#magic set design

[welcometo--world]

Alidae Set Review Part 1 (A-B)

I think I'm gonna do this bullet point style and just mention cards that jump out at me that are cool. This is actualashiok's set and you can find a link to downloading in on their blog if that stuff interests you!

First lemme just say that I like your set symbol a lot. As a generally non-artsy person, I struggle to use the symbol creation software but your design is smooth. It seems a little weird that because you used the border setting the commons look noticeably different from the other rarities because the border isn't black, but I literally only noticed because I zoomed in and looked for it.

Aethercrack seems a might bit strong, but it's probably fine.

Ancient Guardian. Huh, so imprint is featured. I haven't messed with it at all so it'll be interesting to see your take. My initial response is that like with the Mirrodin sets it'll be pretty tough to include at lower rarities, but I like what you've done with this card.

Angel's Protection feels like an overcosted rare. Cards with converted mana cost above about 5 appear very infrequently at common (sorry boulderfall) because they like their big slashly stuff, like iconics and angels, to appear at rare. Power-level wise it's fine though.

Arcane Charm is inspired by Cryptic Command, no? I'd say it's of a much more reasonable power level, but still has ample opportunity to kick ass.

Archon of Righteous Fury- just a formatting thing, but you don't need to capitalize all those keywords. Check out Akroma for reference.

Ashiok!! I like it and I was waiting for them to appear somewhere. The second ability should say where that creature is coming from, I assume the battlefield?

Baloth Ravager- huh, monstrosity is included here too. Other than the Rift existing and Cathars being important, I'm having trouble grasping the flavor of your world. After a quick search I can see you've got some other baloths too, which is excellent, you didn't show they're native to your world only to include one.

Baloth Stampede- how often in games do you have 15 mana open? The ability just seems unnecessary, but the card's basic effect isn't bad. Diverge is interesting, I had this niggling feeling that that mechanic already existed, but I guess I was thinking of replicate?

Benevolent Grace seems overcosted. I initially thought that that effect only really appeared at rare (a la Honor of the Pure and Spear of Heliod) but I remembered that Intangible Virtue is at uncommon and basically the same thing.

Everything about Blessed Cathar screams black, but especially the milling aspect, white just doesn't do that. Moreover black still has access to the first strike and lifelink. Cool card tho.

That's all I have time for right now, but let me reiterate: set design is hard stuff and you've done a fine job. I'm eager to look through the rest of it when I get a chance, thanks for sharing your work.

[welcometo--world]

So the mechanics voting was supposed to end today. And I got two submissions, which is considerably less than I was hoping for, so I'm gonna say that it's gonna go on indefinitely, it really doesn't need a deadline. One more time, you can find it here.

As long as I'm going through upkeep stuff, shining-supernova, I did see your comment and I agree, I added a cost to it.

While it's not quite a seven-year plan like at WotC, I spent about an hour last night laying out the raw basis and some mechanical ideas for the third block, currently unnamed and you probably won't be seeing much more about it until Thanksgiving? Just a guess? Once I do some more testing in Cere Contained I'm gonna release the set in full and encourage followers to play with it, a few weeks later I'll release A City Unshackled, and I'd like to shift the focus from my personal design stories to your feedback about how to edit and alter what I've already released.

Progress on Oneria is going slowly I'm still really figuring out how I was the design skeleton to be structured. That's the gist of things at the moment.

[welcometo--world]

the only thing i don't get about indiscriminate advisor is the advisor bit... it seems like an advisor would become less likely to attack with other creatures (people to advise) around. i think it would make more sense to make it -1/+1 instead of +1/-1, plus then he can't kill himself

It shouldn’t be an advisor, there actually is a reason for that, but I can’t promise that it’s a good one. Early in design I was trying to use power to show class, so the lords and nobles had high power and workers and the poor had low power, representing their political influence. Obviously this metaphor broke down when I inevitably had to make, like, hydras and birds and rebels that had above CMC 3. But, initially, I had a devil of a time coming up with names of three and four CMC creatures. In the real world, our middle class is made of lots of professions that don’t really exist in the Magic world, and the professions that are in the magic world are frequently color-specific, like Wizards. So I ended up overusing a ton of really bland class-types like advisor and mercenary, most of which were removed because I really stopped using the power/class thing, but I guess that advisor stayed in. The card “Friend to the Bishops” which I have spoiled before is another casualty of that effect, where I wanted it to be a mid-range card and couldn’t think of a decent name.

For the +1/-1 deal, I actually want him to be able to kill himself. It’s risky befriending Cere nobles. They’re fickle and used to getting unquestioned devotion. Their favors are worth quite a bit (power) but they increase your chances of getting backstabbed (lower toughness). And mechanically, I think lowered toughness incentivizes use of relinquish, which you have to have valuable targets for if you have that many 4-power creatures.

Thanks for your ask, you always make some good points

[welcometo--world]

GRAND MECHANIC RACE

As my design (not development or testing) for both Cere sets is actually finishing up, I'm trying to fix their mistakes as I enter into my second block and second world. For example, some of Cere's mechanics and themes, particularly Recur, limited my ability to make neat cards, and I wish before I hadn't become pretty invested in them I had taken more time to think and test them out. Mechanics influence a set in many more ways than just their existence, they effect the whole environment because you need cards to interact with them.

So, I've taken a few of my preliminary ideas for Oneria mechanics and I've designed some basic cards to show them off that I'm going to be posting here. There are five demos, one for each mechanic and one for each color.

Here's where you, my lovely followers and anyone else who reads, come in. I'd like you rank them in order of favorite (1) to least favorite (5). If you'd like, just telling me the best one also helps, but as a big fan of the alternative vote, I thought I'd give you some options. Please make your rankings based on two things: playability and flavor. I need these mechanics to work and be fun, and I would also like them to thematically represent tropes based around dreams and surrealism. For the time, ignore the names, and just focus on what they do. The names can always be changed later, and some like Deepen (which is supposed to represent the whole "we have to go deeper, layers of subconscious" idea), may only make sense in my head. 

The voting ends next Tuesday, and I'll be reminding you with some frequency so you don't forgot. Feel free to submit changes to ideas in asks and reblogs, too, my ability to speak rules-textian isn't perfect yet.

[welcometo--world]

NEW MECHANIC!

New for you guys anyway. Assuming I get positive feedback on these, there will be 15 diversify cards in A City Unshackled all of which are already made but not finished up or balanced. As an ability word I think it could be pretty darn fun and unlike Cere Contained where monocolor is a small theme, multicolor matters becomes relevant in the second set.

[welcometo--world]

How high would you draft this? To me this seems like a really good level of playability, but hardly outclasses most uncommons and rares.

[welcometo--world]

One of the exercises that Magic R&D does is they brainstorm what people would expect from a top-down theme. So they all sat down before Innistrad and said "alright, what does the public think of when we say gothic horror, how can we meet their expectations?" So people said things like werewolfs and vampires, and it was decided very early on that because the things immediately associated were creature-based, Innistrad would have a fair deal of tribal.

And with that, I have a question unrelated to anything Cerian. What do you expect from media about dreams and surrealism? In my headspace, I've already moved on to a second plane, probably a bit too early, since I haven't done enough work on the second Cere set, but I've already got some great ideas. If any readers are familiar with TVTropes, now is a great time to bust out some article titles, when somebody says "dreaming" what tropes do you assume will be included?

[welcometo--world]

Multicolor week: 3/10

With all the sacrificing going around I don't think it's unreasonable for this card to get 3-5 damage off if you time it right. I wanted to really make some synergy with Offering and Relinquish.

It's got a black element, a red element, and it ties into the set's big copying theme.