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I like the idea of capitals yes, although for flavour reasons would the be better as legendary lands?

Was he refering to the first swarm mechanic where you needed more of one colour than everyone else then? I like my new swarm, call it 'Colour Care' for now, although could do with changing because of it's length.

Green Beater
Creature - Human (U)
White Colour Care 1: If you contorl 1 white permanant Green Beater gets +2/+1
1/2

It's a set 1 mechanic, meaning it'll be mostly monocoloured. It makes more sense to simply have it as only the same colour for the sake of brevity, as posted above.

I don't actually want it to be the capital if that means it would have to be legendary lands (which it kind of would). We'll look at cycles when we design the set.

I think we should make a thread for mechanics discussion. Who's leading this?

I understand that in set 1 the are likley to be mono coloured, it was just an example, you could also have:

Big Green Bear 1
Creature - Bear
Green Colour Care 3 - If you control 3 or more green permanants cardname gets +1/+1
2/2

I don't think we actually need a leader. As it is there is bassically a max of 5 people posted for like about 2 weeks i think. We can just split it up between us if you like, if the others want to.

We absolutely need a set director. This will go terribly if we don't have someone leading.

I prefer "Swarm X" to "-colour- Swarm X". I think the latter is a bit redundant.

How about this for land?

Dank Forest
Land
~ is black
- Add to your mana pool

Scorching Plains
Land
~ is red
- Add to your mana pool

Overgrown Island
Land
~ is green
- Add to your mana pool

Sunswept Swamp
Land
~ is white
- Add to your mana pool

Icecapped Mountain
Land
~ is blue
- Add to your mana pool

Seems fine. Not sure they would need to be reminder text just saying "This card isn't a spell".

They problem with taking away the colour from swarm is that it reduces the design space considerable. With a colour be can push it forward in set 2 and then use different colours than the card. I think specifing a colour for swarm is best because it just gives us a load more options going forward.

If you think we need a leader i am more than happy to lead.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 1:27AM, snowyy wrote:

They problem with taking away the colour from swarm is that it reduces the design space considerable. With a colour be can push it forward in set 2 and then use different colours than the card. I think specifing a colour for swarm is best because it just gives us a load more options going forward.

Right, but it's also a lot more clunky.

Red Swarm 4 just seems... Inelegant. I would prefer just confining the design space but making it far simpler and more sleek looking. We have plenty of other mechanics for the more multicolour sets, so I don't feel bad about keeping swarm to monocolour.

I just feel its a wasted oppertunity to leave it mono colour. I would prefer to include a colour to it and make the number of coloured permanants the same all the time, so it would be:

Red Swarm: If you control 3 or more red permanats, effect. It becomes very similar to metalcraft now, but i don't think its a bad thing. It becomes less clunky now.

It's in a mostly monocolour set, I really don't think it benefits much from the colour option whereas the numerical one opens up just as much but makes more sense.

Why would a number of segregated, monocolour states get benefits from being in the company of lots of strangers? It doesn't really make sense. The other way we can do neat stuff like:


White Soldier Spawner -
Creature - Human Soldier
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a 1/1 white soldier onto the battlefield.
Swarm 5 - Soldiers creatures you control get +2/+2
3/3


Swarm X emphasises the concept of segregation in the story, whereas -colour- Swarm actively contradicts it.

That makes sence. its just i think the mechanic won't be any good once the other sets are out, expecially in limited. If we have enough hypird cards it may be ok.

The problem is we don't want to different contadicting mechincs in the same block. For example one caring you have lots of the same colour permanats, and then in set too caring you have an enemy coloured deck. You see what i mean?

The reason I liked that mechanic more than swarm wasn't because I was thinking of the earlier swarm. It was because while a threshold mechanic encourages lots of stasis and wanting only one color, especially one with a variable number that could get fairly high. It means 'oh, I want lots of white spells in here for this! Which means less blue spells, because otherwise this is never going to trigger'. The reason that artifacts worked so well was that they were colorless and went in any deck. Swarm as a threshold mechanic is basically Soulshift, except with five different creature types instead of just spirits. And I'm talking 'rigger' type creature types.

...okay that was an exageration, and I'm sorry for that. Anyway, the reason I liked the other mechanic was that a) it only required one permanent of the given color, thus making splashing much more viable, and b) it's a one and done effect rather than a threshold one, which means, again, splashing is more friendly since you're not completely screwed over by a Doom Blade .

Another point: the reason I said colorless non-artifacts should be Eldrazi is because that is what Eldrazi are. From a flavor perspective, I can't think of any other force that should be able to wield that sort of power except for the planeswalker who mastered in colorless magic Ugin (sp), who isn't broad enough to fill the role.

One last thing... I'm actually doubting mono-color as a theme. I like the idea of slowly building up to multi-color as the block develops, but maybe instead of mono-color being the theme we could make a multi-color set without multi-color? That way all those 'deals two damage if you control a red permanent' effects become HEAPS more impressive as the block goes on, which in turn makes you actually look forward to the first set in the new reverse drafting order.

I think that would work better. If we still have the  enemy 'groups' but just don't hav emany gold cards.

Im a bit confused as to which 'Swarm' Mechanic you like, can you please give an example of a card.

I was actually suggesting no gold cards at all, except for perhaps a few legendaries and planeswalkers. Rather, we'd make it multi-color by including the whole Slavering Null mechanic keyworded, an old returning keyword with off color activation (I want to say either Flashback, Cycling or Kicker, but all of those have already been brought back in such a way... Evoke maybe? But that's so similar to Channel and we did that in the core set...) and a mechanic that doesn't have to do with multi-color at all because really, there's only so much theme you can cram into a set before someone chokes on it .

As for which I liked: none. I'm sorry for the confusion, I was actually refering to the suggestion to keyword Sedraxis Alchemist s ability. Or ability word rather. I'm not completely sure whether we should work off of controlling a basic land or a colored permanent...

EDIT: Oh, also, I still hate enemy groups as opposed to allied groups for this set. Why are we working on enemy color groupings when allied would work so much better?

Colourless creatures don't have to be Eldrazi. When I said they sought to destroy the coloured area of the planes I wasn't so much thinking of a Zendikar-feast do-over. I was thinking some sort of exploitation of the natural mana conflict in the plane, perhaps machinery based.

I guess Swarm would be pretty underwhelming in triple set draft. I really think that, flavourfully, the first set needs to demonstrate the fact that each colour is separate and likes to stay with its own.

Maybe we do just go with Aligned and make it only same-colour for the first set. I'm not particularly okay with it on a pure elegance basis, but I guess it does make sense.


EDIT: How would allied pairs "work so much better"? We have an enemy land cycle in the format already. What sense is there in pushing allied pairs when the manabase promotes enemy pairs?

Sorry, it was actually meant o say " enemy gold cards", because i thinks it right not not include gold cards inb set 1, apart from maybe a cycle.

Bringing back a keyword seems a good idea, ill have a look and post some possiblities down.

an ability like Sedraxis Alchmist seems good and is probably the best way to go for the first set, it is easy to do and means you can play the cards in multicloured decks, not just 2 coloured decks

Its just habbit now to say enemy groups, im fine going either way, as we need allied colours it is probably right for the first set to be allied groups, because then in the 2nd' and 3rd set be can move on to more colours, expecially in the 3rd set when it becomes colour vs colourless.

Not important for now, but the way i see colouless creatures is that the fight for power between the guilds sucks alot of the mana out of the plane, leaving parts of it with any mana, this is where colouless creatures start appearing. Hipefully that is a good way to bring flavourful non artifact colouless creatures into the set.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:27AM, Free-Kill wrote:

Colourless creatures don't have to be Eldrazi. When I said they sought to destroy the coloured area of the planes I wasn't so much thinking of a Zendikar-feast do-over. I was thinking some sort of exploitation of the natural mana conflict in the plane, perhaps machinery based.

I guess Swarm would be pretty underwhelming in triple set draft. I really think that, flavourfully, the first set needs to demonstrate the fact that each colour is separate and likes to stay with its own.

Maybe we do just go with Aligned and make it only same-colour for the first set. I'm not particularly okay with it on a pure elegance basis, but I guess it does make sense.


EDIT: How would allied pairs "work so much better"? We have an enemy land cycle in the format already. What sense is there in pushing allied pairs when the manabase promotes enemy pairs?

I think the point is we need a set of allied lands in this set, so it would make sense to have allied 'groups'.

I think we can work it so it is mainly a mono-coloured set my making no gold or hybrid cards. We can then start the idea of diplomacies starting my the keyword, whatver it may be, like Sedraxis Alchmist

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:27AM, Free-Kill wrote:

Colourless creatures don't have to be Eldrazi. When I said they sought to destroy the coloured area of the planes I wasn't so much thinking of a Zendikar-feast do-over. I was thinking some sort of exploitation of the natural mana conflict in the plane, perhaps machinery based.

I guess Swarm would be pretty underwhelming in triple set draft. I really think that, flavourfully, the first set needs to demonstrate the fact that each colour is separate and likes to stay with its own.

Maybe we do just go with Aligned and make it only same-colour for the first set. I'm not particularly okay with it on a pure elegance basis, but I guess it does make sense.


EDIT: How would allied pairs "work so much better"? We have an enemy land cycle in the format already. What sense is there in pushing allied pairs when the manabase promotes enemy pairs?

See, machinery based would be artifacts, not non-artifact colorless. I'm happy going with artifacts, but if we're not, we NEED it to make flavorful sense and not just be a hack. Eldrazi are by far the most big, bad, colorless guys out there possible, and I think tieing our sets into the multi-verse at large isn't a bad thing.

As for each color liking to stand on its own... why? What advantage does going completely and utterly mono-colored have over going this route? This way even makes flavorful sense. 'Sure, we get alone well enough, but you're you and I'm me and I like it that way! Until something bad happens, then we need to get over our differences and both appear in the mana cost and not just the text box!'

Also, just... no. There may be enemy land cards in the format, but there will be allied land cards in this set if we're doing it right. Since otherwise we'll have two sets of enemy duals and one set of allied duals, which is... while not COMPLETELY inconcievable, it just doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't matter what's in the format, it matters what's in the set, and I'd hate to pull an allied dual in a set full of enemy colored pairs. The enemy duals makes the core set feel unique, and they feel good there. I was probably wrong for opposing them so adamantly. But please don't let them warp the whole format.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:31AM, snowyy wrote:

Sorry, it was actually meant o say " enemy gold cards", because i thinks it right not not include gold cards inb set 1, apart from maybe a cycle.

Bringing back a keyword seems a good idea, ill have a look and post some possiblities down.

an ability like Sedraxis Alchmist seems good and is probably the best way to go for the first set, it is easy to do and means you can play the cards in multicloured decks, not just 2 coloured decks

Its just habbit now to say enemy groups, im fine going either way, as we need allied colours it is probably right for the first set to be allied groups, because then in the 2nd' and 3rd set be can move on to more colours, expecially in the 3rd set when it becomes colour vs colourless.

Not important for now, but the way i see colouless creatures is that the fight for power between the guilds sucks alot of the mana out of the plane, leaving parts of it with any mana, this is where colouless creatures start appearing. Hipefully that is a good way to bring flavourful non artifact colouless creatures into the set.

Glad you agree with most of my points, and sorry for the misunderstandings. And if I sounded harsh, it's easy to go too far when you feel strongly about something.

Out of curiosity, how does the whole mana thing work? If there's no mana in an area, there's no mana at all really, not even colorless. In fact, I'd say colorless mana would be drained up faster than colored simply because every single color can use it. I like Eldrazi, but if someone could provide an alternative that makes sense I'd buy it. Also... who is using the coloress mana, and how come their enemies have access to so much colored mana if mana is running out?

I hadn't thought it all out, just thowing ideas around really.

Basically my idea was that this is a plane with lots of coloured mana "set 1".

An event happens and somthing is found that will give the controller a huge amount of mana.power (originaly i know :P)

Groups fight for its control "set "2

Somthing goes wrong and the plane is losses alot of its coloured mana, as if mana is being sucked out of teh plane dry. So where the coloured mana is being sucked from colouless creatures/ monsters start appearing, or even normal creatures start transforming into these colourless creatures. "set 3"

That was my idea nyway.

Here is a list of mechanics that could possibley be used. Some are better than others i have just made a big list:

Entwine, sweep, convoke, radiance, replicate, forecast, evoke, conspire, retrace, Chroma.

For a mechanic we could use a similar one to Chroma:

Colour matters mechanic. (need to think of a name)

White Guy 2
Creature - Human
Green matters - When cardname enters the battlefield gain 1 life for each green permaat you control
2/2

Just another idea really,m possibly somting to work with. The more ideas we have the easier it will be to find a good 1.

Sorry for teh double post

Another idea i had was a convoke style mechanic.

So, for example, RedTap - As an additonal cost to cast cardname you may tap X red permanats - effect.
So you could have:

Blue Wizard
Creature - Wizard
Redtap - Deal X damage to target creature or player.

I'd like that mechanic you have in your second post, but would prefer it if it was non-keyworded as I think it might be a little narrow and I really want to bring back a mechanic with off color costs because... well we need a returning mechanic and it will be interesting!

Out of that list... I like Entwine and Sweep the most, but would prefer Entwine of the two because a) it's an awesome mechanic that hasn't been done in ages and b) off color entwine seems bizzare in the best way possible. Plus it's a natural extention like kicker is: playable in one color, but gets a bonus if you're also playing the other. But unlike kicker, it's not a 'feel bad' bonus, as you just get to choose between pie and cake or both on a good day rather than choosing between pie and a whole lot of pie which is a bit of a less nuanced choice.

And that flavor break down is okay, but here's what I was thinking for mine:

First set, Eldrazi scouts arrive. I'm doing a bit of a retcon of Eldrazi, or perhaps showing a bit of a different side of them since we've never really seen them discover a new world. They sent semi-intelligent scouts and probes to test the planes tastiness factor, most of which go unnoticed since the colors are too busy doing their own thing.

Second set, the scouts have determined the world is sufficiently tasty, and so send back to the Eldrazi in the Eternities that all is good and they should chow down (hey, every Galactis needs a few Silver Surfers, am I right?). 'Raiders' appear, the Eldrazi forerunners that crash down onto the planet and begin to chow down. Or rather... well it's rather like the drones really, in that they serve a role but aren't truly super huge Eldrazi. I suppose you could consider them the tenderizes to the coming Eldrazis diners.

Third set, all hell breaks loose. The real Eldrazi arrive, and war is joined. The Legendaries, or at least one of them, make an appearance, and super big Eldrazi appear for the first time (or perhaps the second... the second sets ones will be big, but not THAT big!) Though resistance began with the second wave, this final wave is enough that the whole plane joins together to fight it. I'd also suggest a sort of corrupted Eldrazi planeswalker here, sort of a... well I'm thinking flavorwise they'd be planeswalkers the Eldrazi somewhat coaxed into serving them, and using their true planeswalker powers in order to help them locate and assimilate planes. The Shepherds to the Eldrazi Herd... sure the Shepherd might lead them, but at the end of the day, it's the sheep who have the call. I'm thinking perhaps making it typeless, to show just how little identity means to the Eldrazi?

Anyway, that's my take on it. I am fairly certain the Eldrazi should win, but then again, I like that sort of story.

Thats seems pretty good. I don't really want to see alot of annilate though. Also, if we are having big eldrazi we would probably need eldrazi spawn, im not sure wether i want that really, mainly because it has been done very recently.

Id be happy to have small eldrazi as if the main eldrazi are fighting on another plane, say Zendikar, and they send more of an army over her, leaving the big guys in Zendikar. That could work i think.

What's wrong with Annihilate? It's a flavorful mechanic that only appears on high end creatures, which, let's face it, need all the help they can get to actually make an impact. Still, if it makes you feel better, Annihilate would likely only appear in the second set at earliest, perhaps maybe even holding out for the third. The spawn would DEFINITELY hold out until the third, although... perhaps you're right and we could just discard them altogether. Colorless is already the best color in terms of mana acceleration (as in you can get lots of colorless mana where you'd get much less colored mana) so if we include enough other ramp...

And the way I see it, we WOULD get big Eldrazi. They'd just be reserved for the third set. Small ones in the first one, moderate and the occassion Ulamorg's Crusher at best in the second one, full one super Eldrazi in the third.

A little off topic: why does everyone seem opposed to the Eldrazi? I mean in general, not just for this project. I'd really like to hear the reasoning it behind it because I freaking love those guys.

I like Eldrazi, apart from Emrakul which just makes casual very unfun if cheapted out, expecially in multiplayer.

The main reason i don't want to see the main eldrazi is because it has onl just been done, and i would prefer the set to focus on colour matters rather than the eldrazi showing up.

Im happy with annihilate 1 and 2, but as soon as it gets higher than 3 i thnk it becomes unfun.  Its basically land destroy.

What i would like to see is basically a near 50/50 split of couloured and colourlessc cards.

Then most of the eldrazi would just be normal creatures, and then obviously we can have some big ones, mainly 7/7, 8/8 with maybe a 9/9 and 10/10 thrown in. I just don';t want big eldrazi to be the main theme.

If we go with eldrazi we would need a mechanic for them. Can you think af a flavourful mechanic ofor normal 2/2 eldrazi creatures?

I still have no idea why we need Eldrazi at ALL.

By machinery I meant the device they employ to try and destroy the mana flooded parts of the plane, not the creatures themselves. They are just regular, colourless creatures.

Your plan sounds just like Zendikar... Or Scars, for that matter.

The way I saw it was:

Set 1: Welcome to the plane! There are these 5 mana rich, prosperous lands full of creatures thriving in their environment. They clash at the borders sometimes, and this meeting of mana is demonstrated in the cards. As well as this, though, is a neglected area devoid of coloured mana which is inhabited by a shunned, rejected society of manaless creatures. They're kind of in the background, though, so we don't have many cards of them. Party time for coloured dudes!

Set 2: The colourless outcasts get sick of being denied the mana they desire so strongly and so fabricate a plan to exploit the inherent instability in this incredibly mana flooded plane. They set their machine/plan into action and drive the coloured lands together causing them to conflict. The cards reflect the different lands fighting for their survival against the others and the massive mana forces between them creating even more mana-diverse beings.

Set 3: The coloured lands have been nearly destroyed, and much of them has crumbled into storms of erratic mana, giving birth to the strangest creatures in the history of the plane that have adapted to survive on many kinds of mana. The colourless rise up to take control of the plane they have so long been rejected from, and the coloured beings realise that they must band together to fight them off and regain control of their home. The war between them will finally decide the fate of the land to come.

---

I also don't see why you're objecting enemy pairs so much. The way this set works if we're going on the rough geography of before is colours meeting on the borders. This either creates allied pairs or enemy pairs, and it seems really weird to push allied when we have enemy lands in the format. You say that doesn't matter but it does. The mana base defines what people can play reliably and it seems stupid to just go and have allied groupings with that in mind. Sure we could just go ahead and print ally lands and ally creatures, but then why did we bother with the enemy duals in CCS?

It seems senseless to just abandon the foundations we've laid in terms of mana in the name of the vague assertion that "Allied is better". I'm not saying that allied cards are banned, but it just seems that primary enemy pairs make a lot more sense.

Well there are a few options really. I was thinking of themes more than mechanics for Eldrazi. Like the Eldrazi 'probes' could have a theme of forcing your opponents to play with their hand revealed, then getting bonuses for what they have there. And the more nimble, soldier/scout ones could focus on changing their color to disguise themselves, or instigating the enemy to make them softer for when the big guys come around. Perhaps by doing Act of Treason type things, or making them fight one another, which is AWESOME that that actually describes something mechanical now by the way.  And I can see a few 'Signaller' type Eldrazi adding lots of colorless mana to your mana pool. Maybe like a 5 mana 3/3 that taps for 3 colorless, or one that allows you to spend one colored mana to get two colorless mana? There's a LOT of options really, and I really want to explore them. I will make like five submissions to be the head of Eldrazi development for each set

As for your block idea, that sounds okay (it's really hard NOT to side with the colorless guys though, I mean, really, if the colored guys can't share they're the real bad guys here) but it lacks one thing the Eldrazi immediately bring to the table: an identity for colorless. Eldrazi ramp into big creatures using colorless mana, produce tokens, cause players to sacrifice permanents, get advantages for casting them and not just them entering the battlefield, and counter spells or abilities that target their bigger creatures, has very powerful spells attached to their bigger creatures, and has an established hierarchy of spawn>drone>Eldrazie Collussus. What's the mechanical identity of these colorless people? What ARE these colorles people? Why are the colorless as opposed to, say, hybrid, having to feed off of whatever scraps lie between the colored boundary? Actually hybrid makes more sense for them...

Also, the reason everyone keeps saying allied pairs is because we need allied duals in this set because we already used them in the Core Set. It's counter productive to have a heavy color theme, then include duals that go AGAINST the theme proposed in the same set. The enemy duals may be in the format, but the allied duals will be in the set.

We can't just say use enemy colours because we have enemy duels in the Core set. We need to have allied duel lands in the format aswell, and because the enemy duels where in the Core set the allied duels need to be in this set, therefore it makes sense to have allied 'clans' in this set. Thats what we are saying.

I think we have got the idea pretty ok now, but we need to aggree on the ENEMY. Its colourless (non artifact?). I would like it to e non artifact.

AnubisDread is suggesting eldrazi because they are the only colourless non artifact creatures in magic. I am happy to use them, but i don;t want them to overshadow the actual theme of the set. Therefore creating a new colouless only creature type may be the way forward, expecially considering they need their own mechanic.

To be fair, the colorless enemy are going to be half the set in the last block, and be a big presence up until then if it's colorless vs colored. As such, them having a big presence is a good thing, since they are half the block. Well a third of the block if you count 'vs'

Also, somewhat unrelated, but I think we're somewhat underestimating the number of colorless creatures we'll need in the first set to make this work. Probably about... as much as any one of the other colors? Otherwise when we get to the big split in the third set no-one will want to be colorless themed because they'll get nothing from the last booster they open.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 3:57AM, AnubisDread wrote:

Well there are a few options really. I was thinking of themes more than mechanics for Eldrazi. Like the Eldrazi 'probes' could have a theme of forcing your opponents to play with their hand revealed, then getting bonuses for what they have there. And the more nimble, soldier/scout ones could focus on changing their color to disguise themselves, or instigating the enemy to make them softer for when the big guys come around. Perhaps by doing Act of Treason type things, or making them fight one another, which is AWESOME that that actually describes something mechanical now by the way.  And I can see a few 'Signaller' type Eldrazi adding lots of colorless mana to your mana pool. Maybe like a 5 mana 3/3 that taps for 3 colorless, or one that allows you to spend one colored mana to get two colorless mana? There's a LOT of options really, and I really want to explore them. I will make like five submissions to be the head of Eldrazi development for each set

I like that idea of the drones. Maybe a mechanic that makes them reveal 1 or all their hand, then effect depending on the amount of coloured cards, or the amount of different colours in their hand.

Then the other eldrazi could have the ability to make other creatures colourless, or somthing like:

Colourdrain - cardname becomes the colours of tragte creature until the end of te turn, that creature becomes colourless until the end of teh turn.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 4:05AM, AnubisDread wrote:

To be fair, the colorless enemy are going to be half the set in the last block, and be a big presence up until then if it's colorless vs colored. As such, them having a big presence is a good thing, since they are half the block. Well a third of the block if you count 'vs'

Also, somewhat unrelated, but I think we're somewhat underestimating the number of colorless creatures we'll need in the first set to make this work. Probably about... as much as any one of the other colors? Otherwise when we get to the big split in the third set no-one will want to be colorless themed because they'll get nothing from the last booster they open.

Thats true, unless there is some kind of mechanic that allows you to make cards/ permanents colourless until the end of the turn.

I don't think we need a particularly large number, but we can put in cards that enable them. Powerful commons or uncommons to that long term plan (like 3 mana colourless shock) would enable the strategy in triple set draft but not make it absurd in S1/S1/S1 draft.

I don't like the Eldrazi very much. They're pretty boring to me and they were done so recently. I'd rather make our own tribe.

As for this pairing issue...

I don't think we need dual lands in Set 1, which is the one where colour pairing is REALLY going to matter. In the second set (this is going by my story) the colours are far more blurred and so strict pairs won't exist so much.

I think I would like enemy pairs in the first, guild-like set and have the mana fixing be largely artifact or creature based (see Ravnica fixing). In the second or third set an allied land cycle would seem more appropriate. If we have only allied pairings the whole way through the block, then there was no point in making the enemy duals in CCS.

The options I see that are reasonable are:

Enemy pairings, moving into more blurred colour pairing and a dual cycle in the latter sets.
Allied pairings with dual lands in the first set, moving into more blurred colour pairing in the latter sets.


I would personally like to spread out the dual lands and do the former, but it's not too important as long as we do one.

After thionking about it i think a new tribe would be better. it means we can give them whatever mechanic we like and not have to worry about flavour issues or other things like eldrazi spawn.

I think we need to come up with some kind of Common duel land similar to Ravnica, but thats not a huge worry atm

No offence intended Free-Kill, but can you list a set in recent history that has ever not included either fetches, duals, or tris in the first set? I can't remember one, though I will willingly hoist my own petard (I think?) if you prove me wrong. The first set has to have duals, and I for one would like to push for them to be allied.

As for the Eldrazi... well I can't argue with that. Mechanically and flavorful they seem the best fit, but if your primary objection is that they just don't float your boat, then I couldn't presuade you whatever argument I make so I'll save us both some hassle

Also, as an aside: Wizards has flat out said that they screwed up with Ravnica fixing and made it way too powerful, most prominently the bounce lands and signets. Aping that does not sound like a good idea as... well they really ARE overly powerful and way too good. You should NEVER first pick fixing, except perhaps in pack three, but people would regularly do so in RGD simply because you could run it whatever colors you were because it was cheap, card advantage, and mana acceleration all rolled into one.

EDIT: People keep saying we should make our own tribe with our own mechanics, but I've yet to actually see any examples of either. I wouldn't even bring it up if I could actually think of some examples of my own, but at the moment it seems like beating a head against a brick wall.

I have suggested loads of mechanics.

For the colourless creature:

Colour Drain - Cardname gains becomes all the colours or target creature, that creature loses all of its colours.

That's the only real mechanic I've seen you mentioned, but... it's kind of horrible, no offence intended. 99/100 times this mechanic doesn't actually do anything, and since those 1/100 times will be in this actual set, it's incredibly parasitic. Not to mention that it has major memory issues. If people fought tooth and nail to try and get that one merfolk to use a flood counter in the core set (which is actually kind of brutal by the way, with some bounce it ended up making like 6 of my lands islands in sealed. Not fun >.>) I really don't see them clearing this. And I admit I am one of them ^_^;

There is also the glass creatures that i suggest right at the start. They could be a good way of getting colourless cards into the first set. Can be artifacts or not

Shatter - Cardname enters the battlefield with 2 shatter counters on, when cardname is dealt damage remove a shatter counter from it, if there are no shatter counters on cardname, sacrifice it.

If you really want allied duals in the first set then I'm game. I don't want it to feel like an allied pair *block*, though.

As for fixing, Ravniva seems really fun. I can see why less would be better (splashing a WB card in my RU deck? Yeh, sure) but I still would like a good volume of easy fixing. Playing the cards you like it fun =3

To make mechanics for this colourless "tribe" we have to think what they really are. In the first set they can be pretty indiscriminate, since they haven't really banded together than. In sets 2 and 3, they need to feel coordinated.

They are spiteful, cunning, resourceful and strong survivors. Make what you will of that. May I propose something like:

Spite - When ~ blocks or becomes blocked by a creature it doesn't share a colour with, -effect-

This is overtly useful on colourless creatures but in the third set perhaps they've captured/enslaved some coloured beasts that could employ it.


EDIT: I propose that there is not a single artifact creature in the first or second sets, only outcasts. In the third set perhaps there are war machines or something.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 4:52AM, AnubisDread wrote:

That's the only real mechanic I've seen you mentioned, but... it's kind of horrible, no offence intended. 99/100 times this mechanic doesn't actually do anything, and since those 1/100 times will be in this actual set, it's incredibly parasitic. Not to mention that it has major memory issues. If people fought tooth and nail to try and get that one merfolk to use a flood counter in the core set (which is actually kind of brutal by the way, with some bounce it ended up making like 6 of my lands islands in sealed. Not fun >.>) I really don't see them clearing this. And I admit I am one of them ^_^;

I think there will be alot more times it does things actually. It all depends on the sets other mechanics and what deck its in.

It can help prevent or stop all the other mechanic ideas suggested so far, and can enable yours.

It isn't really a memory issue either, you just have to make sure you put the ability on sensible cards. Simple idea

Colourdrain Guy 1
Creature -???
When cardname netrs the battlefield colourdrain.
1/1

Simple as that. It all depends on what the other sets are like, thats what we have to worry about atm. We need to do the first set first, and worry about mechanics for the 3rd set later. All we need to decide is what type the enemy creatures are, we don't actually need their mechanic.

Really we need ALL the mechanics now.

Sets within Blocks are not separate. They will very often be played in a group and so we need interlinking. We HAVE to know how the latter sets will work to make the first one correctly in terms of plant cards, balance, etc. etc.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 4:57AM, Free-Kill wrote:

If you really want allied duals in the first set then I'm game. I don't want it to feel like an allied pair *block*, though.

As for fixing, Ravniva seems really fun. I can see why less would be better (splashing a WB card in my RU deck? Yeh, sure) but I still would like a good volume of easy fixing. Playing the cards you like it fun =3

To make mechanics for this colourless "tribe" we have to think what they really are. In the first set they can be pretty indiscriminate, since they haven't really banded together than. In sets 2 and 3, they need to feel coordinated.

They are spiteful, cunning, resourceful and strong survivors. Make what you will of that. May I propose something like:

Spite - When ~ blocks or becomes blocked by a creature it doesn't share a colour with, -effect-

This is overtly useful on colourless creatures but in the third set perhaps they've captured/enslaved some coloured beasts that could employ it.


EDIT: I propose that there is not a single artifact creature in the first or second sets, only outcasts. In the third set perhaps there are war machines or something.

I like spite, although pretty powerful. Still sounds good to me. Anyway all can be on all cards, not just colourless? Will that work flavour wise?

Aug 30, 2011 -- 5:01AM, Free-Kill wrote:

Really we need ALL the mechanics now.

Sets within Blocks are not separate. They will very often be played in a group and so we need interlinking. We HAVE to know how the latter sets will work to make the first one correctly in terms of plant cards, balance, etc. etc.

We have to know hoe they work but we don't need the exact mecanics now. I mean we could make some really good mechanic now, come to playtest the first set and realize that there just isn't enough interaction with or somthing. We need ideas for mechanics, but we don;t need to finialize all the mechanics yet, expecially if we find somthing doesnt work well in the first set, and all the other mechanics are based around that anyway.

Glass is bad too, simply because players hate mechanics that are actually draw backs. And that example you used is horrible and exactly what I'm talking about. It comes down early, and by itself it has pretty much no reason to do what it does. That's both memory issue and parasitism city. It's like if Infect creatures only activated if an opponent cast two spells three turns ago.

I like spite too actually. Though I hate colour drain, similar color shifting effects could be done occassionally, more like... well not Moonlace , more like Incite ? I hate spite on colorless cards though, it feels like cheating. And will make people get confused that it still activates when you block with a colorless creature.

As for fixing, I agree that it should be there more prominantly than normal, but less signets, more obelisks, hm?

IMO, changing or losing colors is a pretty simple concept and shouldn't need a keyword.  Also I feel like if we keworded it, we might feel obliged to have a lot of cards that use the keyword and end up overusing it.  I think the set should be mainly concerned with the colors themselves and not too many things that change colors.

Also this goes pretty far back in the thread, but I like a Sedraxis Alchemist keyword better than Swarm because swarm seems unnecessarily complicated.

if you don't like Colourdrain then fine, but i don't think you can knock it because of memory issues. You need just as much 'memory' to when you use Leeching Bite

...did you forget to put 'until end of turn' at the end of your mechanic? If so, I sincerely apologize and it won't bring up any memory issues at all. If not, than that comaprison is completely incomparable.

@littleteapot: Wow, that's considered far back in the thread? We HAVE been ranting! Anyway, I agree, and I've argued for that mechanic a few times

Anyway, onto the actual matter at hand... if we are going to make our own tribe, which I disagree with but let's go on with it for arguments sake because I do not want to drag this project down because I'm stubborn,  we need to work out two things:

-what are they?
-what do they do?

These are actually very loaded questions. Flavorfully, what DOES a creature composed of colorless mana that isn't an artifact or a space horror look like? How does it act? What philosophy does it follow? Can a creature even really follow a philosophy without a color to guide it?

As for what to do, that's even MORE loaded. What makes them different from artifacts aside from the fact they can't be Shatter ed? What makes them unique from colors? What can they do that you just can't do with a colored card?

Both of these are VERY hard questions to answer... I guess if we were to focus on the second one, maybe... something to do with exile? I have no clue.

Sorry, it was meant to say until end of the turn, I should really read though my own posts.

We agree that the creatures are nonartifact, colourless creature?

they are colouless because they are created/grown/born in a place where there is no Coloured mana. I imagine it llok more like a space moster. There perpose? To search and gain coloured mana in order to grow stronger?(could be by sucking the mana out of creatures )

Thats how i see them. Monsters born in a dark place with no coloured aman. The fight for both territory (coloured) and the power of coloured mana.

They are creatures that have adapted to survive in an environment devoid of coloured mana.

I would imagine this would reflect itself in cards by being difficult to kill, for one thing. Perhaps there is a mechanic there that we can think of.

I also like Spite, that I posted a page or two back.

These guys don't exactly have to be a tribe. It's not like they're a creature type. These are just the beasts that have been forced to live in the wastes of this plane and survive off the colourless mana available to them.

I think we all agree on that at the very least. And sorry, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt on Color Drain. I still don't really like it, but it's not nearly as bad as I first thought.

I actually like the idea of them sucking the colored soul out of a creature like that, it gives them a nice horror vibe and actually goes a way towards making them not the sympathetic party in the whole arrangment. My only question is: how do we differ one sort of mutated, colorless monstrosities from the OTHER elephant in the room, Eldrazi. I'm not saying we should use them, just saying that it's hard to say 'colorless space horrors' or the like without instantly going 'Eldrazi'.

As for the actual mechanics... well here's something I thought up a while ago, maybe it can help us get in the right direction?

Endure (Whenever this creature would be dealt damage, put a -1/-1 counter on it instead.)
Finally, even if they're not all of the same tribe, we need to decide what they actually ARE at the very least. I mean, red has Goblins and Giants and Minotaurs and Lizards etc, that's it's thing. What's non-Eldrazi, non-artifact Colorless creatures thing?

Endure is ok, but im not a fan of it in a set that doesn't have a -1/-1 counter theme, it just makes the creatures pretty bad.

For the creatures i think we just need to come up with a new creature type, either a whole new tribe or a new subtype that all the creatures have, such as Goblin X, Beast X etc.

Endure is awesome. Really flavourful and fun. We can make use of -1/-1 counters as a theme of the colourless, if you like.

I think Anubis is actually envisioning a very different colourless group to myself. I'm thinking just normal creatures that are alienated rather than towering monstrosities.

I think we should just have the subtype "Outcast". Beast Outcasts, Human Outcasts... Fun!

If we bring a -1/-1 counter theme to the colourless than that could work, might be kinda cool. Possibly have +1/+1 counter theme for multicolour?

Outcast seems good, im happy to roll with that.

I don't think we need +1/+1 on multicolours. Just Outcasts manipulating -1/-1 counters should be fun.

Something like:

Spiteful Freelander -
Creature - Human Outcast
Endure
, Remove a -1/-1 counter from Stalwart Freelander: Place a -1/-1 counter on target creature
3/3

Looks good, i think we have a mechanic for them. Although that mechanic won't be in set 1 right?

Aug 30, 2011 -- 6:47AM, snowyy wrote:

Looks good, i think we have a mechanic for them. Although that mechanic won't be in set 1 right?

No, set 2 and 3.

Ok. So for set 1 are we having a Sedraxis Alchemist kind of Mechanic?

I don't think I will be participating in the design of this set, but feel free to call me for flavor suggestions or playtesting.

Ok, do you want to participate in the next set, hopefully tribal set

I think I like Steamcore Weird more than I like Sedraxis Alchemist .

We can have both! One can be in set 1 and the other can be in set 2. I prefer Sedraxis Alchemist simply because we can make a keyword of it and that ability can be used when the card is on the battlefield such as:

White Tapper
Creature - Human
Colourcare Blue Tap target creature.
2/2

Not the greatest example and it needs a bit of work, but i think it has more design space. We can use both though as i said.

I thought that there would mainly be elementals on this plane, fits with the flavour and the will for coloured mana. Are we going wit tradditional goblins, humans, elf, Zombie etc? I would prefer some more 'outside the box' races on this plane. Such as

Cats - Although just been done in Scars
Beasts - Obviously in their somewhere
Gnome
Giant
Gremlin
Insect
Kavu
Lizard
Mutant - Colourless?
Noggle
Ouphe
Plant
Rhino
Treefolk
Troll
Vishino
Wurm

Aug 30, 2011 -- 7:33AM, snowyy wrote:

We can have both! One can be in set 1 and the other can be in set 2. I prefer Sedraxis Alchemist simply because we can make a keyword of it and that ability can be used when the card is on the battlefield such as:

White Tapper
Creature - Human
Colourcare Blue Tap target creature.
2/2

Not the greatest example and it needs a bit of work, but i think it has more design space. We can use both though as i said.

Well in *that* instance it would be better as:

White Tapper -
Creature - Human
- Tap target creature. Activate this ability only if you control a blue permanent.
2/2



But I would be fine with an ability word, I think. That gives us some more freedom than it would otherwise.

Sedraxis Alchemist -
Creature - Zombie Wizard
Aligned - When Sedraxis Alchemis enters the battlefield, return target permanent to its owner's hand as you control a blue permanent.
2/2

I know it seems counterintuitive to make it *longer*, but this should be how it's done. Look at Metalcraft .

For the sake of making it easy when you glace at the card, we could even make it "Blue aligned" rather than just "aligned".

Seems good to me, i think we have a key Mechanic for set 1!

So what happens now, how are we going to work out who makes what cards?

Aug 30, 2011 -- 8:56AM, snowyy wrote:

So what happens now, how are we going to work out who makes what cards?

There's more to do before that.

We need a complete block skeleton that at least roughly divides up the cards so we know where we're headed, as well as the key mechanics of each block.

Ok, normally there is around 40-50 cards in each colour, and around 5 artifacts, and 20-25 land, dependsing on the size.

About half the cards in the colours are common. There is around 10 uncommons with about 7 rares and then 3 mythics in each colour. (using Zendikar and Lorwyn sets as guide)

Instaed of spliting them up by colour we may want to spluit them up into their 'groups' so we can say

40-50 cards in the WU group
about 20 W
about 20 U
Then 5-10 Multicoloured/ hybrid cards

Possibly?

Obviously we are using the Alginment mechanic. For Spells i justed some kind of Chroma mechanic:

Colourcare - [effect] based on the number of [colour/s] permanats you control. For example:

Colourcare Bolt
Instant
Colourcare - Cardname deals X damage to target creature or player equal to the number of red permanents you control.

We are not calling anything "Colourcare" ¬_¬

Scars is a 249 card block.

There are 20 basic lands, so thats 229 cards.

I think we want around 10 colourless outcasts dudes as well as the 5-ish artifacts.

That leaves 214 cards.

There's going to be a nonbasic or two as well, so let's say thats 212 cards. For the sake of simplicity we'll just remove 2 cards from the set.

That leaves 210 cards, or 42 cards per colour (no multicolour cards in this set, I think).


So, to recap:

42 White
42 Blue
42 Black
42 Red
42 Green
10 Colourless Creatures
5 Artifacts
2 Non-basic lands
20 Basic lands
= 247 cards


Seems fair if you ask me!

Aug 30, 2011 -- 10:18AM, Free-Kill wrote:

We are not calling anything "Colourcare" ¬_¬

Scars is a 249 card block.

There are 20 basic lands, so thats 229 cards.

I think we want around 10 colourless outcasts dudes as well as the 5-ish artifacts.

That leaves 214 cards.

There's going to be a nonbasic or two as well, so let's say thats 212 cards. For the sake of simplicity we'll just remove 2 cards from the set.

That leaves 210 cards, or 42 cards per colour (no multicolour cards in this set, I think).


So, to recap:

42 White
42 Blue
42 Black
42 Red
42 Green
10 Colourless Creatures
5 Artifacts
2 Non-basic lands
20 Basic lands
= 247 cards


Seems fair if you ask me!

I know we arn't calling it colourcare, that was just a quick name to show the actual mechanic What do you think of the actual mechanic?

The question is how are we going to sort out the cards. We can't sort it out using the colours because we are having 'groups' of two colours. It would be better if we sorted out what two colours are going together, then we give people a group to do instead of a colour.

I think we should have 1 multicolour card fopr each 'group'. This can be a legendary eacher that is kind of a leader figure for that 'group'.

There aren't real groups in Set 1. It's mostly monocoloured cards that just interact with their partner colours (which I think are now allied?).

We'd just have a similar distribution to before and just say that we need, for example, 5 creatures and 3 spells that interact with each of that colour's pairings and leave it to the colour heads.

It's in sets 2 and 3 where the colours really start getting screwy that we'll need some more careful divvying up.

I also don't think we need a legendary cycle in set one, especially considering that there aren't true alliances in the story. I could buy having a "Gatekeeper" cycle for each border though, like the guy that guards them. Maybe at common or uncommon.

Ok, sounds good. gatekeeper cycle also seems good, probably good doing it at uncommon. So i guess we can start looking at cards now, if we have decided on mechanics. We have

Alignment - [effect] if you control a colour permanent
Semblance - [effect] based on the number of [colour/s] permanent you control.
Steamcore Weird effect for some cards
Entwine ??

reminds me of shadowmoor block.

Anyways, how come this is a great idea but "as long as you control a (basic land)" isn't?

Im happy if with that two, its just people have more interaction if it says permanents because they are easier to get rid of. Makes it more fun and means it's not always active, whereas once you have played the land its is 9/10 going to be activate for the rest of the game. It also means multicoloured decks can play non basics instead of having to play a load of basic lands in your multicoloured deck.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:08PM, catowner wrote:

Anyways, how come this is a great idea but "as long as you control a (basic land)" isn't?

That idea is fine. I think Anubis' reaction was based on "If you control X number of Y, -effect-".

I think basing it off coloured permanents is more fun. Basic lands have a tendency of being very permanent, so when your opponent drops a guy with islandpower and has an island, you kind of feel like there's nothing to be done about it.

With permanent-colour-love you open more angles of attack. Taking out your opponent's third artifact in Scars of Mirrodin to drop their Auriok Sunchaser to the ground so that you can chuck your Cystbearer in front of it felt AWESOME. I don't think you can feel a kick like that too often with basic lands.

Alignment I like.
Semblance is well named.
Steamcore Weird is a bro.
Entwine... I'm not sure fits. Where is it in the flavour? I think kicker is actually more appropriate, though Alignment and Semblance are probably enough for this set.

The way i see entwine is the plane is very powerful, so you haave the option to do powerful things, like entwine. But the realy flavour comes in set too. You can have a black spell with a blue entwine cost. This shows how the colours working together creates a more powerful effect, i think its also pretty cool, off the top of my head:

Blue entwine
Sorcery
Choose 1: Draw a card or Target opponent discards a card
Entwine

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:30PM, snowyy wrote:

The way i see entwine is the plane is very powerful, so you haave the option to do powerful things, like entwine. But the realy flavour comes in set too. You can have a black spell with a blue entwine cost. This shows how the colours working together creates a more powerful effect, i think its also pretty cool, off the top of my head:

Blue entwine
Sorcery
Choose 1: Draw a card or Target opponent discards a card
Entwine

I hope you know how obscenely strong that is.

Yes, its just a quick, simply way to show what i meant. If i was going to put it forward the entwine cost would obviously more, but for example perposes its cleaner like that.

I agree Entwine is a bad way to go about it, but I tried to avoid any mechanic that was part of an old multi-color block to try and make this one feel a bit more unique. This was... surprisingly difficult, as pretty much every old mechanic we could use other than Entwine HAS been used at some point.

Also Semblance is NOT a good idea. It's not that it's a bad mechanic, it's just that it's so incredibly like Alignment that there's no reason to have them both be mechanics.

Also also, there should definitely be more than just ten colorless cards in the first set if it's going to be a theme later on, otherwise people will be screwed when drafting it. INFECT had more cards in the first set than that.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 2:51PM, AnubisDread wrote:

I agree Entwine is a bad way to go about it, but I tried to avoid any mechanic that was part of an old multi-color block to try and make this one feel a bit more unique. This was... surprisingly difficult, as pretty much every old mechanic we could use other than Entwine HAS been used at some point.

Also Semblance is NOT a good idea. It's not that it's a bad mechanic, it's just that it's so incredibly like Alignment that there's no reason to have them both be mechanics.

Also also, there should definitely be more than just ten colorless cards in the first set if it's going to be a theme later on, otherwise people will be screwed when drafting it. INFECT had more cards in the first set than that.

Semblance is similar, but it's only like Kicker and Multi-kicker. Possibly a set 2 mechanic.
I may be wrong but i thoght you chose Entwine as one of the mechanics to use??
I don't think there is a huge problem with artifacts now that the mechanic for colouless creatures doesn't actually care about them being colouless. Therefore you can choose colouless creatures for set 2/3 and then just pick solid cards for the last pack, it's not as if you are going to have a completly colouless deck in limited anyway.

I'd make it entwine

How about a card types matter theme?

Spellscatter
Instant
Counter target spell.  If it was a creature spell, put 2 1/1 blue illusion creature tokens onto the battlefield.  If it was a noncreature spell, fateseal 2.

Towering Inferno
Sorcery
Destroy target non-enchantment permanent.

(yeah, the name's a reference to the steve mcqueen movie).

Eclectic Elemental
Creature - Elemental
~'s power and toughness are equal to the number of permanent types among permanents you control.
*/*
(it's not as strong as 'goyf because it doesn't count your opponents stuff, instants, or sorceries.  Most of the time it should just be a 2/2)

Its ok, but there it doesn't fit the flavour of the plane.

Aug 30, 2011 -- 3:03PM, catowner wrote:

I'd make it entwine

How about a card types matter theme?

Spellscatter
Instant
Counter target spell.  If it was a creature spell, put 2 1/1 blue illusion creature tokens onto the battlefield.  If it was a noncreature spell, fateseal 2.

Towering Inferno
Sorcery
Destroy target non-enchantment permanent.

(yeah, the name's a reference to the steve mcqueen movie).

Eclectic Elemental
Creature - Elemental
~'s power and toughness are equal to the number of permanent types among permanents you control.
*/*
(it's not as strong as 'goyf because it doesn't count your opponents stuff, instants, or sorceries.  Most of the time it should just be a 2/2)

Where was this when I was pulling for it?  Also I think its a little early to be adding subthemes.  I think we should first figure out how much we can do within the main theme.

Okay, I think we're getting a little too far afield here. What I recommend we do is:

a) Start a new thread already!
b) Run a contest or something, that's a far more convenient way to get keywords
c) ...run a poll on whether we should have Eldrazi or not >.>

I thought we were over this Eldrazi thing ¬_¬

Also we don't need colourless creatures that much in set 1. Solid artifacts and enablers are also fine for the colourless deck, it's not going to be 100% colourless anyway. A card like:

Xenophobia -
Instant
Target creature you control gains protection from all colours it isn't.

Would work great in the colourless deck!

That's why I said we had to have mechanics in mind from the start so that we could plant cards like that.



Okay, if we're going to make a dedicated thread I want story and the like absolutely sorted along with a name and banner graphic. That way people have a clear idea of what we're trying to do here and it'll look sweet.

Are we set on the story construct I proposed earlier? If so, I'll formalise it and create a map. After that we need a name for the plane.

Couldn't we just propose the theme and let people help make the story too? I can't help but feel we'd get more than four people talking about this if we actually had a dedicated thread for the discussion instead of having it on page eleventy twenty of a huge thread.

And no, no we are not over the Eldrazi thing. You will have to pull the hedron from my cold, Eternity dwelling tentacle limbs

Can't you see the problem with letting everyone contribute to story? If I put up a thread saying "Here are the mechanics, write a story" then people will go and make insane plots and say "OHOHOHOH and then we could have X keyword or Y ability" and suggesting reprints and blahdeblahdeblah.

If we want constructive card and keyword creation we should finalise the story and then lay it out in front of them. I hate to say we have to treat people like children but we kind of do if we want productive responses. Without guidance people (and the thread) won't be very helpful.


And about the Eldrazi... I will fight you to the grave.

No, don't you see that that's already happening with the four people here? Well five maybe, I'm not sure... for example, the Eldrazi thing. Wouldn't it REALLY be easier to put it up for a vote than argue about it back and forth? We're never going to reach a consensis on half of this stuff, and at least if we put up a poll or two then we'll get some hard answers. And a poll would also solve the other issues you're mentioning, as if we just get some contriubtions, put it to a vote, then move on, it will go incredibly quickly.

Ah, VOTING is fine. Openly asking for story is not.

Fair enough, so what do you say we open a new thread, put a basic poll of 'which is more interesting, Eldrazi or mana starved borders', then see the results and build off of it? It'd also be an excuse to brainstorm what exactly the mana starved things ARE. From there, once it's decided, we can accept mechanic submissions,  then put all of those up for voting and see what's popular and what's not. Once that's done, we can work out where the mechanics fit in the set, then divide the set into color pairing and colorless and give it to six lead developers using the same criteria we used for the core set.

Well why don't we just both take our outlines of the story and post them?

Sounds good to me really. May the horrors of the Eternity consume all!

...sorry ^_^; But I'm all for starting to get things done. Flavor seems to be the first thing that needs to be decided on, but I'm eager to get that out of the way asap so we can move onto a keyword contest!

If we are doing this make sure you outline the colour theme etc, or are we goign to vote for that aswell

I wish this had been suggested before we had basically got the mechanics together. Seems like a step backwards not forwards to me.

Oh no, of course we will. Since that's the one thing we all agree on, of course we're going to include it and Align. I think that's the good one? That gives people a nice basis to go off of. We're just going to voting because we have a bit of a rift on the flavor interpretation, hit a wall on interpreting the unique tribe if we're going that route, and need more than one keyword. And two keywords that are functionally identically except one requires one thing and one requires more of that one thing doesn't count

And entwine? Are we disregarding that aswell?

I'm not really interested in Entwine, at least in this set.

Aligned is a neat keyword, and if we feel like Semblance is close enough to be displaced by it then that's fine too.
I think we could also put Spite in this set without too much hassle. To recap, Spite was:

Whenever this creature blocks or is blocked by a creature it doesn't share a colour with, effect.

I'm pretty sure no-one is really warm enough on that one not to let it go to a 'anyone have any better ideas' approach. Hell, I'm not that warm on it and I suggested it. We haven't really done any work on entwining either, so it's not like we've lost any progress.

Ok, lets get this done then, the quicker we get the thread open the quicker we get to start this thing. However im just waiting for loads of random card suggestions not actual help. Please make it clear :D

Just thought of a problem.  We can't use Alignment in set 1, as our main mechanic anyway. Set 1 is the mono-coloured block. Alignment is useless for it because you can't have a blue creature with alignment blue because it's always going to be active. We could introduce the mechanic, but because we arn't really having the 'groups' until set too we can't really use it on many cards.

I have an idea to change Semblance to make it different and able to use in Set 1:

Semblance -[effect] based on the number of permanats that share a colour with [cardname].

Its similar to others suggested, but will work well with the monocoloured theme, and you don't need that many permanents to actually make it good.

It will also be fine for the other sets, because of hybrid and gold cards we will still have enough coloured permanents fopr the mechanic to be used and useful.

Snowyy, I'm fairly certain that we've all decided that rather than being a mono-colored set, the first set will be a set that is focused on multi-color but does not include any hybrid or gold cards. So the set where Steamcore Weird shines so to speak. As such, Alignment actually fits there more than anywhere else. At least, that's what I'd come to understand, as mono-color is boring as a theme and does not mesh with the rest of the block in the slightest, thus making the first set a flop in draft.

Also, please stop pushing Semblance in co-existance with Alignment. They're far too similar to be included in the same set.

I think I'll post the main thread now so we can organize our discussion a bit better. Frankly we probably shouldn't have been talking about this for so long in an interest thread to begin with.

Of course there going to be similar, its a colour matters set, it needs to involve colour. The new version is actually pretty different. I am just trying help, just like you are pushing Eldrazi even though no one else wants it

The thread is now up! All discussion on the block should be done there.

And fair enough, I guess I just thought that if we already have an ability word to do with color, we should focus on non-ability keywords But that is a discussion for another thread!

The way I saw it was the first set was mostly mono with half the cards (maybe?) in each colour having a tie to another colour.

Yeah, thats you i said wouldn't it be better if we split up the cards into the groups instead of people doing a colour each, but you said we weren't doing the groups in set 1 :D

ok, guys, it's clear that we need a leader for this project.  Without one, we can't get a unanimously accepted set theme.