These are by no means permanent, nor are they perfectly satisfying everything black needs to do. I just made 14 black commons in an attempt to fill out the current themes of black and somewhat accomplish the things black always does in a set. I missed some things, but that's not the point, for the moment.
­Gorgon Slave-Keeper
(((Starving Harpy)))
­Ox Ashlar-Drawer
­Virulent Slave
­Callous Master
­Chained Minotaur
­Apthora Slavedrivers
­Striking Gaze
­Serve Through Death
­Disdainful Glance
­Return to Service
­Gather Minions
­Harsh Incentive
(((Monument Builder)))
EDIT: Messed up a name

Ug. I don't know what happened here, but it looks like we lost our conversation and my submission links. I checked around, and it seems my submissions are still here, so no big deal. But, as Jack mentions in Mono Black, black is already a bit messy with exactly what we're doing with it.

If anyone does happen to pick up Black's mantle besides me, don't forget that I have about 14 cards to add to this. Search Community set for Black Commons.. that should do it mostly. Also search for Fortifications, since that's tied to black's mechanics. Black's going to be tricky even without all of this, since we haven't established if and how many fortifications would appear, and would they appear in black, colorless or a mix.

Okay, time to roll up our sleeves and figure out what Black wants out of this set. Besides Link's original list of baddies, we have these cards in the file as well:

­

It is very aggravating when you type out 5 paragraphs and your work is wiped away by an out of field application of the 'backspace' button. sigh. I will try to remain patient while retyping everything.

Link's original idea for this color probably won't work any more. "If you sacrificed a creature this turn" is too much like Morbid (and, in hindsight, Morbid is probably a better application of this mindspace). That's not Link's fault... we just got unlucky with Innistrad. The funny thing is that by the time we get done completing this set, most players will probably have forgotten about Morbid. I'll leave the question to the designers how much of the 'sacrificing for fun and profit' they want to see, but I'm sure we aren't leading with it.

We also tossed around playing with Minion tokens... either tapping them or sacrificing them. Going too far down this path also seems like a bad idea to me... though, this time the problem is our own set. Green is supposed to be very focused on growth in this set, but only has so much space to dedicate to making token creatures. If black out-grows green, it's going to feel a little weird. Maybe I'm getting too analytical on this... after all, green also seems to be more on a control-through-infection kick... and maybe black can out produce green. Again, I can be swayed.

I am rather certain that people can agree on the Fortification sub-theme... but it's going to need to stay a sub-theme. This is for the same reason that equipment is sometimes a sub-theme in white... sometimes you won't draw any equipment, and your game will crash and burn because of it. We're also going to need some different 'likes fortifications' cards. I like Link's ideas, but they're clearly in the Uncommon department... since they aim to forego costs. The point should be to showcase the Fortifications, not abuse them. That's going to make players play with one fortification - the biggest one they got.

So... that doesn't leave us with a major mechanic for mono-Black, unless you count flavor. Can you count flavor? Would it be wrong to give black a mild Fortification theme, and flavor a master/slave interaction of creatures constantly building fortifications without giving them a unifying mechanical identity? I'm not sold that we need a major mechanic to sell black, since the flavor is strong. This is not to say that I wouldn't welcome ideas... Link's tinkering with a mechanic that represents chains on Gorgon Slaver, for example, looks like it could go somewhere, even if it's not where Link wanted to go with it. Does anybody else have any ideas that scream "Slavery!" without using cards in a similar vein to Ritual of the Machine or cards that require a sacrifice? Something with a Classical Greek or Egyptian flavor, perhaps?

@jmg: Wow, does your browser not remember form entries when clicking Back/Forward? I thought all modern browsers did that (unless the pages are using fiddly Ajaxy/DHTML bits which Multiverse doesn't).

In some sets it'd be fine for a colour (or even all colours) not to have a specific mechanical identity. But I think the Rule of Five applies: if we have mechanical identities for the other four colours, black may look pretty odd without one. Flavour will go a long way, but if there's not much synergy with other black cards, it will look odd.

I agree that Fortifications, while an interesting subtheme, should not be more than that.

I mostly agree with the rule of five, but I wonder if we're close enough to what Esper did in Alara block to work. It talked about artifacts and featured artifacts as if it was a mechanic... but really, there wasn't much that interacted with artifacts. A smattering of cards. Is our smattering of cards that interact with fortifications enough to pull an Esper?

@Alex: Normally, it's fine. But I literally smashed the backspace key in an attempt to delete some seven-letter word, and my Google CR-48 is designed to do nothing but process Google Chrome fast. Within less than a second, I was rocketed back 7 pages, and for some reason or another, Chrome didn't think it was necessary to save the info. You would think it still would... maybe it's something they'll rectify it in future updates. CR-48s are still kind of new... they've got a few kinks to work out still. One of which is that I wish I could open a damn zip file. Seriously.

Added (((Monument Builder))) (which, after thinking about it, realized this ability was used at common before), and Middle-Management sans Benefits to fill out our two "Likes-Fortifications" slots in black. That part is easy. The rest of black is hard. I really need some input over here, everyone. Without it, I'm just going to start adding things to the skeleton that people will probably disagree with, and then we'll have to go back later and change it.

I'll look into this tomorrow, but right now I'm exhausted.

Perhaps a handful of mechanical subthemes could suffice for black. Fortifications as one; sacrifice as another; a few implementations of slavery as another. The monster hunters in Innistrad didn't have a mechanical theme in common, but they had a lot of individual cards that fitted the flavour in different ways. Fiend Hunter, Slayer of the Wicked and Elite Inquisitor don't have much in common mechanically, but they're all pretty close to the same flavour.

Right now black is struggling with two things, correct? It needs to find a way to care, in a black way, about fortifications. It also needs to find a way to represent slavery in a way that doesn't depend on sacrifice or token creation. Finally, it needs to incorporate these ideas into black's normal skeleton slots. At the very least, black always has some sort of creature removal, and some sort of discard. It also has a beneficial aura of some sort, and of course, tries to represent its various keywords.

Another brainstormed suggestion would be to have a theme of "sacrifice a creature (or tap, or sacrifice N, etc): put a fortification from outside the game onto the battlefield (or also attach it to, etc)"

I don't think "put into play from outside the game" has been done at common before for good reason, but it's actually quite simple, so it might be a possibility, and if so, it would have several benefits: you can make relevant "sacrifice a creature:" cards that aren't eclipsed by the need to have a greater number of "sacrifice me" and fortification cards; it fits the flavour of building a fortification better than simply attaching it; it means drafting even one common fortification can be useful, rather than having to draw a fortification and a black card at the same time to get the main benefit; it means it can still be relevant to play marginal fortifications.

You could do something similar with searching your deck for a fortification, or having three standard fortifications in token form, and having slavemasters make token fortifications, but I like the flavour of putting into play from outside the game. (It would also give fortifications a mechanical identity different to artifacts?)

The theme could be supported with a comparatively small number of fortifications (probably starting with one or two common ones, eg. the "equipped land is a 0/4 wall creature" fort), and some number of "sacrifice a" creatures, and helped, but not require, conveniently sacrificable creatures.

Well, that's certainly something that's never been done in high numbers before. I'm not yet sure how I feel about it.

I'm astonished by the idea of making a bunch of "wish onto the battlefield from outside the game" cards at common. But then again... yeah, you know, I can kinda see that working. Like the set on Multiverse where every booster has a Mons's Goblin Raiders or a Pearled Unicorn etc in, but there are many cards which let you get those ones from outside the game. We're somewhat helped by the way Wizards haven't got many printed Fortifications, and spamming lots of Darksteel Garrisons wouldn't be especially overpowered.

I imagine the first time someone proposed Lignify or Snakeform at common, people's eyebrows shot up. But I can see it working.

Yeah, exactly. It didn't seem that it could ever be a common effect. But it's actually comparatively simple, and provided we ensure there are no overpowered fortifications, it's not too powerful. The fortifications should be reasonably generic so it doesn't feel like "it's not fair, he got that fortification every game" but more like they're a natural part of the game, like basic lands or emblems, where the interesting part is what searches for them (although you can always play them separately if you want).

I actually quite like the idea that you may try to snag a couple of fortifications during drafting, and then keep them in your sideboard to be drafted. (Although you'd have to decide are these cards or tokens, are we doing "from outside the game" or just "search from deck" which would be much the same, less shocking, but have the downsides that (a) it's less obvious that no-one should make a fortification batterskull in future and (b) it's a lot of deck searching.)

I'm not sure this is a good idea, but it keeps growing on me.

You could get best of both words by making it "A fortification of CMC 3 or less" or similar? Pick a single number for this set, I'd think, though. (Much as scry was always 2)

My assumption was that the CMC would be tied to what you sacrifice (eg. "Sacrifice any number of creatures. Put a fortification with CMC less than or equal to their combined power and toughness onto the battlefield from outside the game") or something, so it's harder to build bigger fortifications. Alternatively you could have as you say, different slavemasters who build different sized fortifications, or similar. I agree there would have to be some limit, since it fails flavourwise and balancewise to be able to build a little fortification or a big one with the same number of slaves.

Wow. This is totally my territory. Alex's allusion to the Mons Goblin Raider and Pearled Unicorn wishing set is from Magic 20XX, a set that I had the chance to playtest, so i know a few things about common wishers.

The most important thing about common wishing is that the intended target is incredibly plentiful. You need a saturation of about 4-5 wish targets for every 1 wisher. The reason why is because of a sense of let down that happens every time someone drafts a wisher and doesn't get a wishee. You can try to tell people "Well, that's how risk versus reward goes," but that, unfortunately, is poppycock. Players don't want to be encouraged to do something by the shiny new design, only to find out that the designer lied to them. Humans aren't risk-factoring robots.

The other obstacle is a strange philosophical one. Let's pretend that we were Wizards of the Coast, and we were concerned about the future of the game. We've designed a new card type that has the potential to be as versatile as equipment. But, in the first set it is seen, we also add in a grandfather clause that this card type is commonly wished for. Would it be fair to fortifications that, for the future of the game, cards would constantly be wishing for them. How would that affect the future of the mechanic? I know we aren't Wizards, and whether or not we're supposed to be acting like Wizards is anyone's guess, but it is a strange can of worms.

Both complications are work-around-able. Either you have some fortifications take up some or all of the token slots (like they do in my set Magic 20XX), make a fortification slot in every pack (like double-faced cards do in Innistrad) or make a very large number of Fortifications (I'm less sure about this in this set, but if all artifacts and some colored artifacts became fortifications, then maybe yes). One of those methods should allow you to comfortably pack 4 wishers in common. That is, assuming those fortifications were bad cards. If the fortifications were good cards, however, they'd be snatched up before the wishers, and put in people's decks. In order for wishing to work, the quality of the card needs to hover at 1.5 stars (and even then, being marginally good can cause frustration. Sea Eagle in my set is often snapped up before the cards that wish for it, because any evasion is sometimes acceptable. Honestly, the fortifications we make will have to be crap normally.)

As for the second thingy... the philosophy thing... I don't know. That argument is a bit beyond me as Head Designer anyways, because I'm trying to gauge the will of the group, and not enact my own agenda. I would normally say "We could give some of fortifications a sub-type, and wish for those", but, um... yeah... fortification is already a sub-type. We could give them a keyword instead. Maybe make some normal fortifications and some with a specific ability, and make the wishers only wish for fortifications that have X... that way future fortifications (and rare fortifications) don't have to be scrutinized as wish targets and nerfed.

LOL. Yeah, thank you for bringing some experience to the idea :)

I'm trying to avoid become the advocate for the idea just because I suggested it. FWIW, I definitely agree with what you say, but my first reaction to each point would be:

Firstly, yes, you definitely need a sufficient density of fortifications, but you presumably need even more to make it work with cards like "put blah fortification from your hand into play" or "attach target fortification to target land", and people were seriously suggesting that.

Secondly, we don't have to be quite as vigilant for cards that would be problematic for future design or future standard environment, but I think we should try to design as if we were designing long term. I think if we make fortifications commonly wish-able we would have to accept that we have severely curtailed the ability to make future fortifications. But also, I may be wrong, but I just think there isn't that much design space in fortifications -- they're a cool concept, but I don't think there's that many different ways of making them relevant, without making them basically the same as artifacts or enchantments -- I think if there were, we'd have had more cool ideas for them by now. So I think we would be committing to say that "fortifications are defined to a large part by being safe to wish into play" but I think that's ok -- I think that fits the flavour, and I don't think it's too much of a problem in future... Maybe.

jmg said "a new card type that has the potential to be as versatile as equipment". But having tried quite hard to design a lot of Connectors for Clockwork Wings, I can confirm that Jack's right: there just isn't anywhere near the design space in either Fortifications or Connectors that there is in Equipment.

Like it or not, the most interesting permanent type in Magic is creatures. There are just so many things they do that other permanents don't do. (Well, um, except perhaps planeswalkers. You could probably claim that the space of artifacts that attach to planeswalkers is as rich as Equipment. But, um, let's not go there right now.)

So the space in Fortifications, Connectors, and artifacts that attach to enchantments is just so limited. I decided to make my Connectors take advantage of the unique way that they can be chained together to give them a lot of abilities in the pattern of "Whenever connected artifact becomes [un]tapped, you may tap ~. If you do..." That's not much of an option with Fortifications either.

Wizards were actually very canny. They threw in Darksteel Garrison as an example of "Oh, hey, yeah, this is just one card from a whole other world where there are loads like this..." But actually I don't think that set with lots of Fortifications will ever happen, because the design space is very limited.

Verdia, the fantastic land-themed set by Fallingman, included a few Fortifications. But there weren't many (4 in total), and they were basically the same kind of things: granting tap abilities to the lands, or triggering when the lands became tapped. (Looks like that set's disappeared off the internet! I'm going to go add it to Multiverse, because it's awesome.)

Well, I admit my statement that fortifications were as versatile as equipment was bound to be used against me. Because, they, um, can't. That being said, the fact that these are easily intuited (because of equipment) and open ended nature of the card does infer that someone could come along and mine extensive design space. I can't back that claim up, so I'm not going to bother. Call it a feeling. I get the feeling that it's difficult to find the design space for it, but when you hit it, you have 100 cards.

I only mention this in passing. It doesn't look like wishing for fortifications is bothering anybody, so it doesn't bother me. I'll be damned if I step in the way of an off the wall idea... I'm generally the person people have to talk down.

As for the saturation tipping point: Yeah, you're right Jack... we already kind of needed that. We do, however, probably need a little more, because of player's expectations. If you get a 2/2 for that gets +1/+1 when equipped, people don't complain that much if they couldn't grab the common equipment. If, however, you have the same base stats for a card that wishes for, I don't know, an Eager Cadet, and they can't get their hands on an Eager Cadet, they howl. They, really, get a little angry. Instead of assuming that it was their fault, they blame the designer. It's really an interesting phenomenon.

Like I said, though, I'm not really concerned about the numbers game. We can swing it... it will just be tight. Though, I do wonder if we want to seriously think about a separate rarity for Fortifications. It would take a giant burden of this set's shoulders if we took away the artifact slot (except the signets) and gave some cards back to the mono v. multicolored theme. Then we could go house, make 35 or so different doo-dad fortifications with really weird and unique abilities that people would want to wish for. Since any color could use them already, they'd help smooth the set over (good in mono and multi)... But there would be this unhealthy push from black to hoard them for its own nefarious purposes.

Okay. Made a potential list of candidates for "stone-souping" black. 15 cards... which is a bit much since we have 4 cards in the skeleton and the goal is 13... so I have to skim 6 cards out of that.

The "sacrifice mechanic" is the most difficult to sprinkle. Ideally, you want 1). Creatures that like being sacrificed, 2). Cards that sacrifice and 3). Cards that benefit from sacrificing. That, and for it to work well, you need to have a couple of each, and the cards that benefit from sacrificing need to be good, or the whole thing crumbles.

So, I'm going to be changing some individual cards that have a sacrifice theme to turbo-charge their sacrifice theme. Even if mono was dedicated 100% to a sacrifice theme, I don't think the casual sacrifice cards we submitted would support their weight. Let's see what I can do here.

Alright. Did some serious editing and fiddling. I also accidently included 14 cards... I forgot to code one that I had edited, and needed to go back and add it. That's okay, though, since black is still a work in progress, but now we got a something to work with here. There's been a number of changes on many cards, so you might want to poke through them. Besides the two fortification tutors and two fortification helpers, we've added:

­

Due to the enchantment creatures in white, I think it would be weird to have Demystify. I propose color-shifting it to black: Untie.

I don't think Black is allowed to destroy enchantments. Why not just have creature kill? Also, I'm not sure, thematically, why black would be killing the white enchantment creatures. They're supposed to be allying against Aer.

Oh. Nevermind then.

I thought that the monocolors were enemies of each other, and not allies. They just also have a common foe in Aer.

Looking back over things...
I think black could be interesting as a place of infighting and political intrigue, where the gorgons all vie to be at the top of everything, through backstabbing, enslaving, and... Building the best fortifications.

I agree. Maybe we can get that point across in the uncommons? Alternatively, we could alter the flavor text on a few commons. Unless you got an idea for a mechanic that could portray political backstabbing? It's a tricky concept to work mechanically, I admit.