A cycle had to have something in common. It can be a tight cycle (e.g. guildmages) or a very loose cycle (e.g. five cards each with a new keyword but nothing else in common).
This may be v hard. If it seems impossible, feel free to do a cycle of fewer than five cards.
Designing for Tammy: it should be cool if it works.
Designing for Jenny: open ended combo piece.
Designing for Spike: interesting trade offs, playable/strong but not broken.
Designing for Vorthos. Cool name, concept, or flavour.
Designing for Melvin: cool if you're a rules nerd
Come to think of it, an arguable example would be the original boon cycle.
Timmy: Giant Growth
Spike: Ancestral Recall (Johnny likes cards too, but Spike was the first to see how valuable they are!)
Johnny: Dark Ritual (Johnny prefers something more interesting, this is a bit of a Spike/Johnny but a T1 combo is always better)
Vorthos: Lightning Bolt (Controversial -- everyone loves Lightning Bolt, and people expect Vorthos cards to be obscure and weak, but honestly, lightning bolt is perfect flavour)
Melvin -- Healing Salve? OK, this one doesn't really work.
Mmm. Truth is, I'd put Ancestral Recall on Melvin more than Spike. A number of Spikes don't like Ancestral Recall, since they know full well that it is stupidly broken, and doesn't prove anything about how skillful you are as a player. Melvin, however, wouldn't care so much about the power level. I think he'd just be happy that the cycle was complete. Melvin-Spike, though, would probably be furious, though. :-S
LOL. Yeah, that actually makes sense. Melvin is the one who would notice "they all have three in" before noticing "this one is very broken and this other one is broken a lot of the time" :)
But can we persaude Spike to like Healing Salve? :)
No. Perhaps Tammy would like to prevent damage and/or gain life, though? I know Tammy likes to tell a story, and the time Tammy won because her creature didn't die when it should have is a pretty common story. Give Spike Lightning Bolt, and move Vorthosa to Giant Growth. You see, it makes things bigger... there's a flavor connection.
Yeah, I think that's plausible, but I'm worried I'm fobbing off a weak card on Tammy, that isn't actually that fun. Oh well, it would be a miracle if all five matched up :)
Decided to take this challenge slant-ways and design a cycle of 5 cards along the rarity axis (all four, plus the land slot). They're all tied together in flavor, and (not counting the land slot) a mechanical relationship, though its rather loose... and if I started filling out the rest of the block, you wouldn't notice the cycle anymore. Ah well. I like the cards anyway. They are:
Melvin: Realm's Edge
Vorthos: Dragoon Patrol
Johnny: Stalling Tactics
Spike: Elite Ambushers
Timmy: Radiant, Recreated
Ah, cool! It's totally fine to design a loose cycle. I hoped people wouldn't feel constrained to do one of each colour, but didn't spell it out because I thought that would be trying to design people's entries for them.
Whew. This took some work. I created a cycle of Goblin Cannons, enchantments with an ability that might make you sac the enchantment, but with enough mana you can fire off multiple activations in response to each other.
A cycle had to have something in common. It can be a tight cycle (e.g. guildmages) or a very loose cycle (e.g. five cards each with a new keyword but nothing else in common).
This may be v hard. If it seems impossible, feel free to do a cycle of fewer than five cards.
Designing for Tammy: it should be cool if it works.
Designing for Jenny: open ended combo piece.
Designing for Spike: interesting trade offs, playable/strong but not broken.
Designing for Vorthos. Cool name, concept, or flavour.
Designing for Melvin: cool if you're a rules nerd
Oh, awesome challenge. I'll give it some thought.
Come to think of it, an arguable example would be the original boon cycle.
Timmy: Giant Growth
Spike: Ancestral Recall (Johnny likes cards too, but Spike was the first to see how valuable they are!)
Johnny: Dark Ritual (Johnny prefers something more interesting, this is a bit of a Spike/Johnny but a T1 combo is always better)
Vorthos: Lightning Bolt (Controversial -- everyone loves Lightning Bolt, and people expect Vorthos cards to be obscure and weak, but honestly, lightning bolt is perfect flavour)
Melvin -- Healing Salve? OK, this one doesn't really work.
Mmm. Truth is, I'd put Ancestral Recall on Melvin more than Spike. A number of Spikes don't like Ancestral Recall, since they know full well that it is stupidly broken, and doesn't prove anything about how skillful you are as a player. Melvin, however, wouldn't care so much about the power level. I think he'd just be happy that the cycle was complete. Melvin-Spike, though, would probably be furious, though. :-S
LOL. Yeah, that actually makes sense. Melvin is the one who would notice "they all have three in" before noticing "this one is very broken and this other one is broken a lot of the time" :)
But can we persaude Spike to like Healing Salve? :)
No. Perhaps Tammy would like to prevent damage and/or gain life, though? I know Tammy likes to tell a story, and the time Tammy won because her creature didn't die when it should have is a pretty common story. Give Spike Lightning Bolt, and move Vorthosa to Giant Growth. You see, it makes things bigger... there's a flavor connection.
Yeah, I think that's plausible, but I'm worried I'm fobbing off a weak card on Tammy, that isn't actually that fun. Oh well, it would be a miracle if all five matched up :)
Timmy: Fertile Tree
Johnny: Sermon Demon
Spike: Frisky Giant
Melvin: Atlantic Leviathan
Vorthos: Alien Hellion
Decided to take this challenge slant-ways and design a cycle of 5 cards along the rarity axis (all four, plus the land slot). They're all tied together in flavor, and (not counting the land slot) a mechanical relationship, though its rather loose... and if I started filling out the rest of the block, you wouldn't notice the cycle anymore. Ah well. I like the cards anyway. They are:
Melvin: Realm's Edge
Vorthos: Dragoon Patrol
Johnny: Stalling Tactics
Spike: Elite Ambushers
Timmy: Radiant, Recreated
Ah, cool! It's totally fine to design a loose cycle. I hoped people wouldn't feel constrained to do one of each colour, but didn't spell it out because I thought that would be trying to design people's entries for them.
Whew. This took some work. I created a cycle of Goblin Cannons, enchantments with an ability that might make you sac the enchantment, but with enough mana you can fire off multiple activations in response to each other.
Very, very interesting challenge.
Timmy- Pulse of Hunger
Vorthos- Indomitable Landscape
Johnny- Summoner's Craft
Spike- Predator's Cunning
Melvin- Living Magic