You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you've just crossed over into theTwilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is a large, multiround contest that will test your mettle and imagination as a designer as I throw you into alternate dimensions and situations where magic has become...strange. Many of you will enter the doorway to this madness, but only 16 will continue on to the zone, and each round, one of you will not make it out of the realm you find yourself in. The realm...of The Twilight Zone.
Picture this: You sit down to play a normal game of magic, shuffle and cut each other's cards as per usual, and draw your initial hands. But something seems off. Perhaps it's the 4 color planeswalker, or the enchantment artifacts, or maybe it's the aura creatures. And then it hits you, magic is a game of resource management. Perhaps in the world outside of your computer screens, but not in...The Twilight Zone. Create up to three cards from what magic would have become if lands were never a card type, and please give a little explanation on whatever you make.
What is magic without mana as a resource? Well obviously without a resource, cards are for the most part free. But if everything is free, why would you play Suntail Hawk over Serra Angel ? Everyone would just play the best creatures.
So I propose a system where you can only play one creature a turn, and better creatures require you to have already played smaller creatures. Like this for example:
Blue-Eyes White Phyrexian Dreadnought Creature - Dreadnought When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you sacrifice two other creatures. This legendary Phyrexian is a powerful engine of destruction. Virtually invincible, very few have faced this awesome creature and lived to tell the tale. 8/6
That way, you're not dropping Serra Angels on turn 1 and ending the game quickly. Although, with this sacrifice mechanic in place, there's not much incentive to playing big creatures when you can just play a bunch of little creatures and overwhelm your opponent.
So for my next step, I propose we place a limit on how much creatures we can have on the battlefield, say around 5. That way flooding the board with dudes is still a viable strategy, but will not become overwhelming, as at one point you're going to run out of space.
Also, I think that to further solve this problem, we can have creatures fight eachother directly instead of attacking players. Creatures would only be able to attack players if the other player has no blockers. That would also make one big dude more valuble than smaller dudes, which encourages you to tribute smaller dudes to play larger ones.
To round it all out, I think we should change combat between creatures slightly as well. Normal magic combat is so confusing. You have to keep track of numbers and damage and stuff. Instead, our combat is going to be just comparing numbers. When two creatures fight, the one with the higher attack wins. Simple as that. The loser is destroyed and its controller suffers damage equal to the difference in the two creatures powers. This will help us attract younger audience members who may not know how to do math very well.
"But Silly!" you may ask, what purpose does toughness serve in combat then? Well, I have this revolutionary idea. Creatures don't tap to attack. Instead, if they didn't attack this turn you can tap your own creatures voluntarily to put them in some sort of... what shall I call it... blocking mode! When your creature is tapped this way, it won't untap unless you spend a turn untapping it, and it can't attack. But in this mode, you use toughness in combat instead of power, so creatures with fat butts can still be useful. Also, if your blocking creature gets destroyed, you don't take the normal combat damage that you would if the creature was attacking.
Now that solves the creature issue. On to spells. Instants imo would also probably need to be redone. Normally a player in magic will be able to guess that his opponent has an instant ready by the mana he has untapped. With mana gone, we need a different way to telegraph instants. I propose we put instants face down on the battlefield, showing the opponents we have an unknown "surprise" waiting for them. Once they are face down, we can turn them face up at any time to use them. They move to the stack and then to the graveyard after being turned face up. Of course, some instants may still require other forms of payment such as life or discarding cards, because unlike creatures we can't regulate instant power the same way. Here's an example.
Trap Pit Instant Destroy target creature with 3 or more power if it entered the battlefield this step.
We should also probably limit noncreature cards on the battlefield, like instants and sorceries and enchantments and things to 5 as well. This is to provide symmetry with the creature limit, and to avoid making the battlefield too confusing.
Here is what an echantment would look like. Note that playing enchantments will count towards your 5 card limit for noncreature stuff on the battlefield, so you will be able to put less instants face down.
Horn from a Ronom Unicorn Enchantment - Aura Enchanted creature gets +2/+2. When ~ is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, put ~ on top of its owner's library.
The good thing about not having a mana cost anymore is that we can have longer card names. ^_^
In my version of landless Magic, cards look a lot like Force of Will and/or Fireblast , except that those are the only way to cast those cards (and Fireblast doesn't reference "land" of course).
Divided up among the color pie are different ways to cast cards that those colors are allowed to use.
For instance, Blue and Black can cast cards by milling themselves; Red and Black can cast cards by discarding cards. At least initially, each color pair would share a unique method of casting cards, meaning each color would have four ways to cast cards individually.
This is accomplished via a keyword: "Cast -- {cost}." The costs are written using some other alternate and new keywords in order to keep them as short as possible. A player may only cast 1 sorcery or permanent per main phase, and only 1 instant or interrupt per turn (unless some other effect says otherwise).
Wild Guess Sorcery Cast -- Discard 1 Draw two cards.
Young Wolf Summon Young Wolf Cast -- Gift a 1/1 green Wolf creature (gifts must be given to an opponent; token is implied) Undying 1/1
Other examples of alternately keyworded methods of cost -- "Bleed 2 (you lose 2 life)," "Create a {permanent} (implies a token under your control)," "Banish {something} (the something goes to the bottom of its owner's library)."
First of all, facedown cards will never be a thing. That means no morph, no illusionary mask. (And damn no DFC)
You will start placing cards facedown as resources. (basically like WoWccg and many others that already employ the design)
When you play a card face down, you declare its color. It has to position in the slot on your play-mat with the indicated color.
Rampant Expand Sorcery Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card facedown onto the battlefield as a green mana source or put it into your hand.
Invoke the History Sorcery Exile target facedown card you control. Until end of turn, you may cast it.
Death's Residue Sorcery - Black Mana Destroy target creature. (If you have not played a mana source card this turn, you may put this card facedown onto the battlefield as a black mana source as it resolves.)
The help text should be implied by its resource subtype.
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupry
Congratulations, you've found My Lie Policy: Only when i'm prompted, i might lie. (policy still in the refinement process.)
I am both rational and instinctive. I value self-knowledge and understanding of the world; my ultimate goal is self-improvement and improvement of the world around me. At best, I am focused and methodical; at worst, I am obsessive and amoral.Show
Well, I think in addition to the normal Life Total used, we would have Resource Totals!
Everyone starts with 8 Mana Points of a single color or split evenly beetween 2 colors of their choice.
I visionize 2 main strategies. Decks that spend all their Points in early turns to overwhelm opponents early (or to fail in trying) Decks that use Energy Artifacts inside to churn out more mana points and try to win a forthcoming long game. Some decks might use a mix of the 2.
So lets showcase a piece of the Basic Energy Artifacts Cycle!
Pearl = White, Sapphire = Blue, Jet = Black, Ruby = Red, Emerald = Green, Diamond = Any
Green Mana Energizer Basic Energy Artifact - Emerald
And Duals would cost or have a small drawback and cost while Diamonds would cost or have a mid drawback and cost .
Mana stays around forever in this world.
In a Cycle from the Alternate Planar Chaos:
Forest of Emeralds Energy Land - Emerald When ~ enters the battlefield return an Energy Permanent to your hand.
Aggresive All-In decks could use these as gradual refill by returning itself to your hand.
A classic trick for the All-In Decks would be:
Draining Vampire When ~ deals combat damage, target player loses 1 mana point. 2/1
Since it has Summoning Sickness, it can't be used as automatic mana disruption.
Also as a balancing factor for the even greater disadvantage of going last, you get +1 starting mana point for everyone before you in turn order in addition to the skip 1st draw for going 1st rule that exists in 2 Player.
Another Bonus card:
Magmatic Ritual Instant Double your current mana points.
Blocks I liked: (+1)
Invasion Onslaught Mirrodin Time Spiral Lorwyn Zendikar Return to Ravnica
Blocks I disliked: (-1)
Oddesy Champions of Kamigawa Time Echoes Innistrad Any Released Blocks not listed in this Sig
Blocks I neutralize: (+/-0)
Ravnica City of Guilds Shadowmoor Shards of Alara Scars of Mirrodin
In this world of Magic... mana comes not from land but from the cards themselves. This is accomplished via a new keyword on most cards, "Generate (When you generate, reveal this card from your hand and put it into the mana zone. Then add this card's generate amount to your pool. Return all cards in the mana zone to your hand at the beggining of your turn.)" Some cards will have abilities that trigger from the mana zone. Also cards in play will still have mana abilities.
Treehome Guardian Creature - Elf Generate (When you generate, reveal this card from your hand and put it into the mana zone. Then add this card's generate amount to your pool. Return all cards in the mana zone to your hand at the beggining of your turn.) Defender 1/3
Korin, Risen Devourer Legendary Creature - Zombie Generate (When you generate, reveal this card from your hand and put it into the mana zone. Then add this card's generate amount to your pool. Return all cards in the mana zone to your hand at the beggining of your turn.) You can cast ~ from your mana zone for less. Intimidate 4/2
Knowledge Unknown Sorcery Shuffle two cards from your mana zone into your library. Then draw three cards.
or have a small drawback and cost 
or have a mid drawback and cost 
(When you generate, reveal this card from your hand and put it into the mana zone. Then add this card's generate amount to your pool. Return all cards in the mana zone to your hand at the beggining of your turn.)
