If you break the sammetry here this can become quiet card advantageous - especially in multiples. Plus color intensive cost... uncommon?

Aesthetically it'd be helpful to denote what Chapters are. Personally I would go for "verses", since Norse mythology is told more often through poetry and song rather than prose. Regardless, adding italic reminder text next to each option (similar to the sieges) will also improve readability a bit. Something like

>Saga (At the beginning of your upkeep, activate the next verse. If you can't, sacrifice this.)

>Verse 1 - Each player sacrifices a creature.

>Verse 2 - Each player discards two cards.

Mechanically, it doesn't feel exciting solely for the fact that my opponent has a turn to prepare for each effect. Did you consider having it activate at end step?

The reason I was thinking this could be a very interesting and not overpowered common would be exactly that each player has time to react to its effects.

This card is by happenstance much more interesting saga card compared to Tale of Thereafter since here the two effects play into and prepare each other really well.

That simple change of name makes this much more evocative. Like it.

Power level does seem quite high for a common. Complexity is about as low as this mechanic can be, though. So just maybe keep an eye on it and ensure each other colour gets something roughly similar?

Yeah, currently the "set" has literally 5 cards so points regarding rarity are pointless IMO.

I made these more as a show case for the mechanics. There are many custom mtg sets with norse mythology theme, but IMO those sets are quite bland and mechanics are the part where they fail the hardest. So here I'm giving full set of mechanics on a silver platter taking away one of the hardest parts of set creation for anyone who might be interested in such a project. Well, more like "compiling" in a sense, since none of these are originally created made by me (see the "mechanics" page).

I'm not sure how invested I'm on this personally, but I could keep it as a side project.

I have nothing to add other than that I agree about lackluster mechanics in other Norse sets. I have never been a fan of Equipment-related effects.

Wel,l equipment should certainly be a theme of a Norse myth inspired set. Dwarf blacksmiths are a thing, after all. But most of the myth is tales of the people, not of their stuff. The ring cycle being the obvious exception, and it's not actually authentic anyhow :)

Should it be a theme or should there just be a couple of (legendary) equipment around? Is it central to the setting/mythos?
I would imagine that "not really" - but I'm not that familiar with the mythology.
That's the thing with lots of those mechanics in the custom sets though; they are on the "kinda, but not really" level IMO.

For example:

• Frenzy? So berserking? Kinda, eh.
• Icetouch (Whenever this deal damage to a creature, tap that creature and it doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.)? Okay, the setting is cold, but...
• Reinforce? Well, that could be anywhere since it's so generic.

The point being is the mechanic central to the setting? Does it tell the player something about it? (If your mechanic is called "Saga", then it's certainly telling something ;P)

My experience with Norse mythology was that rhe central focus of most of the stories were of the gods and giants, rather than Nordic peoples. So my main beef with the existing Norse myth sets is that the focus a bit too much on the Viking aspect rather than the myth aspect. Its perfectly fine to do so, but don't advertise your setting as Norse myth if you want to make a Viking set.

I'm not too familiar with Norse myth either (its honestly one of my least favorite mythos), but a central aspect of a lot of the stories was transformation - something like Skinshifter might make an interesting base for a mechanic. Almost all of Loki's stories involved him transforming into some sort of animal, and many of the gods had transformations of their own. Its a common thread throughout several different mythis, but I found it most prevalent in Norse myth. It also might be interesting to use a Gods vs. Giants theme (like the Mirran vs. Phyrexian theme) - it captures the early part of the mythos quite well leading up to and during Ragnarok.

Another big theme would be doom. Unavoidable prophecies of death and disaster. Theros did some prophecy, from greek myth perspective. That has a similar "Run to avoid it, you only make it happen" - but Norse has lots more of a "And then it got worse" feel.

My best memory of Norse Mythology comes from Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. Most of what I remember are the elements Mal mentions. While there were a number of unique items the gods had, I think they'd work better as singular pieces rather than a mechanic or archetype. From Gaiman's telling, there's a lot of taking, if something can be commodified, the gods (or giants) will try to take it by cunning or force. I think that would translate into some kind of conquest theme. Both Odin and Loki are prominent tricksters, as well as other gods and entities, and as two central figures that would want some sort of deception mechanic or theme maybe?

> Another big theme would be doom. Unavoidable prophecies of death and disaster.

Ragnarok is this straight-up and Saga can play into this (this card for example).

> I think that would translate into some kind of conquest theme. Both Odin and Loki are prominent tricksters, as well as other gods and entities, and as two central figures that would want some sort of deception mechanic or theme maybe?

Sounds like Conspiracy to me, but otherwise Idk.

What else; cold and ice. A winter night that lasts for, literally, weeks on end.
And, how did DnD phrase it? "Points of light in the darkness" - small holdings that are far apart from one another.

Warriors (mainly) proving themselves.

Bets! Oh so many wagers! Usually with disastrous consequences that have even the one who set the terms saying "No, it's ok you don't really need to" and the loser saying "But I must! I'm not welsh!"

I stand by "and then it got worse" as the central theme though.

> What else; cold and ice. A winter night that lasts for, literally, weeks on end.

One important point to note is that this likely should differ from Ice Age, and by extension Cold Snap, so Snow is something that I would think twice before including though it comes to mind quite quickly. This would also mean that there shouldn't be too much of a focus on undead (you know with Lim-Dûl and all that).

> Warriors (mainly) proving themselves.

Glory at least touches upon this. Including something like Renown might feel redundant.

> Bets! Oh so many wagers! Usually with disastrous consequences that have even the one who set the terms saying "No, it's ok you don't really need to" and the loser saying "But I must! I'm not welsh!"

Hmm. A couple of cards with "random" effects sure. Dangerous Wager? Menacing Ogre? Pain's Reward? Choice of Damnations? There might be some kind of mechanic hidden within those processes...

Hey! You did it!

Weeeell, I could say that they did it; but executed less flavorfully.

Like, "Yay, it's chapter 'I,II' followed by 'III' of 'Chainer's Torment'" or whatever while with this implementation you can go full ham with stuff such as "'Long night falls' followed by 'Upon forsaken lands' in the 'Doom of Yorin'".

Btw it's still worth of note that I merely formulated this from (was inspired by) an existing idea

> Saga: The Story Mechanic

I mentioned it on the discussion of the Dominaria mechanics, but gameplay wise I prefer their version getting the initial effect on ETB.

Flavor obvously is deeper on yours.

One of the reasons I didn't go with that is that the keyword's reminder text becomes quite wordy. I eliminated the possibility of just using "enters" instead of "enters the battlefield" since it's too ambiguous (it enters grave/exile/whatever?). It seems WotC decided against that.

> (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, ...)

It kind of puts the whole "the battlefield" debate back on the table since that ETB phrase being so long is a real issue.

This is kind of off-topic as well that I mentioned in the discussion of the Dominaria mechanics (EDIT2), but have you ever considered or seen been considered, that "after your draw step" would be favored over "at beginning of your upkeep"? Not changing rules in any way, just starting to prefer that trigger over an upkeep trigger? I faintly recall seeing discussion about that somewhere...

Regardless, I'm okay with updating Saga to work more in the vein of WotC's proposed way. I'm not really in hurry to do so though since I don't have any real plans to undertake the development of this concept of a set at the moment. The set is open for editing, so if you feel strongly about, you can go ahead.

"after your draw step" is actually quite a cool option since that timing would coincide with the timing of schemes and allow stuff like adding mana (without necessarily having the rider that you don't lose it as steps and phases end).

All the trigger ever needed was a short way to refer to the condition. "At the beginning of your precombat main phase" is a mouthful.