MTG Salvation

In my last entry I showed you the interactions between the creatures in the same color. Now how could we tie each color together? We put the overlapping philosophy from the allied colors and put a certain class in the colors that fit with the class. Let's look at the examples.

Aven Mind Manipulator
3UU
Creature - Bird Wizard
Flying
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Aven Mind Manipulator, tap or untap target creature.
3/3

Agent of Fear
2B
Creature - Zombie Wizard
Fear
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Agent of Fear, target creature gains fear until end of turn.
1/1

Abyssal Nightrider
3B
Creature - Zombie Warrior
Fear
Abyssal Nightrider can't block.
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Abyssal Nightrider, Abyssal Nightrider gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
3/1


In the above example, there is a blue Bird Wizard, a black Zombie Wizard and a black Zombie Warrior. Note that they have the creature types that represent themselves flavor-wise. A wizard would rarely get a pump ability for example.

Then we can see that Aven Mind Manipulator and Agent of Fear could trigger each other since they're both Wizard. That's the triggering between color. And Agent of Fear and Abyssal Nightrider could trigger each other since they're both Zombie. That's for the in-color trigger. See the idea?

So now let's split the classes between each color. Let's see..

So in my last entry I gave you the basic idea of Resonance. Now how do we compliment the mechanic into a block design?

First thing, this block is obviously based on tribal mechanic. But how do we make the set? Much like Ravnica doesn't want to be Invasion 2, this block doesn't want to be Onslaught 2 also.

Since the main idea came from Kamigawa block which has countless card interactions in the block, this block would follow similar design. I'd push Resonance as the main mechanic for the block and spread the proper creature type around the block. But how?

It's quite obvious that cards in the same color could be allowed to have interactions among themselves more than with cards from other colors. And flavor-wise, creatures in the same color are more or less of the similar types. So let's put the races in the colors first.

For the main races, I put
Human for white
Bird for blue
Zombie for black
Goblin for red
Elf for green

For the example, see the cards below,

Aven Mind Manipulator
3UU
Creature - Bird Wizard
Flying
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Aven Mind Manipulator, tap or untap target creature.
3/3

Azoroth Goldenfeather
2U
Creature - Bird
Flying
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Azoroth Goldenfeather, target creature gains flying until end of turn.
1/1


You can see that the 2 blue creatures are both of the race 'Bird', so it's quite obvious that they could trigger each other. But note that there could be the difference in the class of each creature. Aven Mind Manipulator is a Bird Wizard, whereas Azoroth Goldenfeather is just Bird. The classes could differ more than this, Bird Soldier, for example, is a possible choice for a blue creature.

The diffrence in classes is another key in tying the block together, join me in the next entry.

Last entry I told you about Magnify, my pet mechanic that was buried months ago when TS was released. Well, I have another pet mechanic that is still alive!

I named it 'Resonance'.

So what the hell is Resonance?

Well, the idea came when I was trying to figure out the questions of TGDS round 1 when MaRo asked "Design-wise, what is the best thing about Kamigawa block?"

Oh well, the answer was that Kamigawa has a theme that tied almost everything together. The main theme, Spiritcraft/Arcane, ties every spirit and every arcane card in the sets together since you can use a small spell to trigger a huge Spiritcraft or as a base to splice onto. So the block creates countless interactions between cards, and that's great!

Then I came to think about the subtheme, spirit vs. nonspirit. That's kinda tribal, isn't it? So I wandered a little back to the tribal theme in Onslaught blocks and click! Resonance was born!

So what the hell is Resonance, really? Well, it's the hybrid child between 'Spiritcraft' and 'Tribal'. Let's look at the card without delay.

Aven Mind Manipulator
3UU
Creature - Bird Wizard
Flying
Resonance — When you play a creature spell that shares a creature type with Aven Mind Manipulator, tap or untap target creature.
3/3

Look familiar? Honestly, I got inspired by this.

So how does this work? Quite the same with Spiritcraft trigger, obviously. But note that you can trigger this card with either a Bird or a Wizard, so the bigger pool of the creature cards that could trigger it should balance with the loss of arcane-triggering.

So I amalgamated (Whoa! Big word!) the Spiritcraft trigger with the tribal theme. And created a 'Tribalcraft trigger'! So why resonance? Why not Tribalcraft - blah blah blah?

The picture in my mind could see a creature's aura of power shimmering around it. And when another creature that share a creature type comes into play, their aura sense and resonating with each other, creating a powerful effect out of the resonance. Therefore I named it 'Resonance'.

The best has not yet come. Join me in my next entry when I'd explain how to put Resonance into a block design.

I'd like to start with a card I made for MTGS Challenge round 28, the requirement is 'Create a card that deals direct damage.' The card render is down below.

Flame of Fury
2R
Instant
Flame of Fury deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Magnify - If you play Flame of Fury during your upkeep, it deals 4 damage to that creature or player instead.

Back when Time Spiral wasn't released yet, I made a cycle of cards with an ability word 'Magnify'. Which was a cycle of instants that get you extra effect if you play them during your upkeep.

I was trying to come up with an ability that give the cards extra power with a drawback. And I believed Magnify could be worded to group things together similar to Channel or Sweep. I even sent one card for the Great Designer search round 3 when 5 cards that represent all colors, card types and cover as many expasions as possible was asked for. That card was, (Render down below.)

Pull to the Grave
1B
Instant
Destroy target creature if its converted mana cost is 3 or less.
Magnify - If you play Pull to the Grave during your upkeep, destroy that creature if its converted mana cost is 4 or less instead.

Cool card, huh? Obviously this card was inspired by Smother, I put Smother in a little twist, a little change in wording, and Pull to the Grave was good to go.

But Time Spiral changed everything..

The instant-sorcery cards in TS such as Sulfurous Blast or Might of Old Krosa made my cards look stupidly unoriginal. And the cards I was so proud of and was finding its way to the light of a contest such as FCC was kept in my secret vault forever.

However, I think it's time to bring them out to light. Magnify is me pet mechanic, and a good one. It'd be a shame if it never gets to see the light of day. People might think that I mocked up the story, but you could confirm it with MaRo!