Too wordy for common, which isn't that bad, but there seems to be a trend here: Trip Over Bones, Cenn’s Garden, (((Eyeblight Sympathizer))).

All Nodes suffer from this as well, but given they're DFC cards that's to be expected... and to be accounted for, meaning that's there's less complexity (rules text) to be spread around the other commons of the set.

Aspect–Light/darks are also pushing this, which seems too much given the Nodes :(

I debated whether she needed Defender, but with the 0 power it seemed like it was missing. Might be simpler to give it a 1 power.

The Aspect wording is definitely a pain, and of all the things I’m building into the set design, that’s the one I want to iron out most. I agree with you on the nodes, and if I can streamline the Aspects, I’ll switch the nodes over to match.

Was this to be a standalone set or a block? I can't recall if that was ever mentioned. If the aspects and nodes remain challenging maybe you could distribute them so that one of them appears here and the other on the following set?

I would recommend keeping the general complexity very low and then increasing it after awhile if the set starts to feel like it needs some of that extra "spice".

Standalone. I think you’re right that splitting Aspects and Nodes between sets woild work, but the longer I’ve looked at Nodes, the more I’d just prefer they worked like/as Aspects.

The idea with aspect-light/darks is to describe the duality of shadowmoor/lorwyn, right? IIRC the original block used to test out mechanics relating to night/day cycle or whatever.

As I've said before, I would generally stay away from DFCs unless there's absolutely no other option. As such, here's a couple of ideas for this:

• Have two modes depending on whether it's your turn or opponent's turn
• Have choices depend on the direction the cards are tapped: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/custom-card-creation/790576-directional-tapping

> Duality - Whenever ~ is tapped to the left, ... Whenever it's tapped to the right, ...

> As long as ~ is tapped to the left, ...

For the first bullet point, I have though about using something kin to it in the future sets.

> Daybeak - As long as it's your turn, ...

Or you could have two different stats on the face of the card that are alternatively active depending on who's turn it is.

Lots of points here I can respect, but I’m sticking with the DFc’s for now. As clunky as the conditions and reminder text may be, DFCs offer more space to use the standard visual cues without asking players to change behavioral play patterns. The link from your post isn’t currently working, but I look forward to going back and reading it.

LOR/SHD didn’t use any actual mechanics to link the two together, just thematic repetition and mirroring. Mechanically, there was no notable reason to actually play the two together.

This set would theoretically be the first time the two planes were allowed to actually blend, and that’s why I like the DFCs; aspects of both planes are actually able to see each in the context of gameplay.