Reposting these from the MTGS thread as I think they'd be more interesting than the two Talismans...

Ring of the Prophet
Art description: A ring of the plainest brightest gold slowly spins above a pedestal, the background of the scene looks to be a museum some some kind.
Focus: The Ring of power.
Artifact [Common]
­: Add to your mana pool.
Heirlooms from the prophet's time on Archester, many of his rings still power Archester greatest inventions today.

Black Iron Statue
Art Description: A small black metallic statue sits on the corner of a desk. A couple of tiny motes of energy circle around the statue which seems to depict a golem of some kind holding a sphere in its hands, the tiny sphere has five tiny motes of energy circling it.
Focus: the strange statue of the golem.
Artifact [Common]
~ is indestructible.
­: Add to your mana pool.
Created from an element unknown to Archester, these tiny statues have become status symbols for for wealthy industrialists, trinkets from the Prophet's travels to and from Archester.

Both of those seem very strong to me, especially with the other in the set. Manakin's already pretty strong.

Not really, Hedron Crawler is ok in limited but I'd hardly call it pretty strong. It's not like the one extra power is going to make Manakin a beast in limited.

Heck, Kozilek's Channeler costs only one more than Ring of the Prophet () and it comes with a 4/4 body.

­Darksteel Ingot fixes for every color and is a common. A colorless version should cost less than it does.

In any case, we want to push multiple costs and having each card only produce a single will put a lot of pressure on drafting them high in limited, that's not necessarily the best position for us to put players in.

But Hedron Crawler was pretty strong. It provided ramp in a midrange format and gave access to in a format that wanted it. In most of the drafts I've done or seen it goes somewhere in the high/middle of the pack (I'm talking like picks 4-8). Manakin in this format triggers windup and can hold components.

­Kozilek's Channeler costing 1 more is a huge deal when you're talking about mana acceleration . Not only that, but the Channeler has summoning sickness and can be killed with creature removal, and these are two huge things that matter when you're dealing with ramp.

­Darksteel Ingot was reprinted at uncommon.

Here's the thing, two mana artifact accelerators are hugely dangerous for all sorts of reasons. That fact is compounded when you're also trying to add a 4 mana accelerator. The combination of the two allows for some explosive ramp draws that certain decks just won't be able to stop due to lack of artifact removal, especially if you're trying to make one of them indestructible.

3 mana accelerators are a pretty safe space to play in, providing decent ramp that only dedicated decks will run. Cards like the new Seer's Lantern are good enough to get played in decks that want them but bad enough that other players won't just take the free mana (see Signets).

While I agree with your point on Hedron Crawler (and by extension Manakin) I disagree with your point on two mana artifact acceleration and the superiority of 3 mana accelerators.

I think two mana accelerators are fine, even if they must ETB tapped. As for four mana acceleration, I believe that they are fine as well. I think you might be being too skittish.

I am only as skittish as wizards.

Look, it's no secret that 2 mana acceleration has been cut down tremendously. The last time we got a 2 mana artifact that could ramp was Mirrodin Besiged with Sphere of the Suns. The last rampant growth we had was Farseek in m13! Ramp is very much alive today but it exists in the form of creatures, even if it means incredibly hard to kill creatures like Sylvan Caryatid.

Mana acceleration is the most dangerous part of magic and its taken years for WotC to realize how to handle it properly. In the past, ramp was kept in check by a high volume of efficient removal; it doesn't matter if you play your big guy two turns early if Doom Blade is a common. But today removal is weaker and creatures are stronger, and as a result ramp gets a lot more dangerous.

Not only are 2 mana ramp cards very strong, but what you're suggesting here is both colorless and common. I would be far more open to the idea of a mana rock at uncommon (like Sphere of the Suns), but at common it becomes far too prevalent when it can easily be played alongside two other colorless common ramp cards. 4 mana ramp is fine as well, but again Hedron Archive was an uncommon.

I agree with MOON-E that we might not want to push ramp that much. Our current curve is way lower to the ground than BfZ and OotG. We do not have as many things to ramp into, but the colourless requirement is still there. I suggest we limit ourselves to Manakin, Condenser Unit and maybe a single 3-mana rock as mana accell, and to have colourless fixing to go with Expedition Map. We could add some more mana filtering.

Healing boon
Artifact
­ : Add to your mana pool, and gain 1 life. Activate this ability only once each turn.

I disagree with your assessment of 2 ETB mana rocks. You say that Wotc doesn't print them any more but we literarily had one last set in the form of HC.

I don't disagree with you on the fact that it would step on manakin's toes and that's probably reason enough to bump it up to , just to spread out our acceleration a bit.

As for the mana rock, the only reason Hedron Archive was uncommon was (almost certainly) because it could draw cards, that's not something you see at common any more.

Edit:

And if we are going to settle on Grim's suggestion on what we keep (MK, CU, mana rock, and map} then we should add colorless mana to (((condenser unit))).

Hedron Crawler is a creature! And as I specifically mentioned in my post all two mana ramp cards are now creatures. You don't see me fighting Manakin.

Condenser unit needs some work in general. I don't think it's feasible to add both the sticky mana and a clause to it.

The original set had a card that turned X into , which now would be written out in a much messier way. I was planning to bring that up during uncommon design but if we need it here we could add it.

IK both Hedron Crawler and Manakin are creatures, that's why I suggested bumping up Black Iron Statue's mana cost from to .

­Condenser Unit could be nerf'd to just provide instead of 1 Rainbow, though that would push it in a different direction.

My point is just that you can't really claim Hedron Crawler is a 2 cost mana rock when my whole point was about creatures vs non-creatures.

Is there a reason to have Black Iron Statue in the set over Pristine Talisman?

I could see condenser unit going either way, though to be honest I'd be slightly more interested in finding a new effect. I'm not a fan of sticky mana in general, especially on a common in an already complicated set (Savage Ventmaw was uncommon)

BSS has quite a few things over pristine talisman actually...

First, it's a much better base for components.

Second, it's more flavorful (it gives some backstory to the Prophet's travels, did you notice what the art description implied?)

Third, the talisman is a reprint and we have a bunch of reprints already.

Forth and finally, the talisman is fairly middle of the road as far as mana rocks go. It's not really an exciting base artifact to build you build machine on, the life gain always felt tacked on not really part of the effect.

On the green component, I'd be fine with something else. What'd you have in mind?

Edit: btw HC is basically:

Hedron
Artifact [common]
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
­: Add to your mana pool.

More often than not it's never used in combat and never a target for removal.

As much as I'd love to have sweet art, realistically the art in this set is either going to be pseudo random stuff we find online, or nonexistent. I like the flavor but I'm not being sold on the design because of that (especially since pristine talisman is another thing that could easily have been taken from mirrodin, given that's where its from).

Personally I'm a fan of reprints, and I think pristine talisman offers up a much better body for components given players are already drawn to the idea of tapping it for incremental value instead of mana. Plus, I'd actually prefer not to give component players an easy to use indestructible artifact to latch on to, but that's just my gut reaction and testing may show its necessary.

As for HC, honestly I disagree with the concept that it being a creature isn't relevant; I've had it picked off by a stray Sparkmage's Gambit, or swept up by Flaying Tendrils, Mire's Malice, or Radiant Flames. It being a creature is hugely relevant in these situations when I'm trying to ramp to big Eldrazi. I'm not saying this happens every game, but it also doesn't never happen.

I think you're missing the big picture. The point is not to have your mana creatures to die all the time, the point is that your opponents can actually interact with you if they want to. If I had a deck with 4 HCs, my opponent could sideboard and play in such a way to counteract my strategy. If I had a deck with 4 Mind Stones, my opponent most likely can't do anything to stop me from ramping. Casting HC is a risk since against a fast opponent they may elect to spend a cheap removal spell wasting my turn and stumbling my mana as they run me over. Casting "Hedron" usually won't be a risk, and I can do things like keep mana light hands confident that my ramp card is going to stick.

Distinctions like these are important even if they're not going to come up all the time. Its the same reason why we don't make "strictly better basics", even though most dual lands are much more powerful.

As far as art is concerned, I'm of the opinion that we should go 100% art descriptions, with only a few exceptions for particularly excellent artwork that we might find that fits particular descriptions. The imagination is one of the greatest image generators ever to exist, why should we ignore it? Wotc doesn't, look at how they commission their art.

Random artwork we might find online would likely throw the set into a tailspin. I've found very little high quality steampunk/cowpunk art, the vast majority of it looks atrocious and cartoony. I doubt it's the direction we want to go, it was one of the things that killed the last version of the set.

ComicalFlop's got some great art and this time we'll actually be working with them so it's not completely mismatched. If not, then I'd greatly prefer not doing art descriptions. I get that it adds something, but what it also adds is tons and tons of reading to cards that already often have lots of words on them. Yes I know you can choose to ignore them, but I think players would find it much more difficult than you think to ignore a paragraph of text on every one of their cards. It looks pretty bad in actual practice.