sorta wrong to me.
Cobbled Traderoute- the wording is awkward and unintuitive IMHO. I can see why you'd want it to do that for powerlevel reasons, but I'm not sure the current wording even works- As it's entering, you get a chance to activate mana abilities. It is currently in a weird partially-entered limbo state.
I'll take a closer look at the uncommons and rares later on. You're certainly made a very interesting set- well done!
First of all- great job! I really like the set. I haven't looked at everything yet, but I've noticed some interesting things in the commons. If you're done I guess it doesn't really matter, but I thought you'd want to know anyway.
Glad you like it. While I'm not planning on making any more changes. I love feedback and it always helps me improve on any future projects.
All of blue's instants cost 1U to cast (unless you count Lighthouse Keeper) and red's instants also cost 1R except for the 7-mana Quas Nova.
Yeh another thing that I only realized quite late. having better mana curves is definitely something I felt was a weakness of this set and that I've learn t to keep a closer eye on with my latest project. (That you should check out!)
Earthsoul Bear is almost strictly better than Mosswood Shambler to such a degree that it feels sorta wrong to me.
Hmmm good call. Earthsoul bear got buffed last minute after being a last pick fairly regularly. If I was to go back and make changes I'd make it so it couldn't put the counters on itself so that it was worse if you have no creatures.
Cobbled Traderoute- the wording is awkward and unintuitive IMHO. I can see why you'd want it to do that for powerlevel reasons, but I'm not sure the current wording even works- As it's entering, you get a chance to activate mana abilities. It is currently in a weird partially-entered limbo state.
"As CARDNAME enters the battlefield" abilities are actually completely fine and used commonly on non-basic lands. Most famously on the Shocklands. eg: Stomping Grounds
Just I tip: I separate my commons, uncommons, and rares into separate files. This lets me look at the statistics graph and get a better idea of what's going on.
I also changed the method of ordering card_number. It's found on line 312 in magic.mse_game\script
This lets you more easily see the mana curves of your cards, as if you sort by card number you'll get it sorted by color, type, then CMC.
The "As ~ ETB" issue I'm talking about is paying mana: if you look, all the others either pay life or make you choose something.
Searing Memory should say "your hand", not "you hand". It also has no randomness, so it's not a problem to just do "Return... ~ deals damage = CMC to target creature or player."
I find it very awkward that the mythics are unbalanced in terms of colors- not a huge problem, but very awkward. White is in 6 of them, red and green are in 3.
As to your other set, assuming you're talking about Exodus of Zendikar, there aren't enough cards there for me to say very much.
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Searing Memory and Study the AEther really make the backbone of this surprisingly powerful archetype that is rewarded for playing a larger number of instants and sorceries. Using Blue and Red's powerful but temporary vanishing creature to hold off early attack and get some damage through. The deck can use Quas Nova so take a large chunk of life and then take advantage of it's high CMC to burn away an opponent's life when returned with Searing Memory. Backing up this strategy with looting and Defensive creatures allow you to get out this impressive combo.
WB[b]White/Black Gold Counter Control[/b]WB
White and black together have the most defensive and powerful control deck of the format with its range of removal and ability to quickly get gold counters with cards such as Bounty. Unlike White/Blue control this deck doesn't usually aim to win via getting to ten gold counters but rather uses cards such as Soulslave Merchant and Debt Baron to wreck havoc. Picking up common cards such as Cash Street Sentry also allows this deck to stabilize against some of the more aggressive decks.
The deck can also play more aggressively by using Writ of Supremacy to gain advantage in combat and then force the opponent into tough choices with cards like Bounty and Counselor's Toll.
BR[b]Black/Red Vanishing + Sacrifice Aggro[/b]BR
Taking advantage of the great synergy between Vanishing creatures and recursion spells creates a aggro/midrange deck that can push out every point of extra damage via Grimeflame Ritual and how it synegizes with Vanishing and black's sacrifice engines. Cards such as Vaporous Return make the usually temporary vanishing threats into nearly permanent powerhouses that can overwhelm a weak board state. Also getting one of black's evasive threats geared up with a Consuming Passion can simply end gains in short order.
GW[b]Green/White Glorious Weenies[/b]GW
Taking advantage of reshapes synergy with all the +1/+1 counters in this color combination can make for a powerful weenie deck with both colors having a range of commons that add +1/+1 counters among one or more creatures. Commons such as Earthsoul Bear form a good core while Caravan Mastodon can get you some extra bodies to buff up. Finally Unity of Autumn allows for powerful blowouts that really let this take over the combat step.
GU[b]Green/Blue Reshape Tempo/b]GU
Taking advantage of some of he aggressive blue cards such as Tidal Ingus, the evasion that blue can grant and the wealth of decent bodies in green. This deck can quickly surprise an opponent thinking of going on the defensive. If backed up with some of blue's bounce based removal or green's mana ramp this can control the tempo of the game, never allowing the opponent a chance to catch up. Reshape and bounce form a strong base to allow you to always have a wide variety of options depending of the situation. This flexibility is also mirrored in Dreamscape Emissary, which can provide a variety of roles: from voltron aggressor to utility creature.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Completely updated the text version of the set. Should now be up to date and with all the different mana symbols working correctly.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
The first, Trade Nexus replaces Obilesk of Existence that I was not really happy with and felt both narrow and not very well designed. This card however feels fits into the set and provides a wealth of options for you while creating interesting politics in multiplayer games.
Trade Nexus 4
Artifact (R)
T: Each opponent gains 1 life then you gain 2 life.
2, T: Each opponent draws a card, then you draw two cards.
4, T: Each opponent may return a creature card from his or her graveyard to his or her hand, then you may return up to two creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.
The next card is replacing the 2nd red mythic: Earthwake. It felt very powerful but just wasn't splashy enough. The replacement card however couldn't be much splashier if you tried.
Reliquary of Exuberance 10
Artifact (M)
If you would gain life, you gain twice that much life instead.
If you would draw a card, draw two cards instead.
If you tap a permanent for mana, it produces twice as much of that mana instead.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Thought Reflection + Mana Reflection + Boon Reflection....
Hmmmm, maybe down to 9....
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Until my playtests are done I've been avoiding changing the stats of cards too much but I've have a few cards to show off what I've been working on: The names and flavor text.
So some cards to show off:
Counselor’s Decree
Sorcery (U)
Exile target creature that dealt damage this turn. You get a gold counter (Once per turn you may spend a gold counter for 1. A player with ten or more gold counters wins the game.)
A contract in Mercalis is law. To break one is to break your right to exist.
Parliment General
Creature — Human Knight (U)
First Strike
Whenever Parliment General or another creature you control enters the battlefield, reshape. (Choose a counter on a permanent or player. Remove that counter from it or put another of those counters on it.)
The battle was shaped to victory not with his sword but his political influence.
2/2
Mana-Trade Courier
Artifact Creature — Golem (C)
Gathering foreign mana. These neutral constructs travel Mercalis providing a rare but vital service for every marketplace.
0/2
Cobbled Traderoute
Land (C)
As Cobbled Traderoute enters the battlefield, you may pay 2. If you do, you get a gold counter. (Once per turn you may spend a gold counter for 1. A player with ten or more gold counters wins the game.)
Roads are the veins of Mercalis and trade is its blood.
Also to go with my reflavouring of reshape to better fit into the world I have changed one of the uncommon lands in my set. The card is still mechanically the same but fits far better into what it does.
Trading Den
Land (U)
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Have some cards that I would love additional opinions on as they got very mixed reactions.
See my thread: Contentious Cards
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
I will be updating the card spoilers in a few days to reflect the development changes I've made.
I also plan on doing a report on what cards players found fun/unfun and what I learnt during my playtests.
However today I want to share a message exchange I had where I answered a few questions about my set and how I went about its creation.
This conversation was via PM between me and gpks00
How long did this set take to create? I have been designing since September with most of the work done over October and November 2013. I completed the bulk of the set by the start of December and have been doing development tweaks and playtesting ever since.
Have you printed any of these cards? just with printer or have you found a way to print them as cards close to actual MTG cards? I do about 70% of my playtest sessions with full colour printouts of my cards using the MSE (Magic Set Editor) program. Each page consists of 9 cards that I then guillotine and then put each card into a sleeve infront of a real magic card. By 8 player drafts need 24 boosters of 14 cards so when I do a new playtest I print and sleeve over 360 cards. The other 30% of my playtests are using Cockatrice. These playtests are a lot more important early on when I am only designing commons to make sure that the gameplay is fun and balanced.
I assume you used MWS? Is the quality from there good enough to print these as cards?: Like I mentioned before I use MSE, the printing quality is fine through sometimes you need to adjust the brightness settings as they can turn out a bit dark by default.
did you work with certain %s for creatures, spells, etc. per color? Yes. I highly reccomend searching for Mark Rosewater's Nuts and Bolts articles as well as his Recent Design Skeleton podcast.
Approximately for commons you want between 50-55% creatures with white getting the largest share. Each colour also needs to be balanced number wise for both common and uncommon.For example I have EXACTLY 19 commons for each colour as any imbalance does weird thing to any limited environment.
did you do this project all on your own? All work on the set was done by me but I couldn't have done it without the constant feedback by local playgroup. I also use this forum a lot to bounce ideas and get additional feedback.
how long through your set until you got help or input from someone else?: Very early. If you put weeks and weeks of work into a mechanic or set of cards only to do your first playtests and find it isn't fun you have to be brutally honest with yourself and take it out. I learnt this from an abandoned set I was developing call Dreamshift that simply didn't work. I didn't do enough playtests until nearly a month into design. I therefore scrapped it and started this set. Getting feedback super early is very important. Don't 100% rely on verbal feedback from someone just looking at a card or mechanics. Get playtesting data which is far more reliable that a player's card evaluation skills.
Hope that helps and feel free to ask anymore questions.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
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Editing now that I got to give it a good read, plus drafted a friend into looking at it. He was terrified that the gold counters are broken, I'm a lot less skeptical although I am a little concerned with how some of the gold is costed... I would expect it to add 1 to the cost of spells more often than not. Commisioned Killing is a great example, it is a murder which is already cheap, and you will very likely get some 'change' after paying for it.
Ups, going home now, so busy, I'll pick this up later on another post.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
Always looking for more feedback before I start on my next project.
Talking of my next project I want to announce a new set I've been working on for the last month or two.
Exodus of Zendikar
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Introduction
Coins of Mercalis was my first fully completed large set and my second ever attempt at designing a custom set rather than individual card. I started with a set skeleton and card file on 19th of September 2013 with some preliminary notes and card ideas being designed a few weeks earlier.
Quite a few of the initial designs including the reshape mechanic came from my earlier attempt at a custom set: Dreamshift. From Dreamshift I learn the importance of a set skeleton as well as early testing to ensure mechanics and commons are fun.
What went right
The Mechanics
Each mechanic in Coins of Mercalis played a key role to the gameplay of the set and had interesting interactions both within itself and with the wider range of cards in magic.
Gold counters was the star mechanic that initially inspired the creation of the set and also the mechanic that had the most precarious balance in terms of interactivity, developmental concerns and parasitic characteristics. Initially I had the mechanic acting like Eldrazi spawn for any color mana and a loss of interactivity that really made the gameplay less fun. This was however where the Reshape mechanic really shined to give both players a way of interacting with these mana sources. This increased interactivity allowed my to add the 10 counter win condition to give the mechanic the much needed splahyness to get players excited and create good gameplay were they can feel closer to winning by just getting more gold counters even if they don't have anything to spend them on. However with this I also needed to limit the use of gold counters to once per turn for development reasons. The change of gold to colorless mana only was a bit last minute and I believe may have been a mistake if I had crafted the set differently. However I did it because I didn't want the ability to make 3 or 4 color decks too easily, especially outside of green. The colorless restriction however did really keep the mechanic from warping the limited environment to a direction I didn't want and satisfied the color pie stretching of ramp outside of green. If I had of made gold give any color mana I would make the set super multicolored maybe using 4 color "archs" and allowing green access to them. However I still worry about green having gold from a vorthos perspective. Maybe if I had flavored it as something other than gold.
Reshape was the solid yet not very splashy backbone of the set that was constantly underestimated in both playtests and by people here on the forums, when it played a crucial role of providing a ton of interesting interactions with the different counters in the set. It ended up being useful in all colors and nearly every archetype and my playtesters definitely gave feedback on how it always over-performed. My only designer wrinkle was how this broke a important rule of poison counters when taken outside my limited format.
Vanishing was a pet returning mechanic that made the transition along with Reshape from my Dreamshift set due to how well they played together. I really liked the synergy the two mechanics had and I believe my "on the brink of vanishing" cards in red really helped push the design space of the mechanic while really fitting into red's gameplay and flavor.
The final mechanic to be entered into the set's design was Glorious which went through a few iterations to get a combat matters mechanic to provide a middle ground between the super fast Vanishing and the super slow Gold Counter decks. The mechanic played really well and allowed for interesting use of combat tricks to help units survive combat but the use of the number on the mechanic representing the "limit" was far more confusing than I expected. When played with they quickly understood but when drafting or viewing the cards for the first time they often misread the mechanic to either think Glorious X meant it put X counters on after combat, or that it put a single counter on at the start of combat rather than the end. The way players misunderstood the mechanic has however given me several new mechanic ideas to explore in future sets.
Playtesting
Playtesting was a core part of the set and formed the basis of a lot of my developmental changes. I playtested the mechanics early but I didn't do my first proper playtest until all the commons were done and over half the uncommons. In the future I would like to do a lot more commons only playtests.
Most playtesting took place with printed proxies in sleeves and then formed into booster packs while remaining as random as possible. Sometimes I would print extra of a certain card that needed playtesting and this worked well later on but was a waste of time earlier when the set was so fluid.
I played a few sealed games but nearly 90% of my playtests have been booster drafts with between 2 - 10 people. These really helped develop the archetypes and allowed my to create useful uncommons that rewarded what players wanted to do in certain color combinations. I also got each playtester to write each first and last pick of a pack as well as any cards they especially liked/disliked. Getting them to do this during testing was important compared to after the draft is over as gut reaction is really really important.
Limited Environment
Each draft we did was fun with a medium paced format that promoted two color play while allowing for splashes. The decks ranged from fast aggro decks using glorious and vanishing, grindy control decks using gold counters, and odd combo decks like the blue/red spells, burn + vanishing deck which was viable if other strategies were being overdrafted. I will be definitely keeping a full 24 boosters of Coins of Mercalis for drafting for the forseeable future (with minor variation between play sessions) as my playgroup really enjoys playing.
What went wrong
Splashiness
I feel that one of the biggest place I went wrong in my creation of this set is the rares and mythic rares not having enough "wow" factor. By nature of my game design background I am extremely aware of the importance of design rules. However I believe this may have made me slightly too timid when making big splashy effects that are required for mythics. I was aware of this later in development when I did additional playtesting as often when showing players a bunch of rares I got a "that ok" or "thats cool" but rarely ever got the "thats awesome!" response except on my two favorite planeswalkers: Stanis & Katie. Because of this I redeveloped a lot of the mythics several times but I believe a lot of the rares ended up neglected for attention to their splashiness.
When it came to splashiness of the the mechanics I was very happy with a lot of the responses I had from players about gold counters even after having to cut back the mechanic several times to its final version. The lure of the alt win condition really got people excited to have a few gold counters even if they never had enough to come even close to winning. However the inclusion of reshape left many players feel "meh" as it is a purely functional mechanic with only loose flavor ties and a minor effect if you don't connect it to how gold counters work. Unlike Proliferate it has no "best case mentality" were ever opponent creature has a -1/-1 counter that you double like in Scars of Mirrodin.
In my next set I'm going to be sure to make every rare a bit more splashy and try and push boundaries a little more.
Definitely the most important lesson I've learned.
Story
From the first creation of the gold counter mechanic I had a bustling market world in mind. The card file was originally called "market cards" and one of my first inclusions was Bounty. However while I believe I succeed in creating an interesting world, I never developed characters or a storyline to hint at what was happening. Besides for hints of possible places I could go in some of the elemental cards and the Mythic angel. (only including a single angel was a very deliberate decision.) I didn't have a clear plan of each of my characters and how each planeswalker fitted into the story. This lead me to end up rewriting a lot of the flavor text late in development but while I managed to correctly reflavor Vanishing and Reshape I still didn't do more character or storyline development. Fr my next project I plan on having a clear plan of all my characters as well as plan for any future sets that may be set in the same timeline.
Complexity
While overall I think I did a fairly good job at my complexity at common (especially for a custom set) I was definitly really interested in MARO's "red flag" podcast and will be using that to far more strictly enforce NWO in my next project.
Parasitic Designs
This is another minor thing that needs improving but cards that relied on the spending of gold counters (the rare Trademaster cycle for example) ended up being a little too parasitic and removed precious room required to let the gold mechanic shine. I will be try and limite any parasitic designs in the future to one card per rarity per mechanic. This means no crazy cycles of parasitic cards like the Trademasters.
Conclusion
Overall I found this a really great experience that made me really appreciate the fine art of designing for limited formats while trying to fufill the other goals of your set. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback. I'll be updating the text version and visual spoiler for the final time in the next few days as well as releasing the MSE file. I would highly reccomend looking at the MSE were I keep notes on changes of cards and issues that arose in playtests. Thanks everyone.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
All of blue's instants cost 1U to cast (unless you count Lighthouse Keeper) and red's instants also cost 1R except for the 7-mana Quas Nova.
Earthsoul Bear is almost strictly better than Mosswood Shambler to such a degree that it feels sorta wrong to me.
Cobbled Traderoute- the wording is awkward and unintuitive IMHO. I can see why you'd want it to do that for powerlevel reasons, but I'm not sure the current wording even works- As it's entering, you get a chance to activate mana abilities. It is currently in a weird partially-entered limbo state.
I'll take a closer look at the uncommons and rares later on. You're certainly made a very interesting set- well done!
Glad you like it. While I'm not planning on making any more changes. I love feedback and it always helps me improve on any future projects.
Yeh another thing that I only realized quite late. having better mana curves is definitely something I felt was a weakness of this set and that I've learn t to keep a closer eye on with my latest project. (That you should check out!)
Hmmm good call. Earthsoul bear got buffed last minute after being a last pick fairly regularly. If I was to go back and make changes I'd make it so it couldn't put the counters on itself so that it was worse if you have no creatures.
"As CARDNAME enters the battlefield" abilities are actually completely fine and used commonly on non-basic lands. Most famously on the Shocklands. eg: Stomping Grounds
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
I also changed the method of ordering card_number. It's found on line 312 in magic.mse_game\script
order_by: { rarity_sort() + sort_index() + card.super_type + cmc(card.casting_cost) + sort_name(card.name) }This lets you more easily see the mana curves of your cards, as if you sort by card number you'll get it sorted by color, type, then CMC.
The "As ~ ETB" issue I'm talking about is paying mana: if you look, all the others either pay life or make you choose something.
Searing Memory should say "your hand", not "you hand". It also has no randomness, so it's not a problem to just do "Return... ~ deals damage = CMC to target creature or player."
I find it very awkward that the mythics are unbalanced in terms of colors- not a huge problem, but very awkward. White is in 6 of them, red and green are in 3.
As to your other set, assuming you're talking about Exodus of Zendikar, there aren't enough cards there for me to say very much.