Thank you so much, andylightkai! I came here exactly for this and you delivered! This is so beautiful. I have no idea where you even got the hires art from...
Yes, thank you so much, willows! That Sol Ring looks beyond awesome. That's the way they should be in the first place, right? I mean, I like flavour text as much as the next guy... as long as it doesn't mutilate the art
Would any one of you photoshop masters be up to doing alters of some kaladesh inventions to have a smaller text box? I am thinking of cards that have lots of empty space there, like crucible of worlds, chrome mox and noxious gearhulk (with smaller font), verdurous gearhulk, Lotus Petal and especially sol ring. It would look so much better with less of that awesome artwork covererd up by that text box! All the full art illustrations are right there: http://imgur.com/a/fnvIZ
Cutting down your list further by crossing out some of the most unlikely mechanics to ever return: Provoke is unnecessary given that fight exists now, offering got somewhat fixed with champion, epic and sweep are just unfun (if you consider casting spells fun). Radiance is super swingy (randomly hosing or helping your opponent). Epic and transmute have repetitive game play issues. Transmute also causes excessive shuffling. Dredge has developmental issues.
Now it comes down to renamed or tweaked mechanics: Bushido and Ninjutsu would have to be renamed, as you said. (Does that still count as returning though? Does devotion count as chroma returning after 5 years?) The name "sunburst" is also somewhat tied to the five suns of Mirrodin (still a possibility for New New Phyrexia But again, does that count as returning after 15 years with converge in between? (Or does converge count as a return after 11 years already?) Splice onto arcane would have to be tweaked, most likely to splice onto instant, but that is a very good candidate right there! Likewise affinity could be tweaked to affinity for creatures or humans or whatever! Reinforce was sort of a subset of channel (just like entwine is a subset of kicker), so channel kinda returned already. So that leaves us with:
But of course, Maro didn't even say it's a named mechanic Like Domain wasn't named the first time around in Invasion block (still a return in Conflux). A riddle impossible to solve
Ah yes, let's continue to dangle a lottery ticket in front of magic players just to sell sets instead of, oh I don't know, making product the players actually want to buy. Blatant cash grabs like this are frustrating. I hope this doesn't actually happen.
This is so hilariously close to that old "Wizards could put 100 Dollar bills in packs and people would still complain..." quote.
Printing Liliana of the Veil in standard is no alternative. The alternative is: the same boosters, just without expeditions (which is actually the case for most packs anyway They're literally just including additional very valuable cards in some packs for free. What's to complain? It's always lottery anyway if you get a Liliana of the Veil or a Mirror-Mad Phantasm in your Innistrad pack. Buying packs only because super rare Expeditions exist is just stupid. You can't blame wizards for that. They're not that much trying to sell more packs with this as they're just giving out free money to (some very ungrateful) fans. Jeez...
Edit: I don't actually believe, they'd do something like that again so soon. It's been 6 years since the last time. Doing it again in SoI would just mean it's a regular thing now and that would also conflict too much with biannual Modern Masters sets...
Well, the point of it is, that it is an example. Not an example of how to develope a card that dominates vintage, but an example of card design representing a general idea for cards (in this case, unfortunately, not a new one, as there is Advice from the Fae. If you're looking to judge the power level of cards, this is not the right forum for you (there's New Card Discussion, for example).
Before the Brothers' War, before the five colors of magic, before history itself, Dominaria was ruled by the Thran, an ancient race who built machines and artifacts, the likes of which have never been seen since.
Correction:
Before the five colors of magic, before history itself, Zendikar was ruled by the Eldrazi, the ancient race.
So, I still think colorless is going to be like a 6th color as the Eldrazi are older than the 5 colors of mana.
For me the Eldrazi are like the “First Ones“ from Babylon 5. They could be the oldest beings in existence and resemble different races.
RoE has a theme R&D wouldn't want for a whole block of three (or two) sets. (I think I read something like that on magicthegatherin.com in that article about the reasons they couldn't do purple in some TS set. I can imagine, they said, they wouldn't want to commit a whole block to something like purple?)
Snow mana is pretty close to a sixth color. They could do artifact mana, or costs you can only pay with colorless mana (or “Eldrazi“ mana or purple mana )
They made colored artifacts. Why can't there be colorless creatures that aren't artifical, but are , you know, - like - natural. Like morph creatures
What about colorless spells? Like these flash Artifacts or Advice from the Fae.
I think Maro said, they have touched nearly everything... in the design space or something... with at least a single card.
They could do cards like
Eldrazi Tutor 1GU
Sorcery
Search for a colorless card.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/669738-more-soi-leaks
...but you can't call that the "free mechanic" anymore, maybe "discount mechanic"
Cutting down your list further by crossing out some of the most unlikely mechanics to ever return: Provoke is unnecessary given that fight exists now, offering got somewhat fixed with champion, epic and sweep are just unfun (if you consider casting spells fun). Radiance is super swingy (randomly hosing or helping your opponent). Epic and transmute have repetitive game play issues. Transmute also causes excessive shuffling. Dredge has developmental issues.
Now it comes down to renamed or tweaked mechanics: Bushido and Ninjutsu would have to be renamed, as you said. (Does that still count as returning though? Does devotion count as chroma returning after 5 years?) The name "sunburst" is also somewhat tied to the five suns of Mirrodin (still a possibility for New New Phyrexia
2016-2017: Threshold
2018: Amplify, Affinity (tweaked), Entwine
2019: Modular, Sunburst, Soulshift, Splice (tweaked), Bushido (renamed)
2020: Ninjutsu (renamed)
But of course, Maro didn't even say it's a named mechanic
This is so hilariously close to that old "Wizards could put 100 Dollar bills in packs and people would still complain..." quote.
Printing Liliana of the Veil in standard is no alternative. The alternative is: the same boosters, just without expeditions (which is actually the case for most packs anyway
Edit: I don't actually believe, they'd do something like that again so soon. It's been 6 years since the last time. Doing it again in SoI would just mean it's a regular thing now and that would also conflict too much with biannual Modern Masters sets...
Well, the point of it is, that it is an example. Not an example of how to develope a card that dominates vintage, but an example of card design representing a general idea for cards (in this case, unfortunately, not a new one, as there is Advice from the Fae. If you're looking to judge the power level of cards, this is not the right forum for you (there's New Card Discussion, for example).
On topic:
From http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Novels/Product.aspx?x=mtg/novels/product/artifactscyclei:
Correction:
Before the five colors of magic, before history itself, Zendikar was ruled by the Eldrazi, the ancient race.
So, I still think colorless is going to be like a 6th color as the Eldrazi are older than the 5 colors of mana.
RoE has a theme R&D wouldn't want for a whole block of three (or two) sets. (I think I read something like that on magicthegatherin.com in that article about the reasons they couldn't do purple in some TS set. I can imagine, they said, they wouldn't want to commit a whole block to something like purple?)
Snow mana is pretty close to a sixth color. They could do artifact mana, or costs you can only pay with colorless mana (or “Eldrazi“ mana or purple mana
They made colored artifacts. Why can't there be colorless creatures that aren't artifical, but are , you know, - like - natural. Like morph creatures
What about colorless spells? Like these flash Artifacts or Advice from the Fae.
I think Maro said, they have touched nearly everything... in the design space or something... with at least a single card.
They could do cards like
Eldrazi Tutor 1GU
Sorcery
Search for a colorless card.
Demolition 2 :symrg::symrg:
Sorcery
Destroy target colorless card.
And of course, “Protection from colorless“.
What if the Eldrazi are older than the five colors of magic? Back then, there was only... colorless (or purple or whatever).