Most cycles have five cards (or a multiple of five for some multicolour cycles) where each colour is treated equally. Cycles which miss a colour out have to break the symmetry in some way, as described by Mark Rosewater at: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr28
There has to be some reason for the missing card, but it doesn't have to be completely spelled out on the card. For instance, if there's a cycle of soft pseudo-counter spells in every colour but blue, it's obvious why there's no need for a blue one.
Rarity cycles don't count, the cards that are in the cycle should have equal standing
Two card cycles, bi-cycles if you will, don't count for this challenge, even though they're technically cycles according to the challenge. One card cycles count only if you can justify it being a cycle somehow different to every other card ever printed (I'm looking at you, mathmos :)). So, White Knight, Black Knight doesn't count for this challenge as that's not really the same as designing a cycle, but if you include Blood Knight then it counts, as long as you're ok that B/W/R get knights but GU don't.
If you can find a reason to justify it, you can have four colours plus a fifth artifact card.
You can have a multicolour cycle, if it makes sense that it isn't in all combinations. Eg. a RW/WG/GR cycle or a "all guilds that don't include B" cycle.
The cards don't have to be of that colour to count eg. four land cards, four white cards with an anti-other-colour effect, four blue cards with an off-colour activated ability, four artifact cards themed around four of the colours, etc.
If the cycle if quite tight (eg. dual lands), feel free to just make make one member of it and say in the initial comment what the others are.
Feel free to keep answering Challenge # 108 at the same time.
Aww, you gave away some of the best options in the introductory post... "soft counters in nonblue", "four white cards with anti-other-colours effects"... Don't solve the challenge for us! :P
One way to do a 4-card cycle is to name each colour on a different card, but when colours are treated symmetrically - as on Voice of Grace/Voice of Law/Voice of Duty/Voice of Reason - that leaves the cycle open to being completed with the fifth, own-colour-naming card - in this case Voice of Truth, printed a couple of years later.
Alex mentioned the Voice cycle, which was about how one color answered all the other colors. But I wanted to do the opposite; to show all the other colors teaming up to stop one color from overwhelming everything.
For what it's worth, I did try to come up with an original setting for this challenge. For example, I was working on the idea of a world that was being completely overrun by vegetation. Unfortunately, the four cards just weren't working in a vacuum. Unless I made a mechanic or an antagonist, or four antagonists to attack, it didn't make sense to create four answer cards. And... well... that's more challenge than even I was willing to do. This challenge is tough enough without going nuts on it.
I'm not sure which came first--my answer to Challenge #109 that I've been stewing over, or the Homelands Restored project I just started. Obviously one hand influences the other. As for the story of what's going on with these cards, though--my original idea was that Baron Sengir, boxed in a corner by the forces of Ulgrotha, wriggles his way out by finding a way to break the seal that separates Ulgrotha from Dominaria. Now that the family Sengir are loose and fanning out in Dominaria, the citizens of Ulgrotha assemble a group of hunters, whose specialty is to take down individual members of the Sengir clan.
I've been musing for a while about a comment over on Goblin Artisans where someone tried to make one land which represents the part of the Caylus board game where you build the castle with batches of three different resource cubes, and gain one of four favours as a result. The resulting card was naturally rather confused and complicated, and I mused it might be best split up into a cycle. Trying to hold on to the Caylus idea that the batch of resources had to include 3 different resource cubes, but one of them always had to be food, I came up with the idea of a 4-card cycle of lands, each with an activated ability costing for different colours of X.
Most cycles have five cards (or a multiple of five for some multicolour cycles) where each colour is treated equally. Cycles which miss a colour out have to break the symmetry in some way, as described by Mark Rosewater at: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr28
Previous examples include:
Tainted Field Tainted Isle Tainted Peak Tainted Wood where each land taps for black and one of the other four colours.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Sigarda, Host of Herons, a cycle of angels costing double white and one mana of another colour other than black.
And I'm not sure it counts, but Rosewater says it does: Air Servant, Water Servant, Fire Servant, Earth Servant two elemental cards in each of two colours.
A few notes:
Aww, you gave away some of the best options in the introductory post... "soft counters in nonblue", "four white cards with anti-other-colours effects"... Don't solve the challenge for us! :P
One other previous example: Northern Paladin, Southern Paladin, Eastern Paladin, Western Paladin?
But then, if that counts then maybe Kodama of the North Tree, Kodama of the South Tree, Kodama of the Center Tree should do, but that's not really clear why East and West weren't represented...
You should see how many hints I forced myself to leave out :)
I made Sphinx of Fading Truths, Sphinx of the Darksands, Sphinx of Addled Whims, and Sphinx of the Veilwood Maze, a potential sphinx cycle for Anydria.
One way to do a 4-card cycle is to name each colour on a different card, but when colours are treated symmetrically - as on Voice of Grace/Voice of Law/Voice of Duty/Voice of Reason - that leaves the cycle open to being completed with the fifth, own-colour-naming card - in this case Voice of Truth, printed a couple of years later.
So I tried to avoid this with Analyst of Worship, Analyst of Waste, Analyst of War, and Analyst of the Wild, by treating allied colours differently to enemy colours. This is almost like a White Knight/Black Knight pair - more accurately, it's like a White Knight/Silver Knight pair; but combining the two pairs I think makes a natural 4-card cycle that doesn't cry out to be completed into a 5-card one the way that the Voices did.
Added Hunter of Irini, Hunter of Ihsan, Hunter of Grandmother and Hunter of Veldrane.
Alex mentioned the Voice cycle, which was about how one color answered all the other colors. But I wanted to do the opposite; to show all the other colors teaming up to stop one color from overwhelming everything.
For what it's worth, I did try to come up with an original setting for this challenge. For example, I was working on the idea of a world that was being completely overrun by vegetation. Unfortunately, the four cards just weren't working in a vacuum. Unless I made a mechanic or an antagonist, or four antagonists to attack, it didn't make sense to create four answer cards. And... well... that's more challenge than even I was willing to do. This challenge is tough enough without going nuts on it.
I'm not sure which came first--my answer to Challenge #109 that I've been stewing over, or the Homelands Restored project I just started. Obviously one hand influences the other. As for the story of what's going on with these cards, though--my original idea was that Baron Sengir, boxed in a corner by the forces of Ulgrotha, wriggles his way out by finding a way to break the seal that separates Ulgrotha from Dominaria. Now that the family Sengir are loose and fanning out in Dominaria, the citizens of Ulgrotha assemble a group of hunters, whose specialty is to take down individual members of the Sengir clan.
I've been musing for a while about a comment over on Goblin Artisans where someone tried to make one land which represents the part of the Caylus board game where you build the castle with batches of three different resource cubes, and gain one of four favours as a result. The resulting card was naturally rather confused and complicated, and I mused it might be best split up into a cycle. Trying to hold on to the Caylus idea that the batch of resources had to include 3 different resource cubes, but one of them always had to be food, I came up with the idea of a 4-card cycle of lands, each with an activated ability costing
for different colours of X.
This turned into the cycle Castle of Victory, Castle of Resources, Castle of Currency and Castle of Construction.