Suggestions for Ixalan and Unstable flavor draft
Some suggested Unstable flavor draft rules:
As with most sets, equipment is only usable by certain creatures, some blue creatures have waterhome, abilities flavored as poison only affect living creatures (although cyborgs are organic enough to be poisoned), and flammable creatures like animated libraries and novellamentals get deathtouched by fire-flavored damage like Garbage Elementals and the various goblin explosives.
Many creatures in Unstable use non-card artifacts such as hammer backpacks or steamfloggers and so can be weakened with artifact destruction.
-Pony can only flicker creatures which could plausibly ride it- so e.g. nothing with wheels, nothing enormous unless it’s hybridized with something big.
Rules lawyer’s ability just doesn’t work, since this is Flavor Draft.
Animated libraries get milled a bit when damaged, and don’t deanimate when sent TO JAIL.
Spells which harm their targets get redirected to Target Minotaur, but trigger its prowess no matter who cast them.
A 1 on the Sword of D&D dice roll negates it’s damage and gives the opponent the dragon.
Goblin Slingshot and Inflation Station grant their targets Flying as well as their other benefits.
Some suggested Ixalan flavor draft rules:
As with most sets, most equipment is only usable by certain creatures, lifelinked vampires can’t get life from nonliving creatures or get more life from a creature than its toughness, poison and plague don’t effect nonliving creatures, creature abilities flavored as spells count as such for some purposes, and flammable creatures like ships get deathtouched by fire-flavored damage like Fire Shrine Keeper’s ability or Fire Cannon Blast.
Imperial Lancer needs to attack or block with the dinosaur it’s riding and the two can be blocked as a band. It can’t ride smaller dinosaurs. On the other hand, it can fly by riding a flying dinosaur.
Pterodon Knight’s ability is only to fly on dinosaurs the same way Imperial Lancer can.
Daring Saboteur can optionally exert an artifact rather than drawing-and-discarding.
Depths of Desire gives the treasure to the creature’s controller.
Ships need water to attack or block, creatures need water to Dive Down, and so on. But since most Ixalan basic lands have bodies of water in them, this should rarely matter.
Shipwreck Looter’s ability needs a creature to have died in the raid.
Desperate Castaways can’t use just any artifact; it needs an artifact which helps with being castaways one way or another, like a ship or a map.
Mark of the Vampire makes the enchanted creature a vampire.
Walk the plank won’t kill flying creatures, fish, trilobites, or zombies produced by spells such as Grim Captain’s Call or March of the Drowned.
However it’s kept alive or resurrected, a Raptor Hatchling can’t produce more than two tokens.
Tionalli’s Knight is another dinosaur-rider like Pterodon Knight and Imperial Lancer.
Wildgrowth Walker also benefits from opponents exploring.
Admiral Beckett Brass stealing creatures presumably represents either kidnapping or recruiting. The former limits what she can do with them and the latter who she can steal.
Creatures stolen with Hostage Taker can’t be made to attack or do other things that would involve leaving captivity.
Cutlasses and Prying Blades don’t make creatures better at crewing ships.
