Goblin shenanigans 3RR
Sorcery (U)
For each creature and player, flip a coin. For every coin that comes up
heads Goblin Shenanigans deals 2 damage to that creature or player.
For every coin that comes up tales, if it's a creature, that creature
can't block this turn. Krark wagered that his debt collectors could handle one more game of chance. The odds weren't the only thing Krark lost that day.
Some thoughts on the mechanics of Armulun - The Core:
Conqueror (As this enters the battlefield, put a conquer counter on an opponent land, it becomes captured by you.)
This feels like a state based binary mode to me. Similar to how a creature is either monstrous, or not monstrous. If the game play of Armulun wants to have control battles, conquering lands in terms of game play flow, should incorporate some sort of tit-for-tat to create some tension of having lands being conquered back and forth.
Personally I don’t like using counters to track binary states. Separating those cards on the battlefield is typically sufficient for memory tracking purposes. Much like how when a card is banished people tend to put it to a corner on their board, until it returns. Another alternative could be to have a tracker players are using, like with poison counters, and the board state could care about conquered thresholds like Ixalan did with the ‘City’s Blessing”.
Consider:
Border Patrol W
Creature - Dwarf Soldier C
Conquer (As this enters the battlefield, you may conquer target land an opponent controls. If you have conquered five or more lands an opponent controls you Reign Supreme over that player.)
For each player you reign supreme over, Border Patrol gets +1/+1 for each tapped land that player controls.
1/1
Obviously it plays very different from your initial design, but it does help with memory issues by establishing thresholds so that once hit threshold, you no long have to keep track of.
Inter (X: Exile this face down with X deep counters on it. You can cast it paying X less to cast it.)
This is exploring some space somewhere between suspend, delve, and the pact spells. Mechanically from your example this is a stable looking mechanic. I think it would need to be costed in a balanced way to ensure given that with the blue counterspell example it could be abusive for the blue player if they start ahead of an opponent who is behind. Cleaning up the template, I would consider recosting the spell for a common, and make sure it does some good things for the cost. Consider:
Serpents Invulnerability 2UU
Instant C
Counter target spell.
Scry 2.
Inter (Pay X and exile this card from your hand face down with X deep counters on it. You may cast this card from exile. It costs X less to where X is equal to the number of deep counters on it.)
Reshape
Making my creatures weaker to make an opponent discard cards is full of feel bads unless I know I’m going to get great value on returns through some kind of graveyard shenanigans. Unless I know my opponent has a big bomb card in hand that I need to hit, I would probably never activate this ability, unless the damage was somehow completely negated, I.E. Pacifism effect. For me I think this ability needs some restructuring to make it at least fun in some way. Mechanically speaking, instant speed, repeatable discard is also very degenerate. Mana costs are typical for this type of ability, at the very least this card should look similar to:
Internalized Dark 1BB
Creature - Shade C
Reshape – B,T, Put a -1/-1 counter on Internalized Dark: Target opponent discards a card. Activate this ability only as a sorcery.
3/2
Lost Counters
I’m looking at this ability, and wondering how to mechanically make that work. Consider cumulative upkeep. It uses age counters to track the cost of the ability trigger. But putting age counters on a permanent without the cumulative upkeep ability doesn’t create one for that permanent. From the comprehensive rules:
121.1. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect. Counters are not objects and have no characteristics.
So in other words there has to be additional rules creation to allow a creature that has a lost counter placed on it, to act in the way you expect, because the counter itself does not create an effect.
Like Conquer, Lost would need to become a state based action, that changes the expected state of the permanent in question. Either the creature is lost, or not lost. But having lost counters on a creature doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in a lost state.
702.16. Lost –
700.16.a - A creature that becomes lost gains “This creature can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless its controller pay X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on it.”
700.16.b - A lost creature can have any number of lost counters placed on it.
700.16.c – Multiple instances of lost on the same object are redundant.
Cleaning up the templates, to make these creatures work as you intended they would need to read along the lines of:
Tunnel Illutions U
Sorcery U
Up to three target creatures become lost. Distrubute three lost counters among those creatures. (Those creatures can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless their controller pays X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on that creature.)
Lost Survivior 1W
Creature - Human Soldier U
Whenever Lost Survivior dies, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with two lost counters on it. It becomes lost. (Lost creatures can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless their controller pays X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on that creature.)
2/2
In summary:
I think there’s some good opportunity here to make a solid top down set design around this underground world. What I would pay attention to, is how your mechanics synergize. Conquering lands, and being lost based on the mechanics you have created don’t seem to want to play around in the same game space very much. Inter is very by itself as well. I think this set could benefit from some tinkering to bring together some cohesion. I mentioned tit-for-tat, maybe having cards that care about the conquered state that then cause opponents creatures to become lost would alleviate some the synergy concerns, and creature a game flow where both players are vying to establish board control could make for a great game play environment. Most players aren’t going to want to instinctively play downside cards unless they can convert those downsides into an upside. There’s a reason why Mercadian Masques block is quite reviled. That’s not to say that board state control fights are all bad, they just need to be managed so that each player feels like they are in control of the fight, and not just suffering from it. I would consider some of the ideas I’ve put out there. I see a lot of potential for Armulun - The Core, but no set can achieve that potential without refinement.
Also, As you’ve been posting cards, I recommend grouping them: Rarity/Color/CMC. Something along those lines. When evaluating a set as a whole, it’s easier to see the forest for the trees when the design skeleton is well lined out. You’re doing great, so keep plugging along, I’d be happy to provide additional feedback on individual designs once the whole set is complete.
Vampire's Kiss 2BB
Sorcery (U)
Target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life.
Exile Vampire's Kiss as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed attached to that player.
//
Curse of Conveyance
Enchantment (color indicator - black)
Enchant Player
At the beginning of each end step, if a creature controlled by enchanted player died this turn, that player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Ok, so....this mechanic might seem a bit wonky, but I'll share it anyway and see whether we think it's "cool" or "gimmicky". Also if you think a tweak or variation of this could be better, suggest it.
Several names work: Lore, Indelible, History, Tale, Song, Inscribe, Inscription.
A) Lore (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand)
B) Tale (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, you may cast this card from your graveyard. If you do, exile it.)
C) Tale (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid you control becomes tapped, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand).
D) Tale (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid you control becomes tapped, you may cast this card from your graveyard.)
G) Indelible (As long as you control a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid, you can cast this card from your graveyard.)
Tale of Two Wolves3GG
Sorcery -- Lore (U)
(Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand.)
Create two 2/2 green wolf creature tokens.
I like the mechanical space this explores a lot better than recover did in Coldsnap. Though whenever playing around with getting spells back all mechanics can be reduced to either a buyback or flashback derivative. Not anyone's fault, Magic just happened to jump on those notions early. So the question really becomes: Does this version enable fun gameplay in the environment it's being featured in?
I like "Lore" as the best flavor name to mechanical connection. I like the natural world of indigenous people vibe that lore gives. An Oral recitation of knowledge of the world. Good stuff.
Nuts and bolts on the Lore mechanic as templated with Tale of the two wolves:
To balance Lore, it should require some kind of hoop, beyond needing a creature to ETB. Mana costs are always a good way to craft balance. There are so many cast from the graveyard variants, i like this one returning to hand. The other part of that, since it's going back to hand, can be looped (hopefully not as degenerately as buyback) you may want to add a clause to ensure only one spell gets to go back to the hand with each ETB trigger.
Lore - 1G (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, If no other card with Lore has been returned to your hand this turn, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand)
obviously this would disrupt if you want multiple spells to return for different ETB's in a turn. In that case if you want to maintain that functionality you could write it as such:
Lore - 1G (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, You may pay the lore cost of a card in your graveyard. If you do, you may return that card from your graveyard to your hand)
In theory that should cap it to a single card returning per ETB activation. I might be wrong about that templating. One last thought, To clean up the template, for this environment you may want to create a new creature type. Since it's lore you could go with something along the lines of 'Orator'. Creatures could be a Human Bard Orator, or just Human Orator. Depends on the individual designs. But it would clean up your template. Only downside is it becomes a parasitic mechanic. So what formats you're designing to will affect this decision for you.
Lore - 1G (Whenever an orator enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay the lore cost of a card in your graveyard. If you do, you may return that card from your graveyard to your hand.)
Anyways hopefully those suggestions help you to keep moving forward.
Jace, The Guildpact Reforged 2UU
Planeswalker - Jace (M)
+1: Each player reveals the top card of their library. You may put the revealed cards on the bottom of their owners' libraries. If you don't, each player draws a card.
-2: Create a legendary 0/1 blue human illusion creature token named Jace. It has "whenever a creature attacks a planeswalker you control, all damage that would be dealt to it by unblocked creatures this turn, is dealt to Jace instead."
-6: Choose a color. Target opponent reveals cards from the top of their library. If four cards of the chosen color are revealed in this way, that player puts the revealed cards into their graveyard. Otherwise that player shuffles all revealed cards into their library.
3
Mechnically, the big issue that stopped me in my tracks is that the 2nd side of cards with the Portal mechanic are simply outright exiled by blink/flicker effects, while at the same time, I actually have a whole bunch of blink/flicker cards! That's an internal inconsistency that either calls the Portal mechanic into question or means I'll need to remove blink/flicker as a theme. More likely I'll have to either completely redesign or replace the Portal mechanic.
I thought about this for a little bit, and i looked over the design for Ethereal Jaunt, and i see what you mean. You want to be able to portal spells into permanents using DFC tech. Of course based on the rules, if you blink/flicker a transformed permanent it resets to its front face. There aren't a lot of good solutions mechanically speaking. My though process went to the idea of establishing a rules rider inside of the Portal mechanic that creates a delayed replacement effect along the lines of "If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand". similar to the rider used to keep spells from being abused by exiling them from the stack. While you couldn't blink portal cards in the traditional sense, it would allow portal cards to be recast, and still have added value. Balancing activation costs would ensure that it's not too format warping like buyback, since you will almost always get portal cards back in your hand.
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Portal 3UU (Exile this spell as it resolves. You may cast it transformed from exile for its Portal cost.)
///
Ethereal Marauder
Creature - Beast (C)
U: Return Ethereal Marauder to its owner's hand.
3/3
this would adjust the design along the lines of:
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Portal 3UU (You may cast this spell for its portal cost. If you do, exile this spell as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed. If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand.)
///
Ethereal Marauder
Creature - Beast (C)
U: Ethereal Marauder gains hexproof until end of turn.
3/3
The combination of hexproof and the adjusted function of portal would allow this card to be very similar functionally to what you wanted it to be in most game play scenarios, with it's blinking effect.
Based on your wording for Portal, which of the two costs is being used to cast it the first time, and which cost is from exile cost the second time? it's worded a little confusing unfortunately.I see that you like the idea of it being a flashback variant, with the cast twice design, but don't forget a lot of fun the game comes from creating decision points with spells, do i cast the small effect now, or save up for the big effect later. If that's not what you're looking to do, you can still word it in a way to work as per your initial design. Just remove the exile clause from Portal, and add it as hard text on the actual spells.
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Exile this spell as it resolves.
Portal 3UU (You may cast this spell from exile for its portal cost. If you do, exile this spell as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed. If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand.)
Hopefully this helps you on your way to solving your mechanics puzzles
Otherwise, I would say I actually am into limited more than anything else, and ideally would want this set to be playable in Modern and Standard.
That was actually the first question i was going to ask. I think it doesn't get asked enough when posting custom sets, but 'where do you want this set to sit in the grand scheme of magic?' should be the questions everyone starts with. I get a sense that most people posting are trying to get their sets to fit into rotation limited,standard,modern,legacy,cube,commander,et all. But that doesn't mean your set has to satisfy all those requirements. The nice thing about doing this on your own, is that you only have to satisfy the requirements you want it to. If you want this to be a limited only set, then design for that alone. It will unburden you from having to worry about how your cards designs impact formats the set isn't playing to. Power level can be low, if you want it to be for new players, or complex and deep if you want it to be played by the enfranchised player.
I actually find it sad that Wizards hasn't figured this out yet. the game is 25 years old, and they haven't' figured out how to make expansion sets that don't impact their constructed formats and don't have to be "wacky" sets. They could easily make silver bordered limited sets that are more powerful than any ultimate masters set, and because of using silver borders, will never be standard,modern,legacy,vintage legal, but perfectly suited for sealed,draft,commander,and cube. If they are never going to produce a product line call 'Limited Cube', then i will be more than happy to lead that crusade.
Anyways, I will address i know absolutely nothing about planescape, so i will just set aside any comments on the flavor and focus on the questions of mechanical identity you are working with. You listed a great many aspects you feel are important, including establishing a full 10 two color combinations to feature with multi-color. As the adage goes, Less is More, i would definitely caution doing some distilling down to what you feel are the top three most important mechanical identities and working from there. Consider that with Ravnica it takes at least two large sets to drill down the two color combinations enough to make them feel relevant. You will likely need to do some splitting up of mechanical across a couple of sets. If you choose to do Planescape 1 through 3, it will give you good focus on individual aspects of the nature of the world and give your mechanics room to breath.
Personally i think there is a world of design space that can be explored with the exile zone. Of course every mechanic that requires special circumstances and non-battlefield zone relevance requires enablers, so if cards are going to care about being in exile, other cards are going to be required to support sending things to exile. Exile matters can easily be combined with other important aspects, such as the rule of three. For instance, you could have a creature with a trigger that at the beginning of combat checks to see if it's in exile with at least three other creatures, and for a cost, can be placed on the battlefield tapped and attacking for a turn, then exiled again. something similar to obzedat. there's a lot of possibility with zone based triggers, and that was just one lousy example.
For lands that represent the movement of planes, maybe look at the planes of this world, more like the planes of existence in Theros (the underworld, overworld, and Nyx), than disparate different worlds that planeswalkers visit. You could adapt the original designs of sagas where there is a list of abilities that cycles, but put them on the non-basic lands, to capture a mechanical identity of moving across planes within this world. It would require establishing some new ground to keep track which point on the progress you are on. When they were first making DFC's they toyed with a day/night tracker, you would need to adapt something similar to those two things to make it work. But if all non-basic lands had three or four abilities that synced up and mechanically felt like there were on the same plane, it could work. Food for though.
it's still a couple months out, but i wonder if War of the Spark will have a planeswalker matters sub theme? for a card type that only appears at mythic rarity, they will either have to lower the rarity of planeswalkers, or make it so that non-planeswalker cards have some kind of planewalkery ability. If they go that route, just wait a month and see what wizards does with it. If they don't, you can try and be the first! The problem with loyalty abilities, is they are basically activated abilities on any other card type, so they are not very special on non-planeswalkers. If you go with the planes within planescape can be walked by regular beings, you could make a hybrid of level up, that requires moving between zones in order to level up. Would get wordy in hurry on a card, so it would likely need to be managed well, but maybe vanilla creatures get activated abilities by changing zones from exile to the battlefield?
I think you posed some fun mechanical questions out there, and i love approaching these things from the bottom up, even though its meant to be a top down set, sometimes when you don't know where to start, the best place is somewhere right in the middle. Hope these suggestions get the wheels spinning for you!
You've got some good stuff started here. My eyes tend to start with the mechanical nature of a set so i do have some feedback for you on that line of logic. Out of the mechanics for Muratha, Plowshare seems to be the lynchpin for the set in defining how the environment plays out. I can see your intent is to help shore up inconsistency with draws and allow all games to play out against mana problems with this mechanic, but i think some of the details still need to be worked out. plowshare plays out in modular space, when evaluating the best possible play for plowshare cards, the intention should be that each side of the card creates a tension in determining the choice.
The power-level on many of the plowshare cards are simply below the power-level expectations of MTG's ingrained standards. Now certainly if you adjust your power level across the set such that your plowshare spells and creatures are at, and sometimes exceeds the set's baseline, this would create the desired scenarios where it's often better to play the card as is on curve, even thought it was in a land slot, and hope you'll top deck another land.
It seems that plowshare's goals wants to visually create tension in deckbuilding, but secretly wants to help stem mana issues. Without that tension, as a deckbuilder i would rather build my mana as consistently as possible and play the strongest cards that support that. And that's not to say that there aren't the other type that want to play the strongest cards in their pool regardless of mana, and they build the mana base second, but plowshare doesn't seem to fit very well in either of those deckbuilding strategies in it's current power state.
Case in point would be Alpine Fox. At double red for a vanilla 2/1, I would never consider playing that card based on it's power level to cost ratio. As a scenario, consider i'm playing green/red, and i keep a hand with a mountain and forest, and i play a forest turn one. Turn two i top deck the alpine fox. i can't play it until turn three, and that's only if i draw another mountain. i can play it as a mountain, but then i feel like i'm playing +1 land, even though i likely intended that card to be part of my turn 2 curve options. My deck now potentially feels that much weaker than my opponent's deck. the other side of that is late game, maybe i'm top decking, and i put in the alpine fox in a land slot to ease the mana flooding, unfortunately on turn 6+ a vanilla 2/1 is highly unlikely to swing the game for me without any other cards in hand.
Ways to look at balancing in Plowshare's case is that you have essentially a double faced card. So you have two distinctly different power-levels you can work with to find the right balance. One side can be over-powered with a drawback, while the other could be under powered, but with a perk. Ideally, for modal to make sense, the card wants the decision to be somewhere between 50/50 and 25/75 on how often each of the choices is being made. I should have to think hard about wanting to use alpine fox as a land rather than as a creature in order to make the card's mechanic meaningful in game play.
And i may be misunderstanding this based on the language used, but you describe plowshare as playing the cards "transformed" as a land. i'm assuming on the land side this means there are no morph or transform costs to turn the card back onto their other faces. But what if there were? That could be an interesting way to give plowshare cards some great late game value, if they have a transform trigger on some of the creatures. Would also play into the flavor nature of the set with all things spawning from the land? Anyways those are the initial thoughts i had for you. Balancing a set is not a quick task. think how many Labor hours Wizards uses up on each of their sets, they do about nine months of work. So for each team member that's approximately 40hours x 40 weeks for 1,600 hours per person. I image they probably split their time across several projects, but it's a lot of labor that goes into set creation. The trick i think is to Iterate, Iterate, and Iterate until it feels right.
Keep up the good work and i look forward to seeing your progress. This is new ground for land based mechanics here.
Pretty much Fallen Empires is so far gone from contemporary design I didn’t even attempt to make this fit with the original cards. Since I’m not making the cut on this design challenge, I did my own thing. The 14th card is a collated slot for legendaries like they are doing in Dominaria. Fallen empires takes place on Dominaria so legendary stories and people make sense.
The common refuges aren’t original design. They did all the functional reprints recently, but they never finished the enemy cycle of lands with the name “refuge” so I put that cycle in this set with Fallen Empires flavored locations.
Icatian Refuge – Common
Land
Icatian Refuge enters the battlefield tapped.
When Icatian Refuge enters the battlefield, you gain 1 life.
T: add W or R When Trokair burned, the soldiers banded together their hope and rage, and vowed to save Icatia.
Another odd aside, the original “order of” creatures were ‘cleric knights’, and the white one was a human as well. So I gave the avenger a double secondary type, as the avenger is just a lowly soldier taking up the mantle of defending the name of Leitbur.
The Word of Farrel – Common 3W
Instant
The Word of Farrel deals 4 damage divided as you choose amongst any number of attacking or blocking creatures. You gain life equal to the damage dealt in this way.
Homarid Scavenger – Common 1U
Creature – Homarid UT: Draw a card, then discard a card.
Whenever another Homarid enters the battlefield, untap Homarid Scavenger
1/1
Ebon Hand Culler – Common 2B
Creature – Human Cleric 1BT, Sacrifice a creature: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
2/3
Goblin Antics 1R
Sorcery
Goblin Antics deals 2 damage to target creature. If that creature dies this turn, create a 1/1 red goblin creature token.
Dwarven Smithee- Common 3R
Creature – Dwarf Artificer
Haste
When Dwarven Smithee enters the battlefield you may attach target equipment you control to Dwarven Smithee. If you do, that equipment becomes unattached at the beginning of the next end step.
3/2
Elvish Horticulturalist – Common 2G
When Elvish Horticulturist enters the battlefield, put a spore counter on each fungus you control.
3/2
Dwarven Pike – Common 1
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1
As long as equipped creature is a dwarf it has first strike.
Equip 2
Delif’s Rage-Hedron - Common 3
Artifact
Whenever a creature you control attacks, put a Geometric counter on Delif’s Rage-Hedron. 2R, Remove three Geometric counters from Delif’s Rage-Hedron: it deals 2 damage to target creature.
Swollen Shallows – Common
Land
Swollen Shallows enters the battlefield tapped. T: add U. 4UT, Sacrifice Swollen Shallows: Create two 1/1 blue Homarid creature tokens with " 2T, Sacrifice this creature: Tap target creature, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step."
Avenger of Leitbur - Uncommon 2W
Creature – Human Cleric Soldier
Hexproof from Black.
When Avenger of Leitbur enters the battlefield exile target creature until Avenger of Leitbur leaves the battlefield. 1W: Avenger of Leitbur gets +1/+1 and has first strike until end of turn. Activate this ability only once per turn.
2/2
Thrull Crucible – Uncommon 2B
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep create a 1/1 black Thrull creature if you control no Thrull tokens. If you can't, double the number of Thrull tokens you control.
At the beginning of your end step you lose 1 life for each Thrull token you created this turn.
Thallid Scourge – Uncommon 1G
Creature – Fungus
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Thallid Scourge.
Remove three spore counters from Thallid Scourge: Fungus you control get +1/+0 and have menace until end of turn.
2>2
King Spawn – Mythic 5UU
Creature – Homarid
Flash.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 3. If you do create three 1/1 blue Homarid Spawn tokens with "2T, sacrifice this creature: Tap target creature, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step."
7/7
Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep - Uncommon (Collated Legendary slot) 2RR
Legendary Creature – Dwarf Advisor
Trample
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep is equipped, target creature an opponent controls can't block this turn.
Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep gets +1/+0 for each equipment attached to it.
4/3
I feel most mechanics are going to have divergent evolution at this point in the game because the primary zones of game-play have been heavily mined. Anything that wants to drastically force new gameplay behaviors (at least in terms of how Rosewater presents their view) are scoffed as too 'complex' or too 'unintuitive'. there was a time when the back of a magic card was just a magic card. Imagine trying to pitch that idea of duel faced cards back during Urza's saga. They would have said 'Never!' but never say never. Anything that isn't getting weird is playing it safe at this point. Sagas being the closest thing to weird they've given us lately, is still just triggered abilities on an enchantment, with a new picture wrapper. They ask for weird from designers, but they secretly want safe, because just safe enough is what sells.
The broadest mechanics they came up with in the beginning are going to force any ability that gives extra value at casting a kicker derivative. Any ability that includes a discard functionality, a cycle derivative. And so on, for all pre-established mechanics. At this point much of the game is all about tweaking and iterating on the established. I saw Rosewater mention that during the contest, that they are paying close attention to how submitted mechanics create variations in the play behavior. It can be a derivative mechanic, but the million dollar question is "does it play differently enough for us to validate it?"
The booster pack challenge looks like a really fun one, but cranking out 14 designs from an established set would take some time. For the contestants this one is win or go home. choosing an older set with antiquated design would be ballsy, so i hope someone does it! Homelands and Fallen Empires were sold in eight card booster packs. I would totally make a fallen empires booster pack. So i think i will...
@Doomfish and Gerrard’s mom about Patrol: I definitely did not do anything different with patrol vs forecast, so that is completely valid. My though process was more so to remake forecast so the play pattern was much more ‘fun’. But it needs some tinkering to get there. I think if you shuffled up those patrol cards with an azorius mix from both ravnica sets, and then replaced them 1 for 1 with similar CMC forecast cards, I feel pretty confident patrol would play better. Gerrard’s mom, I really like your suggestion for additional enabler cards that are checking for “if you patrolled this turn NAME gets something”. A few extra cards that are at rate, but get an upside are great for the limited environment. The Elite Vangard variant was playing into that space.
In terms of hidden zone information, at REL and competitive, players adapt pretty quickly. I wouldn’t think having two patrol cards would be any different from adapting to how miracle has be played, in a very specific physical way of keeping the drawn card separate from the rest of your hand, to ensure your opponent is satisfied you are not cheating. If I happened to have a double draw of the same patrol card and first copy wasn’t on the battlefield, I would expect myself and/or my opponent to show both cards on the second activation. Not behaving in an obviously courteous manner would be a big red flag of dishonest play. Never ideal I agree, but I think it’s doable.
I really like this mechanic. I think it promotes an interesting play pattern, that is different from soulbond. I would call it more of an offshoot.
Battlemage Trainee 1R
Creature - Human Wizard Warrior (C)
Familiar - When Battlemage Trainee enters the battlefield, create a 3/1 red Elemental creature token as this creature's familiar.
Battlemage Trainee's familiar can't attack or block without Battlemage Trainee.
1/1
This is the one that really sells the mechanic for me. I like how both creatures are fragile, and that the restriction is that they have to act in unison. It feels very red to me. At cmc 2, it is really pushing rate, but that is a playtest concern. I love this one!
Primal Howler 5G
Creature - Elf Shaman (U)
Familiar - When Primal Howler enters the battlefield, create a 3/3 green Beast creature token as this creature's familiar.
At the beginning of combat, if Primal Howler is untapped, you may tap it. If you do, its familiar gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
3/3
This one is a little side heavy on P/T, and a little weak on ability for an uncommon. Two 3/3’s for cmc 6 is already well at rate in limited. One 3/3 essentially ‘protecting’ another in combat doesn’t drive excitement in driving variability of combat and board state, (But man is it spikey, my inner spike loves this card at rate. Getting to beat face or trade for a 6/6 and still having a ‘free’ 3/3 for six mana is nuts).
Analyst of the Unreal 2UB
Creature - Vampire Wizard (U)
Familiar - When Analyst of the Unreal enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token as this creature's familiar.
Whenever a token you don't control dies, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token. That token is Analyst of the Unreal's familiar.
2/4
A lot of the judges feedback talk about “tension”, and this card is an example what tension does. As the controller of this card, I wouldn’t want my cards to have to trigger primarily on my opponent’s actions. Sure it’s in color that shares removal, but how many times in an average hand am I going to be able to dictate this trigger, vs how many times in that same game is my opponent going to have more decision making control over my own trigger than me? I’m guessing the fear is if it’s my trigger I’ll abuse it. Sure, but it’s only going to get me so far, especially as losing any better token is only going to net me a 1/1. I actually like the idea of this creature endlessly looping the same 1/1 every time it dies. Some kind of drawback tied to this creature’s familiars would also allow you to make the card ‘safe’ while allowing me to be in control of my creatures and triggers, rather than giving that power to my opponent.
Essence Binder 2U
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Familiar - When Essence Binder enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token as this creature's familiar.
2U: Essence Binder's familiar becomes a copy of target creature until end of turn.
1/3
I really like the base shell on this creature, and another great card to provide a toolset to make use of the familiar mechanic. Some thoughts to make it strong enough and ‘splashy’ (I really don’t know why they can’t find a better adjective) enough to make it feel like a great build around rare for limited. I would expect this creature to be making Illusion token familiars as that seems more on flavor. Plus it would give a drawback to at least give the opponent something to try and keep from getting blown out by this creature, by adding the illusion sacrifice trigger. There’s some knobs to fiddle with on the illusion version, but like mimic vat, it could allow you to ‘flash’ them in either to block, or endstep so they have haste, as a copy of a creature, with mimic vat’s end step sacrifice trigger. CMC and rates would need some tinkering, but oh the potential. This one’s a winner in my book.
Temple Cistern – The triggered ablity is spot on for a white build around. It’s going back to Magic 2011’s lifegain theme. I get the cycling ability plays into that, but my inner spike tells me that while I appreciate the 3 mana draw a card gain two life, that feels like it should be in a control shell, and the actual enchantment’s ability is for a mid-range deck. I feel conflicted on whether I would choose this card for anything other than the midrange usage. Double white at cmc 2 is rough, especially when you want this down turn two in limited.
Battleshroud templar – Rate is broken. I would mulligan down to three/four cards just to find this and a plains. On the play I’m getting a 3/2 lifelink that my opponent only has two turn early turns to destroy it. If i'm on curve, my turn three they can't stop it. It will trade with their creatures for four turns with first strike. Unfortunately I would call this unprintable. Like Serra Ascendant, it’s fine that it will exceed rate, but it needs some hoops to jump through first.
Quaxl shroomchanter – for commons sticking close to established rate and P/T are critically important is these cards are the backbone of all limited play design. It’s not that blue doesn’t get a canyon minotaur at common, but they are exceedingly rare. And oddly enough both commons printed with this cmc and P/T combination in the last decade have a mill trigger. This card is deceptively spikey, and I think a lot of players would fail to read the utility it has at print. As is, it reads: Exhort one of your creatures this turn, or sleep a creature an opponent controls. It needs some fixing as mechanically as those are disparate abilities to choose, and they feel unintended.
Spelltrap – I like this a lot, and it plays into a lot of great blue ‘steal you stuff’ spells at higher CMC’s. It needs a larger cost though, it’s so ridiculously strong at five mana. Depending on what the opponent is doing this could very easily close out a game with this one counterspell. I wouldn’t want to have to play against this costing anything less than six/seven mana. To ensure value, it could potentially look at graveyards so it can find a spell even when your opponents have wheeled out their hands.
Quivering fungooze – I like seeing oozes in black. Fun choice! Black by design doesn’t get to play around with artifacts outside of an ‘artifact set’ like Mirrodin, so that would want some tweaking. As printed, this ability feels 100% green to me, which is working against your movment in black. I would expect this ability on a black card to maybe put the +1/+1 counter on the ooze, then drain/gain life based on it’s power? Something along those lines would push it firmly into black.
Hargat, the darkwood witch – opposite your white rare the rates on this cards feel suppressed. Discard abilities on a late-game creature always feel underwhelming. Your opponent has had all game to set up their board state, so I find forcing discards to be less impactful. Yes, maybe it’s their one hold-out card, but you’re not devastating them making a discard on turn nine. I think rate fiddling, and having some fun with the first and third abilities would turn this into a great Vorthos and Melvin card.
Badland scourge – I’m just seeing this as an easier to cast ball lightning that only does four damage, and as an uncommon is close to pushing rate in most limited environments. When talking about tension and meaningful choices for both players, this card has none. Unless the opponent has a really limited appeal removal that they aren’t going to use against anything else, such as fungal infection (ruining your day after spending four mana on this!), they are going to go “block with the 1/1, take four”, you and basically cast a red sorcery. It doesn’t give either player a meaningful choice.
Firestrike – i really like this design for a red targeted sweeper. There’s not much similar to it beyond Cone of Flame, and cones are awesome. So kudos on finding new design space! The card needs either a max target ceiling, or an X in the cost. Makes perfect sense to give it a small restriction even at rare. In multiplayer, it’s wrath of God and earthquake combined, where if there is enough creatures on the battlefield, I kill all my opponents with 10+ damage.
Wurmbound – based on flavor, I would expect this to create the token on enters the battlefield, and then somehow tie the two creatures together in fate. Mechanically I think it’s a doable plummet variant that could build some fun play tension in a limited environment. Definitely some good new space being explored with this one! My suggestion is to keep tinkering until you strike gold.
Tracker’s Mastery – Good new use of using an aura to give a creature a fight ability. The only real issue is the wording is clunky and took me several reads to make sure I understood the trigger correctly. I’m not a rules guru, but I think “(T): This creature fights target attacking or blocking creature.” Will clear that right up?
Though I pointed out areas that could be improved, overall I really enjoyed several of your concepts including Firestrike, spelltrap and quivering fungooze. Those feel like they could be very fun, impactful cards. You’ve got some great ideas, keep it up!
Visit the Sacred Pool – Valid entry to make a build around enchant lands card. Would be a weird limited environment if that was a play strategy though. Maybe that will be Return to Theros!
Sighted-Cast War Priest – They said they wanted a ‘spike friendly’ but even that wasn’t very specific. Limited play spikes will rejoice. Constructed spikes will go “meh”. Great rates and abilities in sealed and draft, but the fact that you have to play equipment in constructed will turn off a lot of players. I would say this is wizard’s fault for not being specific, so I will give you a win.
Amphin spellcaster – I like the restriction that this finds a ‘buddy color” spell, but rate on this for a common is not fun to play against. I really don’t want you to doom blade me twice in the first four turns and have it be all value for you. Serious feelbads for the opponent.
Cabal Ritualist – You fixed viscera Seer! Or least ensured it won’t combo endlessly in eternal formats. Solid design and good build around. I think with two activated abilities you would be officially flagged as too complex for common though.
Deathrite Matriarch – You saw it was elf as well, we should get bonus points for that. As is the design feels rare, and not quite mythic. I find where that invisible distinction lies is somewhere at the junction of flavor, overall body, and activation/trigger ability. The body and combat ability is underwhelming for 5 mana. The activation/trigger ability is close, for a black creature I would have expected a sacrifice trigger to get the mana. If this ability got stronger, I could see it balancing against a weaker creature. As is, it feels fair enough I would expect the creature to be beefier.
Surreal instigator – close on rate to skizzik. If I was drafting this, I would like to see it be a 3/5 so I’m not trading with a grizzly bear. I’d probably pass it and draft a shock instead otherwise (and make the player who plays this against me really sad). Otherwise solid uncommon hasty red dude design.
Spears of Heaven – love the reveal the top of your library cards design. Since there’s a lot of whiffing that will come naturally from that, I would be careful not to hamstring the resolution of the effect. I think at rare it would be fair to name a target for each card revealed to receive individual damage without having to match CMC. To aid in low damage potential you could target the same thing multiple times. Putting the revealed cards either in the graveyard or bottom of the library seems smart as well. I like this one.
Ambush hands – Feels like this should be a spell. The damage prevention would only be impactful as an aura if the environment involved fights breaking out every turn. (fight club land?).
Cabal Ritualist and Spears of Heaven were my favorites. I would draft those all day long.
I went more out of my normal comfort zones on these ones, and really threw some wacky designs against the wall. Some may stick, other’s probably wont. About halfway through I started feeling a Nordic vibe, so just started wiking some Viking words and names. I double any of them are accurate titles, but they look pretty. The art on C, after looking closely I see long elf ears, so I chose to associate it with green. Time dilation Aetherwall makes me laugh. The creatures you attack with disappear for a turn then return the next turn attacking. Super flavorful, but it's an Aaron Forsyth Web comic card for sure. With absolutely no practical application, if anyone can think of one please let me know!
Steps of Vallhala – Uncommon - Art (K) 1W
Enchantment
Whenever one or more creatures you control deals combat damage to an opponent, you may exile target creature you control, then return that creature to the battlefield.
Battlemaster of Thune - Rare – Art (B) 2W
Creature – Human Monk
Flash, Lifelink.
When Battlemaster of Thune enters the battlefield, you may destroy up to one target creature that dealt damage to you this turn. If you don't, put a +1/+1 counter on Battlemaster of Thune.
2>2
Fluxmage of Sorla þattr - Common - Art (A) 3U
Creature – Merfolk
When Fluxmage of Sorla þattr enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library, you may reveal an artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less and put that card into your hand. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
1>3
Time Dilation Aetherwall – Mythic - Art (G) 5UU
Enchantment
Whenever a creature attacks, Exile that creature. At the beginning of combat on each player's turn, that player returns each creature they own exiled by Time Dilation Aetherwall to the battlefield tapped and attacking.
Supplicant of Heoinn – Common - Art (E) B
Creature – Human Sycophant
Deathtouch
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, Supplicant of Heoinn gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
1/1
Hogni, Purger of the Weak - Mythic – Art (F) 6B
Creature – Demon
Flying, Trample.
When Hogni, Purger of the Weak enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to each creature an opponent controls. Put a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature destroyed in this way.
5/4
Hellion of Cignis – Uncommon - Art (D) 4R
Creature – Hellion
Haste.
When Hellion of Cignas enters the battlefield, it deals 4 damage to target creature with flying.
Ragnarok – Rare - Art (I) 2R
Instant
Each player chooses a land they control at random. Destroy each of the chosen lands.
At the beginning of the next end step each player creates a 1/1 White warrior creature token.
Einherjar (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a creature entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for each copy)
Warrior’s Prayer – Common - Art (C) 2G
Sorcery
Target creature you control gets +3/+3 and fights target creature you don't control.
Vines of Eiríksmal – Uncommon - Art (J) 2G
Enchantment – Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature becomes a land in addition to its other types. It gains: “T: Add G. If that mana is spent on a creature spell, it enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter.”
here's my submissions for Challenge #3: Mechanical Design
After going over one of Rosewaters storm scale rankings, I saw that forecast from the original Ravnica has an “8”. Considering how beloved the original Ravnica block was, this means that the original Azorius ability was very poorly received. It did lead to repetitive gameplay, and as an upkeep trigger, being forced to pay the cost without draw information locked a lot of players into a loop.
I tried to brainstorm how a ‘fixed’ version of forecast could play into the Azorius and synergize mechanically and flavorfully with arrest (which was a 3 and an immediate improvement). Revealing cards from the hand and essentially getting a ‘free’ spell, can be dangerous in gameplay patterns, if not restricted. Unfortunately MTG doesn’t have a good rules paradigm to control these kinds of effects, so the execution is not without issue, but in the same vein, so are mechanics such as duel faced cards and rebound, and flashback, and another other ability that evoke gameplay, triggers, and memory concerns.
Ironic that we are Returning to Return to Ravnica. I brainstormed this idea earlier in the winter, so I guess I was on track. I am introducing “Patrol” to MTG, to flavorfully connect the studious and dutiful Azorius to working a beat on the mean streets of ravnica and enforcing the law.
Lyev Riot Guard - Common
3U
Creature – Vedelken Soldier
Patrol - 1U, Reveal Lyev Riot Guard from your hand: Detain target creature. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
2/4
Buried in Paperwork - Common
2U
Sorcery
Patrol - U, Reveal buried in Paperwork from your hand, Scry 2. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card).
Draw 2 cards.
Azorius Cadet - Common W
Creature – Human Soldier
When you Patrol, Azorius Cadet gains first strike until end of turn.
2/1
Department of Warrents - Uncommon
1U
Enchantment
Whenever you patrol, you may detain target nonland permanent an opponent controls.
Search and Seizure - Uncommon
2W
Instant
Patrol - WU, Reveal Search and Seizure from your hand: Look at target player's hand, you gain life equal the number of cards in that player’s hand. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
Put target creature into its owner’s library second from the top.
Overwatch Lieutenant - Rare
3W
Creature – Human Knight
Patrol - 2W, Reveal Overwatch Lieutenant from your hand: create two 1/1 soldier tokens and you gain 1 life for each creature you control. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
Whenever you patrol, creatures you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance until end of turn.
3/3
Eagle-Eye Roc – Rare
3WW
Creature - Bird
Flying U, Reveal Eagle-Eye Watcher from your hand: Put a surveillance counter on target nonland permanent an opponent controls. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery)
When NAME enters the battlefield, detain each permanent with a surveillance counter on it.
3/4
Cecelia, District 12 Mayor – Mythic
3WUR
Creature – Angel
Vigilance. Flying. Haste.
Whenever you patrol, exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card. If you do, you gain 3 life, and Cecelia, District 12 Mayor deals 3 damage to any target.
5/5
I believe these challenges actually took place over March/April, they are steamrolling them right out at us. Challenge #4 is already posted:
Often in design, we have to design to constraints. One of the more challenging design constraints is art. You see, late in the set design process we occasionally have to change cards after the art has been completed (what we call "hole filling"). When that happens, we have to design the new card to the art. This week's design challenge is going to force you to design to art. Here's the assignment:
You are going to design ten cards. Each card will have a mechanical constraint spelled out below.
In addition to the mechanical constraint, for each card design you will have to choose a piece of art (from the twelve provided) to design to. No two cards may use the same piece of art, meaning you will be using ten of the twelve pieces of art.
The card's color and rarity will all be spelled out in its constraint.
No more than three cards may be of the same card type. The one exception is you can have five creatures, as five of the mechanical constraints ask for creatures.
Cards must exactly match the card's constraint. A red card can't be turned into a red-green card, for example.
Assume all the cards you are designing are in the same Standard-legal expansion.
You may use only evergreen mechanics with the exception of one non-evergreen mechanic which may appear on no more than two cards.
Flavor is extra important on this assignment, so take extra care with your names. You may submit flavor text as long it's 100% your creation and it would fit on the card with the rules text provided. Good flavor text can help give context to your overall card.
Here are the criteria for your ten cards:
Card #1: White (uncommon) – We want a build-around noncreature for Draft. (It encourages the player to draft a theme that they might not normally.)
Card #2: White (rare) – We want a Spike-friendly creature.
Card #3: Blue (common) – We want a creature without evasion.
Card #4: Blue (mythic rare) – We want a super-exciting enchantment.
Card #5: Black (common) – We want a creature with an activated ability.
Card #6: Black (mythic rare) – We want a splashy creature for Timmy/Tammy.
Card #7: Red (uncommon) – We want a creature that costs four or more.
Card #8: Red (rare) – We want a weird Johnny/Jenny-style instant or sorcery.
Card #9: Green (common) – We want a noncreature spell for Limited.
Card # 10: Green (uncommon) – We want a quirky Aura.
And here are your art choices:
Your cards will be judged on the following criteria:
Matching Art – Our guest judge will be Jenna Helland, a member of the Creative team, who will specifically be judging how appropriate your card designs are for the art chosen.
Matching Mechanical Constraints – The art isn't the only constraint you're going to be judged on. Failure to match a mechanical restraint will also be a big strike against you.
Flavor – Your names, and flavor text if you use it, are going to carry more weight than normal as they have to help explain the overall feel of the card.
Creativity – An important part of designing to constraints is finding ways to do so that defy expectations. The best hole-filling designs often solve the problem by tackling it in an unconventional way.
Originality – You're not just showing off your ability to match constraints, you're also showing off your individual card designs. We want to see some innovation as you are "hole filling."
Color Pie Appropriateness – Matching color means staying within the color pie constraints. Bends are allowed if appropriate (although be frugal with them), but breaks are not.
Rarity Appropriateness – Your designs need to fit into the rarity you're designing for. Think about things like complexity and impact on Limited.
Card Type Appropriateness – Make sure that your cards are properly representing the card type they're in.
In between the mana cost and the card type, you will have a line for the art. Please list the art by the codename. An example:
Giant Growth
G
Art: Leap
Instant
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Comments: You will have up to 250 words to say whatever you want about your design. You are free to talk about individual cards, but I would suggest spending some of your words explaining holistically what you were up to with your overall design.
Goblin shenanigans 3RR
Sorcery (U)
For each creature and player, flip a coin. For every coin that comes up
heads Goblin Shenanigans deals 2 damage to that creature or player.
For every coin that comes up tales, if it's a creature, that creature
can't block this turn.
Krark wagered that his debt collectors could handle one more game of chance. The odds weren't the only thing Krark lost that day.
Conqueror (As this enters the battlefield, put a conquer counter on an opponent land, it becomes captured by you.)
This feels like a state based binary mode to me. Similar to how a creature is either monstrous, or not monstrous. If the game play of Armulun wants to have control battles, conquering lands in terms of game play flow, should incorporate some sort of tit-for-tat to create some tension of having lands being conquered back and forth.
Personally I don’t like using counters to track binary states. Separating those cards on the battlefield is typically sufficient for memory tracking purposes. Much like how when a card is banished people tend to put it to a corner on their board, until it returns. Another alternative could be to have a tracker players are using, like with poison counters, and the board state could care about conquered thresholds like Ixalan did with the ‘City’s Blessing”.
Consider:
Border Patrol W
Creature - Dwarf Soldier C
Conquer (As this enters the battlefield, you may conquer target land an opponent controls. If you have conquered five or more lands an opponent controls you Reign Supreme over that player.)
For each player you reign supreme over, Border Patrol gets +1/+1 for each tapped land that player controls.
1/1
Obviously it plays very different from your initial design, but it does help with memory issues by establishing thresholds so that once hit threshold, you no long have to keep track of.
Inter (X: Exile this face down with X deep counters on it. You can cast it paying X less to cast it.)
This is exploring some space somewhere between suspend, delve, and the pact spells. Mechanically from your example this is a stable looking mechanic. I think it would need to be costed in a balanced way to ensure given that with the blue counterspell example it could be abusive for the blue player if they start ahead of an opponent who is behind. Cleaning up the template, I would consider recosting the spell for a common, and make sure it does some good things for the cost. Consider:
Serpents Invulnerability 2UU
Instant C
Counter target spell.
Scry 2.
Inter (Pay X and exile this card from your hand face down with X deep counters on it. You may cast this card from exile. It costs X less to where X is equal to the number of deep counters on it.)
Reshape
Making my creatures weaker to make an opponent discard cards is full of feel bads unless I know I’m going to get great value on returns through some kind of graveyard shenanigans. Unless I know my opponent has a big bomb card in hand that I need to hit, I would probably never activate this ability, unless the damage was somehow completely negated, I.E. Pacifism effect. For me I think this ability needs some restructuring to make it at least fun in some way. Mechanically speaking, instant speed, repeatable discard is also very degenerate. Mana costs are typical for this type of ability, at the very least this card should look similar to:
Internalized Dark 1BB
Creature - Shade C
Reshape – B,T, Put a -1/-1 counter on Internalized Dark: Target opponent discards a card. Activate this ability only as a sorcery.
3/2
Lost Counters
I’m looking at this ability, and wondering how to mechanically make that work. Consider cumulative upkeep. It uses age counters to track the cost of the ability trigger. But putting age counters on a permanent without the cumulative upkeep ability doesn’t create one for that permanent. From the comprehensive rules:
So in other words there has to be additional rules creation to allow a creature that has a lost counter placed on it, to act in the way you expect, because the counter itself does not create an effect.
Like Conquer, Lost would need to become a state based action, that changes the expected state of the permanent in question. Either the creature is lost, or not lost. But having lost counters on a creature doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in a lost state.
702.16. Lost –
700.16.a - A creature that becomes lost gains “This creature can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless its controller pay X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on it.”
700.16.b - A lost creature can have any number of lost counters placed on it.
700.16.c – Multiple instances of lost on the same object are redundant.
Cleaning up the templates, to make these creatures work as you intended they would need to read along the lines of:
Tunnel Illutions U
Sorcery U
Up to three target creatures become lost. Distrubute three lost counters among those creatures. (Those creatures can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless their controller pays X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on that creature.)
Lost Survivior 1W
Creature - Human Soldier U
Whenever Lost Survivior dies, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with two lost counters on it. It becomes lost. (Lost creatures can’t attack, block, or activate abilities unless their controller pays X, where X is equal to the number of lost counters on that creature.)
2/2
In summary:
I think there’s some good opportunity here to make a solid top down set design around this underground world. What I would pay attention to, is how your mechanics synergize. Conquering lands, and being lost based on the mechanics you have created don’t seem to want to play around in the same game space very much. Inter is very by itself as well. I think this set could benefit from some tinkering to bring together some cohesion. I mentioned tit-for-tat, maybe having cards that care about the conquered state that then cause opponents creatures to become lost would alleviate some the synergy concerns, and creature a game flow where both players are vying to establish board control could make for a great game play environment. Most players aren’t going to want to instinctively play downside cards unless they can convert those downsides into an upside. There’s a reason why Mercadian Masques block is quite reviled. That’s not to say that board state control fights are all bad, they just need to be managed so that each player feels like they are in control of the fight, and not just suffering from it. I would consider some of the ideas I’ve put out there. I see a lot of potential for Armulun - The Core, but no set can achieve that potential without refinement.
Also, As you’ve been posting cards, I recommend grouping them: Rarity/Color/CMC. Something along those lines. When evaluating a set as a whole, it’s easier to see the forest for the trees when the design skeleton is well lined out. You’re doing great, so keep plugging along, I’d be happy to provide additional feedback on individual designs once the whole set is complete.
Human Intervention 2W
Instant (C)
Create two 1/1 white Human creature tokens. They gain indestructible until end of turn.
Vampire's Kiss 2BB
Sorcery (U)
Target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life.
Exile Vampire's Kiss as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed attached to that player.
//
Curse of Conveyance
Enchantment (color indicator - black)
Enchant Player
At the beginning of each end step, if a creature controlled by enchanted player died this turn, that player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
I like the mechanical space this explores a lot better than recover did in Coldsnap. Though whenever playing around with getting spells back all mechanics can be reduced to either a buyback or flashback derivative. Not anyone's fault, Magic just happened to jump on those notions early. So the question really becomes: Does this version enable fun gameplay in the environment it's being featured in?
I like "Lore" as the best flavor name to mechanical connection. I like the natural world of indigenous people vibe that lore gives. An Oral recitation of knowledge of the world. Good stuff.
Nuts and bolts on the Lore mechanic as templated with Tale of the two wolves:
To balance Lore, it should require some kind of hoop, beyond needing a creature to ETB. Mana costs are always a good way to craft balance. There are so many cast from the graveyard variants, i like this one returning to hand. The other part of that, since it's going back to hand, can be looped (hopefully not as degenerately as buyback) you may want to add a clause to ensure only one spell gets to go back to the hand with each ETB trigger.
Lore - 1G (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, If no other card with Lore has been returned to your hand this turn, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand)
obviously this would disrupt if you want multiple spells to return for different ETB's in a turn. In that case if you want to maintain that functionality you could write it as such:
Lore - 1G (Whenever a Bard, Cleric, Shaman, or Druid enters the battlefield under your control, You may pay the lore cost of a card in your graveyard. If you do, you may return that card from your graveyard to your hand)
In theory that should cap it to a single card returning per ETB activation. I might be wrong about that templating. One last thought, To clean up the template, for this environment you may want to create a new creature type. Since it's lore you could go with something along the lines of 'Orator'. Creatures could be a Human Bard Orator, or just Human Orator. Depends on the individual designs. But it would clean up your template. Only downside is it becomes a parasitic mechanic. So what formats you're designing to will affect this decision for you.
Lore - 1G (Whenever an orator enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay the lore cost of a card in your graveyard. If you do, you may return that card from your graveyard to your hand.)
Anyways hopefully those suggestions help you to keep moving forward.
Jace, The Guildpact Reforged 2UU
Planeswalker - Jace (M)
+1: Each player reveals the top card of their library. You may put the revealed cards on the bottom of their owners' libraries. If you don't, each player draws a card.
-2: Create a legendary 0/1 blue human illusion creature token named Jace. It has "whenever a creature attacks a planeswalker you control, all damage that would be dealt to it by unblocked creatures this turn, is dealt to Jace instead."
-6: Choose a color. Target opponent reveals cards from the top of their library. If four cards of the chosen color are revealed in this way, that player puts the revealed cards into their graveyard. Otherwise that player shuffles all revealed cards into their library.
3
I thought about this for a little bit, and i looked over the design for Ethereal Jaunt, and i see what you mean. You want to be able to portal spells into permanents using DFC tech. Of course based on the rules, if you blink/flicker a transformed permanent it resets to its front face. There aren't a lot of good solutions mechanically speaking. My though process went to the idea of establishing a rules rider inside of the Portal mechanic that creates a delayed replacement effect along the lines of "If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand". similar to the rider used to keep spells from being abused by exiling them from the stack. While you couldn't blink portal cards in the traditional sense, it would allow portal cards to be recast, and still have added value. Balancing activation costs would ensure that it's not too format warping like buyback, since you will almost always get portal cards back in your hand.
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Portal 3UU (Exile this spell as it resolves. You may cast it transformed from exile for its Portal cost.)
///
Ethereal Marauder
Creature - Beast (C)
U: Return Ethereal Marauder to its owner's hand.
3/3
this would adjust the design along the lines of:
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Portal 3UU (You may cast this spell for its portal cost. If you do, exile this spell as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed. If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand.)
///
Ethereal Marauder
Creature - Beast (C)
U: Ethereal Marauder gains hexproof until end of turn.
3/3
The combination of hexproof and the adjusted function of portal would allow this card to be very similar functionally to what you wanted it to be in most game play scenarios, with it's blinking effect.
Based on your wording for Portal, which of the two costs is being used to cast it the first time, and which cost is from exile cost the second time? it's worded a little confusing unfortunately.I see that you like the idea of it being a flashback variant, with the cast twice design, but don't forget a lot of fun the game comes from creating decision points with spells, do i cast the small effect now, or save up for the big effect later. If that's not what you're looking to do, you can still word it in a way to work as per your initial design. Just remove the exile clause from Portal, and add it as hard text on the actual spells.
Ethereal Jaunt U
Instant (C)
Return target creature or planeswalker to its owner's hand.
Exile this spell as it resolves.
Portal 3UU (You may cast this spell from exile for its portal cost. If you do, exile this spell as it resolves, then return it to the battlefield transformed. If it would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand.)
Hopefully this helps you on your way to solving your mechanics puzzles
That was actually the first question i was going to ask. I think it doesn't get asked enough when posting custom sets, but 'where do you want this set to sit in the grand scheme of magic?' should be the questions everyone starts with. I get a sense that most people posting are trying to get their sets to fit into rotation limited,standard,modern,legacy,cube,commander,et all. But that doesn't mean your set has to satisfy all those requirements. The nice thing about doing this on your own, is that you only have to satisfy the requirements you want it to. If you want this to be a limited only set, then design for that alone. It will unburden you from having to worry about how your cards designs impact formats the set isn't playing to. Power level can be low, if you want it to be for new players, or complex and deep if you want it to be played by the enfranchised player.
I actually find it sad that Wizards hasn't figured this out yet. the game is 25 years old, and they haven't' figured out how to make expansion sets that don't impact their constructed formats and don't have to be "wacky" sets. They could easily make silver bordered limited sets that are more powerful than any ultimate masters set, and because of using silver borders, will never be standard,modern,legacy,vintage legal, but perfectly suited for sealed,draft,commander,and cube. If they are never going to produce a product line call 'Limited Cube', then i will be more than happy to lead that crusade.
Anyways, I will address i know absolutely nothing about planescape, so i will just set aside any comments on the flavor and focus on the questions of mechanical identity you are working with. You listed a great many aspects you feel are important, including establishing a full 10 two color combinations to feature with multi-color. As the adage goes, Less is More, i would definitely caution doing some distilling down to what you feel are the top three most important mechanical identities and working from there. Consider that with Ravnica it takes at least two large sets to drill down the two color combinations enough to make them feel relevant. You will likely need to do some splitting up of mechanical across a couple of sets. If you choose to do Planescape 1 through 3, it will give you good focus on individual aspects of the nature of the world and give your mechanics room to breath.
Personally i think there is a world of design space that can be explored with the exile zone. Of course every mechanic that requires special circumstances and non-battlefield zone relevance requires enablers, so if cards are going to care about being in exile, other cards are going to be required to support sending things to exile. Exile matters can easily be combined with other important aspects, such as the rule of three. For instance, you could have a creature with a trigger that at the beginning of combat checks to see if it's in exile with at least three other creatures, and for a cost, can be placed on the battlefield tapped and attacking for a turn, then exiled again. something similar to obzedat. there's a lot of possibility with zone based triggers, and that was just one lousy example.
For lands that represent the movement of planes, maybe look at the planes of this world, more like the planes of existence in Theros (the underworld, overworld, and Nyx), than disparate different worlds that planeswalkers visit. You could adapt the original designs of sagas where there is a list of abilities that cycles, but put them on the non-basic lands, to capture a mechanical identity of moving across planes within this world. It would require establishing some new ground to keep track which point on the progress you are on. When they were first making DFC's they toyed with a day/night tracker, you would need to adapt something similar to those two things to make it work. But if all non-basic lands had three or four abilities that synced up and mechanically felt like there were on the same plane, it could work. Food for though.
it's still a couple months out, but i wonder if War of the Spark will have a planeswalker matters sub theme? for a card type that only appears at mythic rarity, they will either have to lower the rarity of planeswalkers, or make it so that non-planeswalker cards have some kind of planewalkery ability. If they go that route, just wait a month and see what wizards does with it. If they don't, you can try and be the first! The problem with loyalty abilities, is they are basically activated abilities on any other card type, so they are not very special on non-planeswalkers. If you go with the planes within planescape can be walked by regular beings, you could make a hybrid of level up, that requires moving between zones in order to level up. Would get wordy in hurry on a card, so it would likely need to be managed well, but maybe vanilla creatures get activated abilities by changing zones from exile to the battlefield?
I think you posed some fun mechanical questions out there, and i love approaching these things from the bottom up, even though its meant to be a top down set, sometimes when you don't know where to start, the best place is somewhere right in the middle. Hope these suggestions get the wheels spinning for you!
You've got some good stuff started here. My eyes tend to start with the mechanical nature of a set so i do have some feedback for you on that line of logic. Out of the mechanics for Muratha, Plowshare seems to be the lynchpin for the set in defining how the environment plays out. I can see your intent is to help shore up inconsistency with draws and allow all games to play out against mana problems with this mechanic, but i think some of the details still need to be worked out. plowshare plays out in modular space, when evaluating the best possible play for plowshare cards, the intention should be that each side of the card creates a tension in determining the choice.
The power-level on many of the plowshare cards are simply below the power-level expectations of MTG's ingrained standards. Now certainly if you adjust your power level across the set such that your plowshare spells and creatures are at, and sometimes exceeds the set's baseline, this would create the desired scenarios where it's often better to play the card as is on curve, even thought it was in a land slot, and hope you'll top deck another land.
It seems that plowshare's goals wants to visually create tension in deckbuilding, but secretly wants to help stem mana issues. Without that tension, as a deckbuilder i would rather build my mana as consistently as possible and play the strongest cards that support that. And that's not to say that there aren't the other type that want to play the strongest cards in their pool regardless of mana, and they build the mana base second, but plowshare doesn't seem to fit very well in either of those deckbuilding strategies in it's current power state.
Case in point would be Alpine Fox. At double red for a vanilla 2/1, I would never consider playing that card based on it's power level to cost ratio. As a scenario, consider i'm playing green/red, and i keep a hand with a mountain and forest, and i play a forest turn one. Turn two i top deck the alpine fox. i can't play it until turn three, and that's only if i draw another mountain. i can play it as a mountain, but then i feel like i'm playing +1 land, even though i likely intended that card to be part of my turn 2 curve options. My deck now potentially feels that much weaker than my opponent's deck. the other side of that is late game, maybe i'm top decking, and i put in the alpine fox in a land slot to ease the mana flooding, unfortunately on turn 6+ a vanilla 2/1 is highly unlikely to swing the game for me without any other cards in hand.
Ways to look at balancing in Plowshare's case is that you have essentially a double faced card. So you have two distinctly different power-levels you can work with to find the right balance. One side can be over-powered with a drawback, while the other could be under powered, but with a perk. Ideally, for modal to make sense, the card wants the decision to be somewhere between 50/50 and 25/75 on how often each of the choices is being made. I should have to think hard about wanting to use alpine fox as a land rather than as a creature in order to make the card's mechanic meaningful in game play.
And i may be misunderstanding this based on the language used, but you describe plowshare as playing the cards "transformed" as a land. i'm assuming on the land side this means there are no morph or transform costs to turn the card back onto their other faces. But what if there were? That could be an interesting way to give plowshare cards some great late game value, if they have a transform trigger on some of the creatures. Would also play into the flavor nature of the set with all things spawning from the land? Anyways those are the initial thoughts i had for you. Balancing a set is not a quick task. think how many Labor hours Wizards uses up on each of their sets, they do about nine months of work. So for each team member that's approximately 40hours x 40 weeks for 1,600 hours per person. I image they probably split their time across several projects, but it's a lot of labor that goes into set creation. The trick i think is to Iterate, Iterate, and Iterate until it feels right.
Keep up the good work and i look forward to seeing your progress. This is new ground for land based mechanics here.
The common refuges aren’t original design. They did all the functional reprints recently, but they never finished the enemy cycle of lands with the name “refuge” so I put that cycle in this set with Fallen Empires flavored locations.
Icatian Refuge – Common
Land
Icatian Refuge enters the battlefield tapped.
When Icatian Refuge enters the battlefield, you gain 1 life.
T: add W or R
When Trokair burned, the soldiers banded together their hope and rage, and vowed to save Icatia.
Another odd aside, the original “order of” creatures were ‘cleric knights’, and the white one was a human as well. So I gave the avenger a double secondary type, as the avenger is just a lowly soldier taking up the mantle of defending the name of Leitbur.
3W
Instant
The Word of Farrel deals 4 damage divided as you choose amongst any number of attacking or blocking creatures. You gain life equal to the damage dealt in this way.
Homarid Scavenger – Common
1U
Creature – Homarid
UT: Draw a card, then discard a card.
Whenever another Homarid enters the battlefield, untap Homarid Scavenger
1/1
Ebon Hand Culler – Common
2B
Creature – Human Cleric
1BT, Sacrifice a creature: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
2/3
Goblin Antics
1R
Sorcery
Goblin Antics deals 2 damage to target creature. If that creature dies this turn, create a 1/1 red goblin creature token.
Dwarven Smithee- Common
3R
Creature – Dwarf Artificer
Haste
When Dwarven Smithee enters the battlefield you may attach target equipment you control to Dwarven Smithee. If you do, that equipment becomes unattached at the beginning of the next end step.
3/2
Elvish Horticulturalist – Common
2G
When Elvish Horticulturist enters the battlefield, put a spore counter on each fungus you control.
3/2
Dwarven Pike – Common
1
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1
As long as equipped creature is a dwarf it has first strike.
Equip 2
Delif’s Rage-Hedron - Common
3
Artifact
Whenever a creature you control attacks, put a Geometric counter on Delif’s Rage-Hedron.
2R, Remove three Geometric counters from Delif’s Rage-Hedron: it deals 2 damage to target creature.
Swollen Shallows – Common
Land
Swollen Shallows enters the battlefield tapped.
T: add U.
4UT, Sacrifice Swollen Shallows: Create two 1/1 blue Homarid creature tokens with " 2 T, Sacrifice this creature: Tap target creature, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step."
Avenger of Leitbur - Uncommon
2W
Creature – Human Cleric Soldier
Hexproof from Black.
When Avenger of Leitbur enters the battlefield exile target creature until Avenger of Leitbur leaves the battlefield.
1W: Avenger of Leitbur gets +1/+1 and has first strike until end of turn. Activate this ability only once per turn.
2/2
Thrull Crucible – Uncommon
2B
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep create a 1/1 black Thrull creature if you control no Thrull tokens. If you can't, double the number of Thrull tokens you control.
At the beginning of your end step you lose 1 life for each Thrull token you created this turn.
Thallid Scourge – Uncommon
1G
Creature – Fungus
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Thallid Scourge.
Remove three spore counters from Thallid Scourge: Fungus you control get +1/+0 and have menace until end of turn.
2>2
King Spawn – Mythic
5UU
Creature – Homarid
Flash.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 3. If you do create three 1/1 blue Homarid Spawn tokens with "2T, sacrifice this creature: Tap target creature, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step."
7/7
Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep - Uncommon (Collated Legendary slot)
2RR
Legendary Creature – Dwarf Advisor
Trample
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep is equipped, target creature an opponent controls can't block this turn.
Tor Vignir, Bane of Gurn Keep gets +1/+0 for each equipment attached to it.
4/3
Plains - Common
Basic Land
T: Add W
The broadest mechanics they came up with in the beginning are going to force any ability that gives extra value at casting a kicker derivative. Any ability that includes a discard functionality, a cycle derivative. And so on, for all pre-established mechanics. At this point much of the game is all about tweaking and iterating on the established. I saw Rosewater mention that during the contest, that they are paying close attention to how submitted mechanics create variations in the play behavior. It can be a derivative mechanic, but the million dollar question is "does it play differently enough for us to validate it?"
The booster pack challenge looks like a really fun one, but cranking out 14 designs from an established set would take some time. For the contestants this one is win or go home. choosing an older set with antiquated design would be ballsy, so i hope someone does it! Homelands and Fallen Empires were sold in eight card booster packs. I would totally make a fallen empires booster pack. So i think i will...
In terms of hidden zone information, at REL and competitive, players adapt pretty quickly. I wouldn’t think having two patrol cards would be any different from adapting to how miracle has be played, in a very specific physical way of keeping the drawn card separate from the rest of your hand, to ensure your opponent is satisfied you are not cheating. If I happened to have a double draw of the same patrol card and first copy wasn’t on the battlefield, I would expect myself and/or my opponent to show both cards on the second activation. Not behaving in an obviously courteous manner would be a big red flag of dishonest play. Never ideal I agree, but I think it’s doable.
Battlemage Trainee 1R
Creature - Human Wizard Warrior (C)
Familiar - When Battlemage Trainee enters the battlefield, create a 3/1 red Elemental creature token as this creature's familiar.
Battlemage Trainee's familiar can't attack or block without Battlemage Trainee.
1/1
This is the one that really sells the mechanic for me. I like how both creatures are fragile, and that the restriction is that they have to act in unison. It feels very red to me. At cmc 2, it is really pushing rate, but that is a playtest concern. I love this one!
Primal Howler 5G
Creature - Elf Shaman (U)
Familiar - When Primal Howler enters the battlefield, create a 3/3 green Beast creature token as this creature's familiar.
At the beginning of combat, if Primal Howler is untapped, you may tap it. If you do, its familiar gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
3/3
This one is a little side heavy on P/T, and a little weak on ability for an uncommon. Two 3/3’s for cmc 6 is already well at rate in limited. One 3/3 essentially ‘protecting’ another in combat doesn’t drive excitement in driving variability of combat and board state, (But man is it spikey, my inner spike loves this card at rate. Getting to beat face or trade for a 6/6 and still having a ‘free’ 3/3 for six mana is nuts).
Analyst of the Unreal 2UB
Creature - Vampire Wizard (U)
Familiar - When Analyst of the Unreal enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token as this creature's familiar.
Whenever a token you don't control dies, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token. That token is Analyst of the Unreal's familiar.
2/4
A lot of the judges feedback talk about “tension”, and this card is an example what tension does. As the controller of this card, I wouldn’t want my cards to have to trigger primarily on my opponent’s actions. Sure it’s in color that shares removal, but how many times in an average hand am I going to be able to dictate this trigger, vs how many times in that same game is my opponent going to have more decision making control over my own trigger than me? I’m guessing the fear is if it’s my trigger I’ll abuse it. Sure, but it’s only going to get me so far, especially as losing any better token is only going to net me a 1/1. I actually like the idea of this creature endlessly looping the same 1/1 every time it dies. Some kind of drawback tied to this creature’s familiars would also allow you to make the card ‘safe’ while allowing me to be in control of my creatures and triggers, rather than giving that power to my opponent.
Essence Binder 2U
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Familiar - When Essence Binder enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 blue Homunculus creature token as this creature's familiar.
2U: Essence Binder's familiar becomes a copy of target creature until end of turn.
1/3
I really like the base shell on this creature, and another great card to provide a toolset to make use of the familiar mechanic. Some thoughts to make it strong enough and ‘splashy’ (I really don’t know why they can’t find a better adjective) enough to make it feel like a great build around rare for limited. I would expect this creature to be making Illusion token familiars as that seems more on flavor. Plus it would give a drawback to at least give the opponent something to try and keep from getting blown out by this creature, by adding the illusion sacrifice trigger. There’s some knobs to fiddle with on the illusion version, but like mimic vat, it could allow you to ‘flash’ them in either to block, or endstep so they have haste, as a copy of a creature, with mimic vat’s end step sacrifice trigger. CMC and rates would need some tinkering, but oh the potential. This one’s a winner in my book.
Battleshroud templar – Rate is broken. I would mulligan down to three/four cards just to find this and a plains. On the play I’m getting a 3/2 lifelink that my opponent only has two turn early turns to destroy it. If i'm on curve, my turn three they can't stop it. It will trade with their creatures for four turns with first strike. Unfortunately I would call this unprintable. Like Serra Ascendant, it’s fine that it will exceed rate, but it needs some hoops to jump through first.
Quaxl shroomchanter – for commons sticking close to established rate and P/T are critically important is these cards are the backbone of all limited play design. It’s not that blue doesn’t get a canyon minotaur at common, but they are exceedingly rare. And oddly enough both commons printed with this cmc and P/T combination in the last decade have a mill trigger. This card is deceptively spikey, and I think a lot of players would fail to read the utility it has at print. As is, it reads: Exhort one of your creatures this turn, or sleep a creature an opponent controls. It needs some fixing as mechanically as those are disparate abilities to choose, and they feel unintended.
Spelltrap – I like this a lot, and it plays into a lot of great blue ‘steal you stuff’ spells at higher CMC’s. It needs a larger cost though, it’s so ridiculously strong at five mana. Depending on what the opponent is doing this could very easily close out a game with this one counterspell. I wouldn’t want to have to play against this costing anything less than six/seven mana. To ensure value, it could potentially look at graveyards so it can find a spell even when your opponents have wheeled out their hands.
Quivering fungooze – I like seeing oozes in black. Fun choice! Black by design doesn’t get to play around with artifacts outside of an ‘artifact set’ like Mirrodin, so that would want some tweaking. As printed, this ability feels 100% green to me, which is working against your movment in black. I would expect this ability on a black card to maybe put the +1/+1 counter on the ooze, then drain/gain life based on it’s power? Something along those lines would push it firmly into black.
Hargat, the darkwood witch – opposite your white rare the rates on this cards feel suppressed. Discard abilities on a late-game creature always feel underwhelming. Your opponent has had all game to set up their board state, so I find forcing discards to be less impactful. Yes, maybe it’s their one hold-out card, but you’re not devastating them making a discard on turn nine. I think rate fiddling, and having some fun with the first and third abilities would turn this into a great Vorthos and Melvin card.
Badland scourge – I’m just seeing this as an easier to cast ball lightning that only does four damage, and as an uncommon is close to pushing rate in most limited environments. When talking about tension and meaningful choices for both players, this card has none. Unless the opponent has a really limited appeal removal that they aren’t going to use against anything else, such as fungal infection (ruining your day after spending four mana on this!), they are going to go “block with the 1/1, take four”, you and basically cast a red sorcery. It doesn’t give either player a meaningful choice.
Firestrike – i really like this design for a red targeted sweeper. There’s not much similar to it beyond Cone of Flame, and cones are awesome. So kudos on finding new design space! The card needs either a max target ceiling, or an X in the cost. Makes perfect sense to give it a small restriction even at rare. In multiplayer, it’s wrath of God and earthquake combined, where if there is enough creatures on the battlefield, I kill all my opponents with 10+ damage.
Wurmbound – based on flavor, I would expect this to create the token on enters the battlefield, and then somehow tie the two creatures together in fate. Mechanically I think it’s a doable plummet variant that could build some fun play tension in a limited environment. Definitely some good new space being explored with this one! My suggestion is to keep tinkering until you strike gold.
Tracker’s Mastery – Good new use of using an aura to give a creature a fight ability. The only real issue is the wording is clunky and took me several reads to make sure I understood the trigger correctly. I’m not a rules guru, but I think “(T): This creature fights target attacking or blocking creature.” Will clear that right up?
Though I pointed out areas that could be improved, overall I really enjoyed several of your concepts including Firestrike, spelltrap and quivering fungooze. Those feel like they could be very fun, impactful cards. You’ve got some great ideas, keep it up!
Sighted-Cast War Priest – They said they wanted a ‘spike friendly’ but even that wasn’t very specific. Limited play spikes will rejoice. Constructed spikes will go “meh”. Great rates and abilities in sealed and draft, but the fact that you have to play equipment in constructed will turn off a lot of players. I would say this is wizard’s fault for not being specific, so I will give you a win.
Amphin spellcaster – I like the restriction that this finds a ‘buddy color” spell, but rate on this for a common is not fun to play against. I really don’t want you to doom blade me twice in the first four turns and have it be all value for you. Serious feelbads for the opponent.
Cabal Ritualist – You fixed viscera Seer! Or least ensured it won’t combo endlessly in eternal formats. Solid design and good build around. I think with two activated abilities you would be officially flagged as too complex for common though.
Deathrite Matriarch – You saw it was elf as well, we should get bonus points for that. As is the design feels rare, and not quite mythic. I find where that invisible distinction lies is somewhere at the junction of flavor, overall body, and activation/trigger ability. The body and combat ability is underwhelming for 5 mana. The activation/trigger ability is close, for a black creature I would have expected a sacrifice trigger to get the mana. If this ability got stronger, I could see it balancing against a weaker creature. As is, it feels fair enough I would expect the creature to be beefier.
Surreal instigator – close on rate to skizzik. If I was drafting this, I would like to see it be a 3/5 so I’m not trading with a grizzly bear. I’d probably pass it and draft a shock instead otherwise (and make the player who plays this against me really sad). Otherwise solid uncommon hasty red dude design.
Spears of Heaven – love the reveal the top of your library cards design. Since there’s a lot of whiffing that will come naturally from that, I would be careful not to hamstring the resolution of the effect. I think at rare it would be fair to name a target for each card revealed to receive individual damage without having to match CMC. To aid in low damage potential you could target the same thing multiple times. Putting the revealed cards either in the graveyard or bottom of the library seems smart as well. I like this one.
Ambush hands – Feels like this should be a spell. The damage prevention would only be impactful as an aura if the environment involved fights breaking out every turn. (fight club land?).
Cabal Ritualist and Spears of Heaven were my favorites. I would draft those all day long.
Steps of Vallhala – Uncommon - Art (K)
1W
Enchantment
Whenever one or more creatures you control deals combat damage to an opponent, you may exile target creature you control, then return that creature to the battlefield.
Battlemaster of Thune - Rare – Art (B)
2W
Creature – Human Monk
Flash, Lifelink.
When Battlemaster of Thune enters the battlefield, you may destroy up to one target creature that dealt damage to you this turn. If you don't, put a +1/+1 counter on Battlemaster of Thune.
2>2
Fluxmage of Sorla þattr - Common - Art (A)
3U
Creature – Merfolk
When Fluxmage of Sorla þattr enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library, you may reveal an artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less and put that card into your hand. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
1>3
Time Dilation Aetherwall – Mythic - Art (G)
5UU
Enchantment
Whenever a creature attacks, Exile that creature. At the beginning of combat on each player's turn, that player returns each creature they own exiled by Time Dilation Aetherwall to the battlefield tapped and attacking.
Supplicant of Heoinn – Common - Art (E)
B
Creature – Human Sycophant
Deathtouch
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, Supplicant of Heoinn gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
1/1
Hogni, Purger of the Weak - Mythic – Art (F)
6B
Creature – Demon
Flying, Trample.
When Hogni, Purger of the Weak enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to each creature an opponent controls. Put a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature destroyed in this way.
5/4
Hellion of Cignis – Uncommon - Art (D)
4R
Creature – Hellion
Haste.
When Hellion of Cignas enters the battlefield, it deals 4 damage to target creature with flying.
Ragnarok – Rare - Art (I)
2R
Instant
Each player chooses a land they control at random. Destroy each of the chosen lands.
At the beginning of the next end step each player creates a 1/1 White warrior creature token.
Einherjar (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time a creature entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for each copy)
Warrior’s Prayer – Common - Art (C)
2G
Sorcery
Target creature you control gets +3/+3 and fights target creature you don't control.
Vines of Eiríksmal – Uncommon - Art (J)
2G
Enchantment – Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature becomes a land in addition to its other types. It gains: “T: Add G. If that mana is spent on a creature spell, it enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter.”
I tried to brainstorm how a ‘fixed’ version of forecast could play into the Azorius and synergize mechanically and flavorfully with arrest (which was a 3 and an immediate improvement). Revealing cards from the hand and essentially getting a ‘free’ spell, can be dangerous in gameplay patterns, if not restricted. Unfortunately MTG doesn’t have a good rules paradigm to control these kinds of effects, so the execution is not without issue, but in the same vein, so are mechanics such as duel faced cards and rebound, and flashback, and another other ability that evoke gameplay, triggers, and memory concerns.
Ironic that we are Returning to Return to Ravnica. I brainstormed this idea earlier in the winter, so I guess I was on track. I am introducing “Patrol” to MTG, to flavorfully connect the studious and dutiful Azorius to working a beat on the mean streets of ravnica and enforcing the law.
Lyev Riot Guard - Common
3U
Creature – Vedelken Soldier
Patrol - 1U, Reveal Lyev Riot Guard from your hand: Detain target creature. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
2/4
Buried in Paperwork - Common
2U
Sorcery
Patrol - U, Reveal buried in Paperwork from your hand, Scry 2. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card).
Draw 2 cards.
Azorius Cadet - Common
W
Creature – Human Soldier
When you Patrol, Azorius Cadet gains first strike until end of turn.
2/1
Department of Warrents - Uncommon
1U
Enchantment
Whenever you patrol, you may detain target nonland permanent an opponent controls.
Search and Seizure - Uncommon
2W
Instant
Patrol - WU, Reveal Search and Seizure from your hand: Look at target player's hand, you gain life equal the number of cards in that player’s hand. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
Put target creature into its owner’s library second from the top.
Overwatch Lieutenant - Rare
3W
Creature – Human Knight
Patrol - 2W, Reveal Overwatch Lieutenant from your hand: create two 1/1 soldier tokens and you gain 1 life for each creature you control. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery, and only once for each copy of this card.)
Whenever you patrol, creatures you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance until end of turn.
3/3
Eagle-Eye Roc – Rare
3WW
Creature - Bird
Flying
U, Reveal Eagle-Eye Watcher from your hand: Put a surveillance counter on target nonland permanent an opponent controls. (Activate this ability only as a sorcery)
When NAME enters the battlefield, detain each permanent with a surveillance counter on it.
3/4
Cecelia, District 12 Mayor – Mythic
3WUR
Creature – Angel
Vigilance. Flying. Haste.
Whenever you patrol, exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card. If you do, you gain 3 life, and Cecelia, District 12 Mayor deals 3 damage to any target.
5/5
I believe these challenges actually took place over March/April, they are steamrolling them right out at us. Challenge #4 is already posted:
You are going to design ten cards. Each card will have a mechanical constraint spelled out below.
In addition to the mechanical constraint, for each card design you will have to choose a piece of art (from the twelve provided) to design to. No two cards may use the same piece of art, meaning you will be using ten of the twelve pieces of art.
The card's color and rarity will all be spelled out in its constraint.
No more than three cards may be of the same card type. The one exception is you can have five creatures, as five of the mechanical constraints ask for creatures.
Cards must exactly match the card's constraint. A red card can't be turned into a red-green card, for example.
Assume all the cards you are designing are in the same Standard-legal expansion.
You may use only evergreen mechanics with the exception of one non-evergreen mechanic which may appear on no more than two cards.
Flavor is extra important on this assignment, so take extra care with your names. You may submit flavor text as long it's 100% your creation and it would fit on the card with the rules text provided. Good flavor text can help give context to your overall card.
Here are the criteria for your ten cards:
Card #1: White (uncommon) – We want a build-around noncreature for Draft. (It encourages the player to draft a theme that they might not normally.)
Card #2: White (rare) – We want a Spike-friendly creature.
Card #3: Blue (common) – We want a creature without evasion.
Card #4: Blue (mythic rare) – We want a super-exciting enchantment.
Card #5: Black (common) – We want a creature with an activated ability.
Card #6: Black (mythic rare) – We want a splashy creature for Timmy/Tammy.
Card #7: Red (uncommon) – We want a creature that costs four or more.
Card #8: Red (rare) – We want a weird Johnny/Jenny-style instant or sorcery.
Card #9: Green (common) – We want a noncreature spell for Limited.
Card # 10: Green (uncommon) – We want a quirky Aura.
And here are your art choices:
Your cards will be judged on the following criteria:
Matching Art – Our guest judge will be Jenna Helland, a member of the Creative team, who will specifically be judging how appropriate your card designs are for the art chosen.
Matching Mechanical Constraints – The art isn't the only constraint you're going to be judged on. Failure to match a mechanical restraint will also be a big strike against you.
Flavor – Your names, and flavor text if you use it, are going to carry more weight than normal as they have to help explain the overall feel of the card.
Creativity – An important part of designing to constraints is finding ways to do so that defy expectations. The best hole-filling designs often solve the problem by tackling it in an unconventional way.
Originality – You're not just showing off your ability to match constraints, you're also showing off your individual card designs. We want to see some innovation as you are "hole filling."
Color Pie Appropriateness – Matching color means staying within the color pie constraints. Bends are allowed if appropriate (although be frugal with them), but breaks are not.
Rarity Appropriateness – Your designs need to fit into the rarity you're designing for. Think about things like complexity and impact on Limited.
Card Type Appropriateness – Make sure that your cards are properly representing the card type they're in.
You will submit the following:
Your Name
Design 1 (CARD #1)
Design 2 (CARD #2)
Design 3 (CARD #3)
Design 4 (CARD #4)
Design 5 (CARD #5)
Design 6 (CARD #6)
Design 7 (CARD #7)
Design 8 (CARD #8)
Design 9 (CARD #9)
Design 10 (CARD #10)
In between the mana cost and the card type, you will have a line for the art. Please list the art by the codename. An example:
Giant Growth
G
Art: Leap
Instant
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Comments: You will have up to 250 words to say whatever you want about your design. You are free to talk about individual cards, but I would suggest spending some of your words explaining holistically what you were up to with your overall design.
Wow us with your designs!