We appear to be right on each other's tails, link. You created this page less than a minute ago. I was planning on adding the multi-bears and the signets, since we already knew those were in in some form.

Think I'll start with the signets, just in case you're doing the bears as I type. ­

I just made this as a collecting ground for multicolor commons, my submissions for which I'll list below. Not that these aren't much of an attempt to conform to a skeleton.
­Aven Glimmerwing
­Aeran Intelligencer
­Aeran Elf
­Aeran Priest
­Thermalmancer
­Psychomancer
­Follower of the Dark Cloud
­Enlightening Aura
­Educated Denial
­Deny Knowledge
­Truthsayer's Hymn

As a sidenote, I've thought about giving some of the Aeran cards a musical theme in their naming. What's more enlightening that art and culture, and therefore music?

Oops, I was typing and didn't see your comment! Hahaha.

I added the bears, and I'd throw some more cards against the wall, but I'm not sure what it is I should be focusing on. We've talked about Enlighten, but I don't know how much of a consensus we came to on that. Hey guys! What should I be designing toward out here? Do we need to have another brainstorm session, or should I just make 50% Enlighten themed cards and 50% the usual stuff?

I made enlighten cards purely to see if I could get them to work. At the moment, I just don't have another idea for an Aeran mechanic. If we think Enlighten won't work, I wouldn't put up a fight in place of a different mechanic, though I think Enlighten could be interesting to try. The cards I made with Enlighten are just testing the waters, as with all of my commons.
The only think I think we should shoot for for sure with gold is that it can cover all the things the monocolors can do. After all, that's the point of being gold, am I right?

Oh I just wanted to get some direction from the rest of the gang. I don't know if enlighten works or not. I remember having this conversation and voicing some concerns, but, I think I was just playing devil's advocate at the time. Since it probably won't be a major mechanic, since there can only be so many enlighten cards spread out among so many colors, there's a good chance that it could end up balanced and exciting. Strangely, we may have to make all the U/X enlighten cards a little weaker, though.

Alex added Aeran Mana Maker. I followed that up with Coatl Storyteller.

Multicolour doesn't have enough commons yet to fill the skeleton. In particular, I'd like to see some allied noncreature spells that are suitable for common (I really don't think Truthsayer's Hymn is common), and a few common flyers that cost 4 or 5+ mana. Any allied-colour gold effects you want to make, throw them in here!

Okay, we have a vague list of 20 multicolour commons:

­Carer of Cloth and Water
­Aeran Intelligencer
­Viashino Scalewing
­Flying Bears
­Aeran Elf
­Enlightening Aura
­Deny Knowledge
­Cruelty from Above
­Aeran Mana Maker [EDIT: Now Aeran Sunrise]
­Invigorating Melody
­Loretower Warden
­Senate Jurist
­Tel Koria Jailer
­Flamedance Warden
­Essencecourt Sentinel
­Aeran Priest
­Follower of the Dark Cloud
­Nimbus Elf
­Psychomancer
­Tel Eria Guardian

Notes:

• There are 3 commons in each allied-colour pair, and 1 in each enemy-colour pair. Tricolour cards will be saved for uncommon and higher.
• The first five are a cycle of 2-cost flyers in allied colours. The last five are a cycle of enemy-colour flyers, some of which are 2-cost but some of which aren't.
• The middle group of allied-colour commons are mostly noncreature spells, except for Aeran Mana Maker. I don't like the asymmetry here, but I do think we want a really good common mana-fixer for the solid-gold deck. What do other people think?
• ...One option there is that we could make Aeran Mana Maker into the manacycling card. I think we still want to keep it costing no more than 4, but we could break the CMC-6 tightness of that cycle if we wanted.

Well, a second option would be to have the Mana Maker be a non-creature spell. I'd suggest some sort of super Manamorphose, but that's kinda sorta the manacyclers in a nutshell. Though, what if we had this:

Blooming Onion
­
Instant
Add to your mana pool.

Or something like it?

­hy isn't orking? ... ait, it's {working} now. hat happened, I onder?

Anyhow - dislike.

­Channel the Suns just wasn't much fun; and ended up mainly existing to set up "I have all the mana, win" combos of unfun-ness.

Alex: I like the provisional skeleton, and agree with what you say.

I think multicolor definitely wants a repeatable mana fixing. If we want to make the cycles balanced cr/non-cr (which isn't absolutelynecessary, but I agree would be tidier) one option would be to move the mana fixing creature to the RG manacycling slot, although it would probably have to tie the two mana abilities together somehow to not seem strange. Any other suggestions?

My suggestion was more to move it away from a creature, so that the cycles could breath. The blooming onion be danged. There any chance that we can make a workable repeatable enchantment? I know enchantments aren't known for adding mana to your mana pool, what with the not liking tapping and all, but you'd think we could come with something that's not as broken as "Enlighten - When you draw a card, add three mana of any color to your mana pool." (note: intentionally bad.)

An enchantment sounds like a good thing to try. I wonder what's the RG or GW enchantment version of Llanowar elves (since we probably want to do the simplest version possible).

It shouldn't tap itself, since that's un-enchantment-y. And probably not say "use this ability only once per turn" either.

It probably shouldn't be too open-ended, else it's too potentially powerful for common (eg. "Tap a creature you control: add ??? to your mana pool" is simple, but might let you jump significantly ahead of the curve)

It shouldn't tie directly into one of the monocolor themes (indirectly is probably ok).

Ideally it would feel both G and R/W.

The simplest is possibility is probably a multicolored Dawn's Reflection variant, although that's not ever so interesting. Can we make that less mono-green without making it complicated?

Maybe a multicolour enchantment variant on Birchlore Rangers? "Tap 2 multicolour creatures you control: Add {some} mana of any color to your mana pool."

Or maybe even a reprint of Trace of Abundance if you want it

You know, you're right; if I want a gold Dawn's Reflection, then I should make a gold Dawn's Reflection. Or Fertile Ground, which is what Trace of Abundance is. (Never quite understood the in that card's cost.) A land enchantment is clearly the best way to make a noncreature card that "taps" for mana.

I suppose we could do it as a creature enchantment rather than a land enchantment, if we want to switch things up a bit. Multani's Harmony on steroids, perhaps granting hexproof or something as well. But I think just a straight card with the text of Dawn's Reflection would do just fine.

Enchantment Cards in your hand have manacycling .

That sounds reasonable to me.

I think a creature aura is a bad idea because lots of people might want to play their aura in order to be able to play creatures.

It's a little unfortunate that "1RG. Dawn's Reflection." isn't really red, but I can't think of anything more attractive, and I think it's ok.

That makes our second common cycle 2 aura, 2 instants and a sorcery, which is about right?

@ Vitenka: It sounds reasonable until people cycle Progenitus on turn three and cast a second one.

They'd need to have, um, three in hand I think. Or two and wait until turn 5. (The first one will only give them )

True, it's still "Cycle a 5-colour card, gain 2 mana" but, well, not too hideous, surely?

Ohh, right. For some reason I thought we were using a Charmed Pendant-like ability, but it's just colors, right, and not mana symbols that are counted?

We could print a multicolor Utopia Vow, if we're trying to make a creature aura.

Both wordings for manacycling was proposed (colours or mana symbols); it's not been finalised yet. The enchantment granting it to everything is a fun idea, but it's uncommon or rare, not common!

I did consider mentioning Utopia Vow, but since we're after something that's good enough to put on your own creatures, I'd rather base it on Multani's Harmony, not Utopia Vow.

@Jack: I do see the problem, indeed. There is some precedent for gold cards just giving a discount on something that one colour can do on its own, though; e.g. Watchwolf, Azorius First-Wing, and even Dark Ascension's Diregraf Captain. As long as we make sure there's not too many of them, a few can be okay if they're serving good roles in the set, and that's definitely what we're after with this card.

I created Aeran Sunrise. As an alternative for what we might do with a creature aura instead, I created Flair for Essence, but I'm currently thinking we'll go with the land aura.

Yeah. I was worried this didn't have any red in it at all, not just that green could do all of it, but I see red has occasionally had straight-up "tap for mana", rather than a one-off burst (eg. Trace of Abundance has, I think, the R contributing "T: mana"), so I think it's ok. And I agree we definitely want a simple card like this if we can justify it.

For the record, I like the land aura. Just for thinkingness:

Multiseething Song
Instant
Add and two mana of any color to your mana pool.

I like the instant and manacycling suggestions too, and think they should go in the file; I think I prefer Aeran Sunrise for common, but the others may be used later if not now.

Another possibility is a reverse-utopia-vow, like Root In Place, because that works better when you're behind on creatures, instead of worse.

What if Enlighten was a keyword ability that did something like give +1/+1 until end of turn? Then cards could trigger off of being "enlightened" and could refer to other enlighten creatures... It's just an idea, though, because the current implementation has its own positives.

Had Enlighten been more across the board, I'd probably say "That makes sense". As it is, though, it's only going to appear on, like 15 creatures or so? And only in multicolor? I don't think we need to give it the landfall treatment. I could be convinced otherwise.