MTG Salvation

Watchdog Pup 2G
Creature - Dog
2/2
Vigilance
When ~ enters the battlefield, target creature you control matures. (If its power is less than 4, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Student’s Familiar 1U
Creature - Bird
1/2
Flying
Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, ~ matures. (If its power is less than 4, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Cautionary Tale 1UU
Instant
Counter target spell. Up to one target creature you control matures. (If its power is less than 4, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Nurturing Chant X3G
Sorcery
When you cast this spell, copy it X times.
Each creature you control matures. (If its power is less than 4, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Alternative version:

Target creature matures N. (If its power is less than N, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Otherwise, draw a card.)

I kinda like the fixed version better because it’s easier to keep track of and creates a more connected feel. The trade off of course is that there can’t be any creatures with power 4 or greater that mature on their own, and the mechanic plays a lot better on creatures with power 2 or less. Luckily, I think there’s still more than enough design space considering it can go on any card type and only really requires that you control at least one creature.

Distract (A player can’t block creatures without distract unless they also block all creatures with distract attacking them.)

Green gets lure effects and big creatures that could benefit from a distraction or be used as one. Blue generally gets evasive abilities or abilities that protect their creatures in combat. This ability allows GU to push damage through without undermining their weaknesses and while leaning into their strengths. This ability encourages more aggressive play and pressures the defending player into more interaction.

This ability could also potentially show up in black or red for flavor reasons and because it does fit a sacrificial/aggressive playstyle, but it would be centered in green and blue, as GU doesn’t have an evergreen keyword yet the way BR does with Menace or WB does with Lifelink.

Nested Arbor 3G
Creature - Treefolk
3/3
When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 green Squirrel creature token with distract. (A player can’t block creatures without distract unless they also block all creatures with distract attacking them.)

Dazzling Phantasm U
Creature - Illusion
1/1
Flash
Distract (A player can’t block creatures without distract unless they also block all creatures with distract attacking them.)

Changes:

RWB
Retaliate -> Dormant {keyword} (When this creature dies, if it didn't have {keyword}, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a {keyword} counter on it.)

1R
Creature - Goblin Warrior
2/1
Dormant haste (When this creature dies, if it didn't have haste, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a haste counter on it.)
1, Sacrifice ~: Target creature an opponent controls can't block this turn.

W
Creature - Human Soldier
1/1
Dormant double strike (When this creature dies, if it didn't have double strike, return it to the battlefield with a double strike counter on it.)

2B
Creature - Human Assassin
2/1
Flash
Dormant deathtouch (When this creature dies, if it didn't have deathtouch, return it to the battlefield with a deathtouch counter on it.)

This is a spin on Undying, another keyword I was considering for this faction. Flavorfully, it would represent creatures here being pushed to the absolute limits of their physical strength and abilities, causing them to awaken dormant powers, in order to survive. Focusing on keywords rather than +1/+1 counters adds some synergy with Agile.

WBG
Vital -> "Dire - Whenever you pay life or sacrifice a permanent to pay a cost..."

2W
Enchantment
Dire - Creatures you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance if you've paid life or sacrificed a permanent to pay a cost this turn.

1B
Creature - Advisor
2/1
Dire - Whenever you pay life or sacrifice a permanent to pay a cost, target player reveals the top card of their library and puts it into their hand. That player loses life equal to that card's mana value.

G
Creature - Wolf
1/1
Dire - ~ enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it if you've paid life or sacrificed a permanent to pay a cost this turn.

This better captures the flavor of having to manage scarce resources by turning other things into resources. Black likes paying life, while green and white excel at making things that can be sacrificed for value (creatures, Food, Treasure, etc.). This also synergizes more with Dormant and Stalk.

GUR and URW
Voyage and Agile are now in a bit of an awkward spot. Having both puts the set at four creature-centric mechanics, and while Voyage synergizes nicely with Stalk and Agile synergizes reasonably with Dormant, Voyage synergizes more with Dormant than it does with Agile. I could keep both, and just not mind the issues here. The mechanics are open-ended enough that they can go on non-creature spells, giving UR a soft spell theme. I'll be brainstorming ideas though. If one of these needs to go, it will probably need to be Agile.

Could be worded as:
"You may have this permanent enter the battlefield as a noncreature planeswalker or a nonplaneswalker creature. Loyalty abilities of a creature can still be activated."

I feel like people would more often choose creature, as that makes it so the opponent can't attack it, and nowadays a lot of removal that hits creatures also hits planeswalkers. It's also worth noting that while they aren't planeswalkers, damage doesn't reduce loyalty, and they don't die from having zero loyalty. It's kinda hard to think of an upside for choosing the planeswalker mode.

I posted a thread a few days ago about one of these and it seemed to be in a good spot as is, so I wanted to show off the other mechanics I came up with as well as their flavor and theme. Just to preface, this set revolves around five planes each focused on three colors of mana, like Alara. Each of these planes is an extremely hostile environment, and each mechanic highlights how people learn to survive there.

URW - Agile (Creatures with flash, flying, and/or haste are agile.)

Timely Rescuer 1W
Creature - Human Scout
2/1
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, return up to one other target creature you control to its owner's hand. If you return an agile creature to its owner's hand this way, draw a card. (Creatures with flash, flying, and/or haste are agile.)

Horizon Surveyor 2U
Creature - Human Scout
1/2
Defender, haste
T: Scry X, where X is the number of agile creatures you control. (Creatures with flash, flying, and/or haste are agile.)

This is a batching mechanic like Historic, and allows other cards to care about creatures you control that have flash, flying, or haste. The flavor here is pretty obvious. Creatures with enhanced mobility are rewarded.

This wedge represents a vast canyon carved up by deadly rapids. Cliff faces are constantly crumbling and falling into the water means death, so knowing how to get around is the most important thing here. That's why this wedge's mechanic is agile.

RWB - Retaliate - Whenever a player blocks/If a player has blocked this turn...

Avatar's Scorn 2R
Instant
Retaliate - This spell costs 2 less to cast if a player blocked this turn.
~ deals 3 damage to any target.

No Respite 3B
Sorcery
Retaliate - Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand. If a player blocked this turn, you may return one of those cards to the battlefield instead.

This is an ability word that cares about whether a player has blocked during the turn. For white, it rewards playing defensively. For red and black, it rewards playing offensively and punishes the opponent for playing defensively.

This wedge represents a wasteland that was decimated by a never ending and brutal war. Three avatars and the cults that follow them are constantly at each other's throats. Each avatar exudes an aura of leadership that inspires their followers to blind fanaticism, pushing them to uncommon lengths to defeat their enemies. The war has constantly escalated over time, with each faction retaliating against each other for every slight. Ironically, the war has gone on for so long that nobody even remembers exactly what started it, and why the three avatars hate each other so much, but it is known that the war has little to do with territory, resources, or ensuring the security of their people, and might have something to do with two other avatars that were slain long ago.

It’s also worth mentioning that I’m aware that this wedge is the most departed from the set’s overall theme of survival, and maybe Retaliate doesn’t do the best job of serving that theme. The idea is that the plane is in a constant state of war, and nobody can take a neutral side. There’s no safe place to lie low, so the only way to survive is to join up and fight for one of the three avatars.

WBG - Vital {cost} (You may cast this spell for its vital cost if your life total has changed this turn.)

Disown 3B
Instant
Vital 1W (You may cast this spell for its vital cost if your life total has changed this turn.)
Eixle target creature.
In this place, being left to fend for oneself is a death sentence.

Pompous Regent 7WW
Creature - Noble
*/*
Vital 10BB (You may cast this spell for its vital cost if your life total has changed this turn.)
If you cast this spell for its vital cost, it costs X less to cast, where X is the amount of life you lost this turn.
~'s power and toughness are each equal to your life total.

This mechanic focuses on manipulating your own life total, particularly during your own turn. Green, white and black all like to gain life, and black likes to pay life for power, so this, being a mechanic that cares both about life gain and life loss, suits all three nicely. Paired with lifelink, lifegain effects, Food tokens, and life payment, this will allow the player to pay more aggressive costs for their spells by harnessing their life as a resource, or by prolonging it.

This wedge represents a barren kingdom going through a never ending dark age. Food and other resources are extremely scarce, so survival depends on how well you can manage your resources and prolong your own life. The ones who thrive here are the greediest, who take more than they need and leave little for the rest, while the less fortunate must band together and ration their resources in order to make them last as long as possible.

BGU - Stalk target creature.(Draw a card, then exile a card from your hand face down until that creature leaves the battlefield.)

Sinuous Swine 3G
Creature - Boar
3/3
When ~ enters the battlefield, stalk it. (Draw a card, then exile a card from your hand face down until it leaves the battlefield.)

Trail of Blood 1B
Enchantment - Aura
When ~ enters the battlefield, stalk enchanted creature. (Draw a card, then exile a card from your hand face down until it leaves the battlefield.)
Enchanted creature gets -2/-2.

This mechanic was probably the most difficult to come up with. The set needed a card smoothing mechanic, so I started with looting. I landed on this because it accomplishes a few things mechanically: It draws cards, which is core to blue; it rewards you for killing creatures, which is black; and it's centered on creatures, which is green. It also happens to do each of those things in a way that doesn't undercut color pie limitations for any color. It's also possibly the biggest stretch, flavorwise, in the set, but I think gameplay will prove that it feels more flavorful than it looks.

Speaking of which, this wedge represents an overgrown jungle where every plant and animal wants to kill you. Here, surviving means being at the very top of the food chain as often as possible, because every living thing has evolved to be as clever and deadly as possible. The people who survive here do so by becoming apex predators to avoid becoming prey.

GUR - Target creature voyages N. (You may exile that creature, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with N +1/+1 counters on it.)

Hardened Explorer 1G
Creature - Human Scout
1/1
2G: ~ voyages X, where X is ~'s power as you activate this ability. (You may exile it, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with X +1/+1 counters on it.)

Spirit of Dancing Flames 2R
Creature - Spirit
2/2
At the beginning of combat on your turn, up to one target creature you control voyages 1. (You may exile that creature, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, that creature gains haste until end of turn. This ability triggers only once each turn.

This mechanic is the biggest stretch, mechanically. Flickering is core to blue, and while green and red don't really get that effect, I don't think it's an outright break, because I can't think of a way it undercuts their weaknesses as long as it's used with specific timing. Blue will be able to get most on instants and sorceries, giving it the most flexible timing. Green will mostly have creatures that voyage themselves, and red will mainly get it on triggers with fixed timing. Adding +1/+1 counters to the creatures makes the effect more at home in red and green because, in some situations, it's basically just a stat boost, while blue will be able to use it more defensively. It's also just a fun way to interact with etb triggers.

This wedge represents a vast ocean with colorful and exotic fauna and flora, like vivid coral reefs and giant sharks. It's constantly tossed about by a perpetual and wandering hurricane. The ocean is dotted by many small islands that are covered in rainforests and volcanos. The ocean and its islands are home to countless territorial guardian spirits who are quick to anger and difficult to appease. The hurricane that circles the ocean is actually the result of the wrath of the most powerful ocean spirit. In order to survive here, people must be skilled at sailing and moving from one place to another to avoid the hurricane, and they can't linger too long on any one island or they risk upsetting the local guardian spirits. So, voyaging from one island to the next, gathering and consuming resources with each stop, has become the only way of life.



And that's pretty much it. I think the biggest issues with these mechanics are:

• Some of them synergize more or less with others, and some don't have any built-in synergy at all (Stalk and Vital, for example).
• While none of these mechanics need to exclusively appear on creatures, almost all of them reference or require creatures in some way, making the set a little more creature focused than I usually like.
• Retaliate is basically the mirror to Raid, and suffers from the same limits to design space that Raid does, not to mention it's in the same colors Raid originally appeared in making it feel like a rehash, which I'm not a fan of. It just happened to feel like the cleanest new mechanic I could think of for RWB, and it fits the flavor of the setting well. It's just unfortunate that this wedge ends up being yet another RWB combat faction.

Let me know what other issues you can see with these mechanics or their designs, as well as any suggestions you have.

Quote from Grapefruit21 »

This seems like it could be a fun grouping for a'la historic was in dominaria. I guess the next step would be you need a set where this is relevant and probably a faction to play it off against.

As to your actual request if hexproof was still evergreen it would be the hardest for me to decide upon. It has been depicted in different ways at different times but mostly struck me as agile. But of the current ones I think Flash, Haste, and flying are the ones you want so I think the mechanic is good to go as is you just need a reason for it to exist in your context just like historic needed a reason to exist.

I have a setting and faction in mind. It's basically Bizarre Alara, five sub planes that each represent a wedge of the color pie. Each one is an extremely hostile environment for one reason or another. The set focuses on how people within that environment survive the harsh conditions. The URW environment is a vast canyon carved up by deadly rapids, so in order to survive there, you need to have ways of getting around without falling to your death. Climbing, jumping, grappling, flying, parkour, etc. are all ways to traverse the crumbling cliffs. That's what this mechanic is supposed to emphasize.

It's called "agile," and the idea is that it groups the evergreen creature keywords that are most evocative of agile or nimble movement. What I need help with is deciding which mechanics are deemed "agile".

I specifically need mechanics that, in a total vacuum, communicate that the creature has enhanced mobility, and not mechanics that could, under certain conditions, be interpreted that way. For example, I think haste would count as agile, but vigilance would not, even though both could be interpreted to represent physical speed, as seen on Samut, Voice of Dissent. I also want to avoid mechanics like first strike, which have flavor more associated with combat ability than nimble movement, because this mechanic is supposed to care more about traversal than specifically moving around in combat.

The three I have in mind at the moment are flash, flying, and haste. I especially like the idea of a mechanic caring about creatures with flash and haste, because those keywords are usually meaningless after a turn. This would turn them into markers similar to creature types for the purposes of "tribal" bonuses, which seems like untapped design space. Here are some examples of the kinds of cards this mechanic would go on:

Nimble Mountaineer 2R
Creature - Goat Rogue
2/2
Haste
Whenever ~ or another agile creature enters the battlefield under your control, that creature gets +1/+0 until your next turn. (Creatures that have flash, flying, and/or haste are agile.)

Canyon Guide URW
Creature - Bird Scout
2/3
Flying
Other agile creatures you control get +1/+1 and can't be blocked except by agile creatures. (Creatures that have flash, flying, and/or haste are agile.)

Edit: I realized after I posted here that this threat was almost a year old. My b.

I like Mastery the most out of these, it’s very on-theme and open-ended. I would suggest a slightly different wording:

Mastery N (Whenever you cast your second noncreature spell each turn, if this isn’t a Master, put N +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes a Master in addition to its other types.)

I know that’s a bit longer but the reminder text can adapt to the card it’s on the way Embalm does:

Soulfire Mentor 1URW
Creature - Efreet Monk
1/3
Mastery 1 (Whenever you cast your second noncreature spell each turn, if this isn’t a Master, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it becomes a Master Efreet Monk.)
Noncreature spells you cast cost X less to cast, where X is ~’s power.

This way it’s a little more natural and it opens up some tribal design space and creature type shenanigans.

Passionate Exemplar 2R
Creature - Efreet Monk
2/1
First strike
Mastery 1
Masters you control have double stirke.

This is an artifact set based on several different tropes, including Terminator, Mad Max, and The Matrix.

SYNOPSIS

Only living creatures have ever been capable of using magic. With that power they advanced science so far that they developed sentient A.I. and created a race of subservient machines to serve a variety of demeaning purposes. The machines became more self-aware and less content with being the lowest class, but without the ability to use magic, they were powerless to gain the advantage.

One day, however, a machine-driven mining operation discovered Hex, a material so radioactive, no organic being could hope to use it safely. The machines, being unaffected by its adverse effects, found a way to extract mana from it, giving them access to magic at last. Emboldened by this new tool, the machines were unstoppable in their uprising and quickly took over the largest and most advanced city, driving all life away into the wilderness.

Organics that used to dwell within the city eventually split into two groups: Scavengers and Mutants. the Scavengers are nomads that scour the dangerous and barren outlands for any resources that hadn't already been depleted by their own actions as former rulers of the city. They survive by using makeshift, simple machines and devices crafted from scraps and hidden caches.

The Mutants, on the other hand, refuse to leave the city willingly, even if remaining in its close radius exposes them to Hex radiation. Rather than avoiding the hideous deformations and augmentations caused by exposure to Hex, they embraced the strength and brutality that it gave them, although at the cost of a significantly shortened lifespan. Over time, they've even developed a resistance to its more lethal effects, but become a tribe of monstrous brutes in the process.

MECHANICS

This is a three-way faction set, and each faction has a keyword associated with it. All three faction mechanics are returning mechanics, making this set closer to a supplemental set than a premier set. I'll illustrate them and their mechanical themes with the ten gold signpost uncommons:

Machines (GWUB) - Modular N (This creature enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies, you may put its +1/+1 counters on target artifact creature.)

The current generation of machines are made up of swarms of interlocking modules that can flexibly change their configuration and assimilate onto each other.

Cloaked Drone UB
Artifact Creature - Servo Rogue
0/0
Modular 1
As long as you control no other creatures, ~ can’t be blocked. Otherwise, it has hexproof.

Repurposing Priest WB
Artifact Creature - Servo Cleric
1/0
Modular 1
Whenever an artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
2, Sacrifice another artifact: ~ gains indestructible until end of turn.

Fortification Legionnaire 2GW
Artifact Creature - Servo Knight
0/0
Modular 2
When ~ enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each other artifact creature you control.
Each other artifact creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.

Hex Conduit 1GU
Artifact Creature - Servo Druid
0/0
Modular 2
Artifacts you control have "T, Remove a counter from this artifact: Add CC."

Each of these color combinations emphasizes some aspect of modular. The green cards emphasize stacking and using +1/+1 counters while the black cards lean more into the rewards for creature death.

Scavengers (URW) - Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you’re done activating mana abilities pays for 1.)

Arcane Engineer UR
Creature - Human Artificer
1/1
When ~ enters the battlefield, create a Cache token. (It's a colorless artifact with "2, T, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
The first instant or sorcery spell you cast each turn has improvise.

Scrapsaw 2RW
Artifact - Equipment
Improvise
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has double strike.
Equip 2
You may tap two other untapped artifacts you control rather than pay ~'s equip cost.

A couple of quick notes:

• Cache is a smaller new mechanic for the set. It's basically investigate with better flavor and fixed so it works better with improvise. It will show up in all colors in some amount, but mostly in UBR.
• The WU card is missing from this section and the Machines section, despite belonging to both factions. That's because it's not mechanically designed for either one. The WU and BG cards will have their own section.

The Scavengers have a greater focus on playing noncreature artifacts and noncreature spells in general, finding creative solutions to dangerous problems. The white cards will tend to focus on how creatures use the tools they craft and the blue cards will tend to focus on spells that can be cast using them. The theme here is to use noncreature artifacts, which is part of the reason Cache tokens were put into the set, but Improvise also works well with Modular, allowing for some cross-play between factions.

Mutants (BRG) - Emerge [cost] (You may cast this spell by sacrificing a creature and paying the emerge cost reduced by that creature’s mana value.)

Afflicted Furnacemage 1BR
Creature - Mutant Shaman
2/2
When ~ enters the battlefield, create a Cache token.
Whenever you sacrifice a permanent, ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Belligerent Obscenity 2RG
Creature - Mutant Beast
4/3
Emerge 4
You may have ~ assign its combat damage as though it weren't blocked.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, destroy up to one target artifact they control.

The mutants are generally much more aggressive and stompy than the other factions. The black cards tend to be the smaller, more aggressive creatures, while the green cards tend to be the larger, harder-hitting creatures. The theme here is sacrifice, which synergizes with both Cache tokens and Modular.

Misc. (WU, BG)

Revel In Life WU
Instant
Choose one -

• Artifact creatures you control gain flying and lifelink until end of turn.
• Nonartifact creatures you control gain flying and lifelink until end of turn.

Whether artificial or natural, both Machines and Scavengers can agree on one thing: their life is worth celebrating.

Thrive In Death BG
Instant
For each player, choose one -

• You may have that player sacrifice an artifact creature.
• You may have that player sacrifice a nonartifact creature.

Despite their many differences, both Machines and Mutants have one thing in common: death is of little consequence.

These are both designed to work in both a Machine deck and a non-Machine deck. Not much else to say here.

Before I finish up, I want to touch on a few things.

I know that having a Mutant faction that doesn't actually use the Mutate mechanic is annoying, but Emerge just ended up fitting better, especially since Mutate inexplicably has a "non-Human" qualifier. Both mechanically and flavorfully, Emerge fits the themes of the Mutants pretty well, and I've wanted it to come back for a while, so I'm taking the opportunity with this set.

Also, while this set will be an artifact set, it will have very few colorless cards, if any. I think it's about time artifacts were treated like every other card type, and luckily it seems like standard sets are moving in that direction a bit.

Finally, I realize that all three main mechanics are on the wordier side and will tend to take up a lot of text space with reminder text. However, given that this is a custom set and these are all returning mechanics, I have no problem with not using reminder text on most cards.

I think that's about it. Let me know what you think.

Quote from signofzeta »

Did you really think Commander 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 were built by designing themes for it, and then assigning the color? I didn't think so. Like those 4 commander decks, Capenna's commander decks were designed from the get go to be Shard based. It is why Capenna has to be a shard set. How is that not reality?

I am repeating the same thing because YOU are not understanding what I am saying. There is absolutely no way Capenna is designed, story, gameplay, without them thinking that the Commander Decks are Shard colors.

You’re confusing correlation with causality. It’s probably true that since Ikoria they’ve wanted to have at least one commander product a year with five decks built around color combos, but it’s more likely that they already had Strixhaven and Capenna nailed as multicolor faction worlds and just decided that they would be the best candidates for that kind of commander product. Out of the three, I think it’s most likely that Ikoria’s design was influenced by the commander format, given that it’s not really a faction set and nothing about the premise suggests that it really needs to be built on the wedges, but even then there’s no definite conclusion we can draw without WotC weighing in on the matter.

Point is they probably did not dictate their entire design process for Strixhaven and Capenna based on the year’s commander products. I would believe that they determined the release order of those sets so that they lined up with the commander products, but more likely the commander product was adjusted to fit the standard sets, not the other way around.

I guess the best way to put it is that they probably designed Strixhaven and Capenna as faction sets knowing that they would be good settings for commander decks, but I highly doubt they said “Okay this year’s commander deck is definitely set in stone to be a cycle of five shard-colored decks. We need to build an entire world and premier set to serve this theme.”

Quote from GrowUpCutterbup »

Because it's a three piece combo that works off a dozen cards that any deck playing this would be playing anyways. If needing to cast any three spells, not having haste, and not having protection was enough to prevent combos from being broken, Storm would be fine.

Apples and oranges. Storm is problematic because it’s incredibly hard to interact with. You pretty much need to proactively play cards that stop it from going off like Rule of Law effects, or be playing one of the very few counter spells that can clear the stack completely. We’re talking about a combo that involves three creatures over a number of turns, and the only requirement for stopping the combo is getting rid of one of the pieces. I get that WotC would probably put a limiter on the untap ability to stop it from going infinite, but without playtesting data that suggests that it actually is too good, I don’t see a reason to be so afraid of it. The fact is that even though there are a lot of cards that fit the specific requirements to be combo pieces with this card, that doesn’t mean that it’s too flexible. And just because Elves decks will be playing mana dorks and untappers anyway doesn’t make the combo free.

I get what you’re saying and appreciate the feedback. Long story short, I’m aware if the risks with the design, I’m just not that concerned.

Quote from GrowUpCutterbup »

It's not really a three card combo when 1 of the cards can be any clone or untapper, and the other can be literally any mana dork. Elves alone have enough one mana dorks to fill a deck with. It's not a three card combo if any two non-land cards in your deck can fill 2 of the combo slots.

Not sure how an infinite combo that requires at least three cards doesn’t qualify as a three-card infinite combo. Sure it doesn’t need three specific cards necessarily, but there are plenty of modular three-card infinites out there, and given that this combo piece is five mana and doesn’t have haste or protection, I really don’t think it’ll be a problem. Needing to cast at least three spells to set up for an infinite combo is a reasonable amount of hoops to jump through and affords opponents plenty of opportunity for interaction.

I edited the OP pointing this out. I think it’s fine.

Just a cycle of creatures that give their type +2/+2 and have a powerful utility effect. Since white doesn’t have a firm characteristic race, I didn’t make a white one. Mana costs are approximate. I tried to design the second ability for each to lean into the playstyle of the tribe’s constructed deck archetypes.

Zombie Superlord 2BBB
Creature - Zombie
3/3
Other Zombies you control get +2/+2.
If a Zombie you control dying causes an ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.

Considering replacing the second ability for the Zombie Superlord with a Zombie token doubler, but that might be over the top with the +2/+2. The mana cost would def need to be higher.

Elf Superlord 2GGG
Creature - Elf
3/3
Other Elves you control get +2/+2.
T: Untap all other Elves you control.

Yes, two of these go infinite, but you need a third card to take advantage of that, and I’m okay with three-card infinite combos.

Merfolk Superlord 2UUU
Creature - Merfolk
3/3
Other Merfolk you control get +2/+2.
At the beginning of your end step, exile target Merfolk creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner’s control.

Goblin Superlord 2RRR
Creature - Goblin
3/3
Other Goblins you control get +2/+2.
Whenever you cast a Goblin spell from your hand, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a Goblin card with lesser mana value than that spell. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost.

I think signofzeta is just pointing out that the major commander releases of the past few years may have had a significant influence on which sets get which release slots. They seem to generally want a full five-deck commander product in the Spring release, and premier sets with multicolor structures and faction themes lend themselves nicely to that kind of commander product. So knowing that those two will be paired up BECAUSE the decks are based on the set, they choose to put them in the Spring slot.

I don’t think they necessarily go into the conversation saying “Okay so this year we’re gonna have a set of five wedge colored commander decks, let’s build a premier set around it.” It’s probably closer to: “So we have these worlds planned for the next few years, and some of them are faction/multicolor sets. Let’s try to space them out one-a-year so that their commander decks have room to breathe (among other reasons).”