MTG Salvation

I may have come up with some solutions to my problems, in a round about way, but it should work.

Vibrance does seem to hose monocolor in the set but I did want to keep a multicolor feel to it anyway. As a foil to it I could add a couple cards with the new (not so new) mechanic primal, as seen on Imperiosaur. eg.

Grazing Plateback 3GG
Creature - Dinosaur
Primal - When ~ enters the battlefield, if only mana from basic lands was used to cast it, you may destroy target enchantment.
3/5

This mechanic could work on the flip side of vibrance allowing for monocolor to also be a viable strategy. While it does not completely eliminate vibrances problems in that regard, it does give some benefits. Not to say multicolor can't use it, there is plenty of untap land cards in the set currently so if one's smart they could work around it.

Another mechanic that is currently forming in my head is for the big things of the world. It might be better to move it to the next set for design space reasons.

Karangan Hadrosaur v2 2G
Creature - Dinosaur
Massive - When ~ enters the battlefield, if you control a creature that has less power than it, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
2/3

I believe its a nice merge between showing the beasts size effect and avoiding winning more to extent. It also shows that you only realize something is huge if you compare it to something.

Quote from Deutschmeister »

Vibrance seems like a bit of a wonky mechanic to me. Although rewarding the player for doing what she/he would generally do anyway (in this case play a 2-color deck) often works well, in the case of Vibrance, the non-bonused effects likely come up so rarely that the mechanic doesn't even need to be there. Based on cards like the Hadrosaur and Snowsteppe Mastodon, it seems like "play 2 colors" was deemed more of a restriction than it really is. Vibrance also doesn't really go with the flavor or themes of the set, and discourages monocolor drafting for no reason.

Thanks for the feedback! I do agree with you on the matter that it discourages monocolor drafting and that should be avoided, but as of now I got no solutions. My only defense is what you said before, it does reward you for doing what you already want to be doing in limited. Flavourfully I believe it fits as its meant to show all the vivid colors that would be present in a prehistoric world, a world different than ours. I'm not saying theres no better solution, maybe another mechanic can be used in place of it. If you know of any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Also I should add there is quite a bit of fixing via the eggs in this set. Even if you're playing a monocolor deck I believe you'd want to play them due to the ramp being possible.

Just off the top of my head I can think of maybe using a keyword based on owning the largest creature as an alternative or something along those lines.

Quote from CommanderZ »

Why are the fossils even creatures? The whole fossils thing feels a bit weird anyways - nobody really gave a damn about fossils until the 19th century. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it because it is unrealistic, I'm perfectly fine with humans vs. dinos, but I have trouble imagining prehistoric people creating archaeological digs to dig these fossils up (and have them used in combat). Plus the only reason we dig for fossils is that is the best we got. Why would these people dig up dino fossils when the very same dinos are busy killing them?

The fossils are limited to the creatures that generally would not go around killing them, such as ammonites, insects and crabs anything that has an easily preserved skeleton. Should I change it, to say a more flavourful word called Carapace. The creature dies and leaves its shell to soak up some damage. Maybe even bait a dino or beast into attacking it when its already dead. I'd have to change some creatures around for flavour sense but do you think this is a more elegant solution?

Quote from CommanderZ »

What exactly is the flavor behind fossilize? I like the idea of the cards having an additional effect long after dying, but how it works with the 0/1 Fossils, that can somehow be equipped Sword of Fire and Ice and horribly murder your opponent.

Also, it is almost surely worded wrong. It should be something like "COST, Exile ~ from your graveyard: Put a 0/1 ...".

Quote from ToZo »

Hey all, so it appears I'm quite hindered when it comes to card making as I own a mac. Does anybody know of any alternatives for playtesting/rendering? Also the initial draft of the set is up. So take a gander if you can.

Did you try any of these?

Yeah I had the initial doubt about that happening for the fossilize tokens, but the only thing I can think of the moment is to give them defender in order to avoid any equipment based shenanigans. For flavor-wise its a stretch I'll admit, the mechanic was designed more so as an afterthought to benefit from all the mill and self-mill I put into the set. The best way I can explain it is that when you dig up fossils, you may run into some problems or some benefits (its buried with a chemical gas buildup etc) and in the end you get your fossil. I think by adding defender to the tokens I might be able to avoid some really anti-flavor occurences. For the wording of the mechanic that definitely sounds better! Thanks for catching that, it was an oversight on my part. I was using flashback as my template.

As for the mac stuff I do have windows via bootcamp, but I was wondering if there was any alternative. I can resort to it if needs be, just curious if there was something I haven't heard of before in the card-making world.

Hey all, so it appears I'm quite hindered when it comes to card making as I own a mac. Does anybody know of any alternatives for playtesting/rendering? Also the initial draft of the set is up. So take a gander if you can.

Hey all, So pretty damn new here (lurked quite a bit before) and wanted to share with all of you my ideas throughout the last month. Its a prehistoric themed set using mostly top-down design, as mtg does not have enough dinosaurs in my opinion.


image found at http://sainez.deviantart.com/art/Prehistoric-Valley-286993996

Story: Mamara a young woman from an unnamed plane, was gifted with the sight as her elders called it, she had premonitions of the future. One such vision was that of Phyrexia. Coming to her plane and claiming it for their own. Mamara was petrified as she was pregnant with her newly weds child. This could not happen how dare it happen? what have her people done to deserve this?! She had an overwhelming urge to protect her child, her husband, her relatives, her village, her people. They needed to get out. They needed to run away. As she cried out to the All-mother to protect her, it happened. A flash of light followed by darkness. She arose slowly to find that her world was covered in a multitude of colors. There were shades she had never seen before, sounds that were never before heard. Her greatest delight was that she found practically her entire village was there with her. The earth shaking footsteps of some behemoth interrupted her moment of relief and changed it to panic. Mamara scanned the villagers for any sign of her husband. She failed to realize he left for a hunt the previous night. She would have to do it alone. No she had her friends, she could do this. So they began life yet again.

Outline:
Main focus of the set is the interactions between the creatures themselves. As such there is more creatures than usual (55-60%) and particularly focussing on how each group interacts with the world around them.

One such group is the prehistoric humans. They're at a complete disadvantage in this world full of things that want to kill them so the mechanic rewards them for surviving. Hence we have survivor:

Magrath Tribesman
Creature — Human Warrior {C}
Survivor - At the beginning of each end step, if Magrth Tribesman attacked or blocked this turn, you may put a +1/+1 counter on it.
1/1

Thus the humans can get smarter/stronger from each clash with the beasts of the world.

Another big part of the world is all the other creatures in it. Not all of them are big like the dinos and beast of the ice age but you have plenty of smaller ones like the ammonites of yore. Next up is an ammonite of my own.

Inking Ammonite
Creature — Squid {C}
When Inking Ammonite dies, you may tap target creature.
Carapace 2U - (You may exile this card from your graveyard to put a 0/1 colourless carapace artifact creature token with defender onto the battlefield.)
When you Carapace Inking Ammonite, you may tap target creature.
0/2

Carapace was designed as a fill in mechanic to complement all the mill and self-mill I put into the set. Flavor-wise its meant to show how some beasties can be fooled into attacking or going to eat a shell of some sort. This can have interesting effects as seen on some creatures.

Having all these tokens can help deal with the next 3 groups of beasties.

The Dinos - these use a slith-based mechanic (no keyword, dealing combat damage to a player, nets them a bonus)
The Bugs - Sacrificing their own to get bonuses
The Beasts - Owning the creature with the greatest combined power and toughness gets you a bonus.

Last up is a mechanic I designed to signify all the lushness and colors one could see in a prehistoric world.

Vibrant Growth1G
Instant {C}
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Vibrance - If two or more colors of mana were used to cast Vibrant Growth, Target creature also gets trample.

There is a minor multicolor them going on here and in conjunction with vibrant helps strengthen these multicolor archetypes I've created.

GW - Big things and Mana ramp to get to them.
WU - Humans, Elusiveness and methods to keep them alive
UB - Milling/self-milling in order to utilize fossilize mechanic best.
BR - When creatures die effects, sacrifice
RG - aggro using dinos

Anywho here are the cards

Alrighty! So the Initial draft is complete just looking for feedback now.

Any help is appreciated. Be it with creative, balancing, formatting, or if you guys have any cool ideas!

Let me know what you guys think so far, and thanks in advance.

EDIT V.1.1 = Added some story elements, changed a couple of creative names and changed Fossilize to Carapace. Same mechanic different name.

@baron - For survivor yes thats the plan, multiple different rewards. As for assimilate, I agree with the complexity for commons. I'll turn it into a one off effect for maybe a handful of cards in the set.

@dahammer - assimilate always was meant to be a may ability. I guess I worded it wrong and graveyard would be a neat iteration.

Thanks for the quick feedback guys!

Thanks for the response!

As for your own library it would work better for mutual fun. Though I really like the feel of taking your opponents creatures. It would also be neat to see as mill being a viable win con in limited play. Maybe I'll limit to your own library for the majority while maybe making a rare go through your opponents.

Yeah mono colour is the idea but I'm worried if I'm putting that version on lower costed cards then it will be too easy to hit.

Hey All!
So being brand new here just wanted to say hello and was wondering if any of you would be willing to take a look at some mechanics I've designed. I wanted to get some feedback before I go to far the rabbit hole and realize that they are inherently flawed.

So the plane/set I'm working on now is Prehistoric themed (omg so original). The main focus being on the humans trying to survive in a world full of dinosaurs, beasts and many other things that want to eat them. I thought this would be exemplified with the Survivor mechanic.

Magrath Tribesman
Creature - Human Warrior (C)
Survivor - At the beginning of each player's end step, if ~ attacked or blocked this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
1/1

This mechanic shows how the humans have to literally fight for their survival and are generally rewarded for it. By making it restricted to the smaller creatures (i.e. humans) I believe it will make it more flavourful. In that you have to think carefully how to make them survive combat just like they would in such a prehistoric world.

Now comes my trouble I've got this mechanic I've designed for the big things of this world called primal (ooooo I haven't heard that before) and its based on using basic land mana (completely unoriginal I know) and I've got another based on using pure mana so to speak. You guys tell me which you like better. Or which would be more balanced.

Snowsteppe Mastodon
Creature - Elephant (U)
Primal - When ~ enters the battlefield, If only mana produced from basic lands was used to cast it, Put 3 +1/+1 counters on up to 3 target creatures you control.
3/3

OR

Snowsteppe Mastodon
Creature - Elephant (U)
Primal - When ~ enters the battlefield, If only mana of one colour was used to cast it, Put 4 +1/+1 counters on up to 2 target creatures you control.
4/4

It seems a bit easy to hit for limited but whats your guys' opinion?

Thanks for reading!

Edit: added a more balanced version of the mastodon for the pure primal.
Edit2: Removed assimilate - back to the drawing board
(for the curious)