Cleric's awakening is an example of one of my earliest designs, and it had a lot of problems once it was looked into. Primarily, like you said, it's too busy for a common. Specifically, it's a common that tutors for cards that are typically only mythics (full disclosure, the set this card was intended for had a cycle of rare PWs, something I'll likely be doing in the future anyway.) Not only was this bad for common, but it also sucked for limited. It was too narrow and parasitic, at least in a vacuum.
As far as the other two... I kinda like the equipment guy. In my next block (codenamed 'blood'), you'll see a RW tribe that deals with equipment tokens like that. For now, however, it's not really a focus (My main focus is finishing out Soco, Amaretto, and Lime block). Once I get to Blood, Sweat, and Tears there'll be a lot more development done... at the moment it's all design.
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Hmm... I guess manifest felt sparser than that.
Ahh... I should read the OP more carefully
That's really my biggest concern. I still don't think this can be a theme because of the rules baggage, but it's a fine mechanic in small quantities (I'd say about the same amount as manifest in FRF)
I think this is a good solution.
How will this work when your library is shuffled?
I've played with faceup cards in the library before (my mechanic, a way to represent traps, ambushes, and timed bombs, was terrible but for different reasons), and it's fun in small doses but I don't think it can realistically be a centerpiece of an entire set/block without causing some major issues. First, I agree that this should be a 'may' effect, as it can otherwise keep you from drawing other things which can be very unfun. Second, cards like Gracious Ancestor are dangerous because I think they could be fairly easily abused as pieces to an engine of cheap card advantage. Third, you'll need a very thorough entry in the rules to deal with issues like 'what happens when you shuffle your library when you have face-up cards in it' (this was the big problem I ran into with my mechanic), is there a distinction between 'revealed' cards from your library and 'face-up' cards from your library, etc.
Overall, interesting work, but I don't think something like this can work as a primary mechanic because of the rules baggage that will come with it.
Putting it a set number of cards down is brilliant. Well done.
Temporal Storm - Lowered cost from from 4UU to 3UU. This should make its reverberate ability incredibly easier to cast moving forward.
Some playtesting has been done (Sealed only for the time being) and at this point I'm ready to say the design phase is finished and development can begin. This means that the updates made to the set will be made after practical testing rather than theoretical discussion. By no means is the set complete, but I feel that it's as complete as it's going to be prior to playtesting.
There are still several weak points, of course, but overall I'm happy with the way the set plays already and am looking forward to refining it. I've got a few playtesting sessions recorded and once they're edited for time I'll be posting some up on my youtube channel, for those who are interested.
I haven't yet decided if I intend to keep this thread open for focused playtesting, or close this thread and leave any playtesting work to be done on the blog, and instead open up a thread for set 2 of 3 in the Dareth block here on these forums. I'm a little anxious to start set 2, if only because I'm so excited to begin work on set 3.
In any case, if you're interested in helping playtest or have any remaining feedback, please post it up. Thanks!
Hmm... I had thought about that, and dismissed it as 'players will scoop anyway', fully intending this just to be a flavorful way of saying "you win the game", but adding 'until end of turn' might be better...
I'm going to have to disagree with everyone so far on ancestry though. It is far too parasitic, and in and of itself doesn't do anything. Cards like your blue example work, because of the trigger that occurs when it becomes an ancestor, but even then it's going to feel a little clunky outside of this set. I'd re-think this mechanic.
Regarding age, is there a way to give a player 'age counters'? Might be easier to track. Also, I worry that this mechanic, like ancestry, is far too parasitic and in and of itself does nothing.
Obviously this is a ridiculously powerful effect. For it to be remotely balanced, it would need to take an enormous amount of development time. However, given the right balance, is this something that could be done in black-bordered magic? MaRo has famously tried to get "gain control of target player" printed on Mindslaver, and while he was overruled on the templating, the main idea is there.
I think this kind of effect appeals to 2 out of the 3 primary psychographic profiles. While Spike wouldn't want this effect (it's just win more and is likely to be overcosted to be truly worthwhile in constructed), Johnny loves it because he wants to build a deck around comboing into the effect and winning with style. Timmy loves it because, well he's Timmy and he likes playing with big, splashy effects.
I say it's fair, in a vacuum, with enough development to ensure it doesn't break anything. It might need to be tuned down to just be 'gain control of target player', so it's not absurd in EDH, but I still say it's fair with the right numbers. What say you, MTGS?
I think something like this is fair. Obviously, the numbers will change during development, but outside of the complexity of choice and the complexity of the planeswalker rules, this is fair at common. In some ways, it's easier to do that something I've been working on - legendary creatures at common.
In regards to using Monstrosity on the Eldrazi... I dunno. I feel that the Eldrazi should always be big and mean, not come out and become big and mean as a mana sink (although, mechanically, monstrosity works great for siege-style gameplay as a way to break over the mid-game stall). I don't know that I have any other suggestions at the moment for Eldrazi, outside of messing with lands, but I'll give it some thought.
Can't 'because' be a good enough answer to why? A project like this is interesting to me because it's a break from the norm - this is very obviously not something that would see print from WotC because of the reasons you mentioned. However, as a custom fan-set, sometimes it's fun to simply 'crank it up to 11' and play around with something as big and wonky as this. Something I'd recommend to Apoquallyp is play that up - don't let the set take itself too seriously. It's like a Godzilla movie, but as a MtG set, which isn't a bad thing.
But again, this thread isn't about that. There are a lot of people who have that opinion, and that's fine. But for the people who don't have that opinion, or might be movable in their opinion, this thread is about finding solutions within the bounds of the limitations set forth in the OP.
At this point, I'm planning on playtesting multiple variants mentioned in this thread, but I'm still interested in any further discussion on who crack this particularly tough nut.
2. Tilwin
3. Moss Elemental
I got ya... I was reading it like monstrosity. I think that's a mistake a lot of players would make as well, which does edge up on the complexity meter again.
The problem with something like this is that you need a 'the legend rule doesn't apply to it' clause to prevent it from dying the minute another copy hits the field, which is pretty complex for common but might could work.
I'm coming around to the idea that grandeur is a feel bad mechanic, after talking with doombringer last night. We'll see what else can be done.
Because! Seriously though, I've got reasons for the theme (which is actually legendary creatures and planeswalkers matter, I'm just focused on one small facet of that in this thread), I just don't want to get into that discussion here. This thread is really about the restrictions laid out in the OP (and restrictions breed creativity, right?) and then working to find an answer that works within those bounds.
Reveal isn't bad, but the problem with it is it creates very repeatable effects, at common. As you pointed out, these cards are already 'uncommons in disguise' and need to be tuned down, I don't know that they can have a repeatable effect and be ok at common. That said, it's a good idea, and something I could see used at uncommon.