Legendary matters will be a small sub-theme in all colours, mostly intended for constructed, and will be the RG draft archetype.
There is also a small discard matters subtheme.
That would be too good for a 1 drop. This card is meant to go in a CMC 1 artistry constructed deck, and thus doesn't want to be more expensive. I have done paper playtests, and in my original draft environment it was quite playable. I may, however have to rework it, since I'm keeping less than half of my original designs.
I do, however, still have more to import.
my thoughts on grandeur is that without supporting cards around it, you're just making a bunch of Faerie Miscreants and cards like that have never been good. there has to be a strong reason the mechanic is in your set, because otherwise people will just think "oh it's here because they wanted a future sight flashback". legendary matters is a clear & obvious one, although it's not perfect unless you want to make the legendary supertype a core component of the set. at the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case
you're right that grandeur makes supporting legendary easier than it was in kamigawa block, but the reason that's a good thing is because it allows you to achieve greater saturation of legendary cards making legendary matters a better set component. unless you do that, you're not really getting much benefit
oh also i'm more or less purely approaching this from a limited perspective, most of this is irrelevant for constructed. so how important this all is depends on what people will be using your set for
2016-04-11 00:37:12:
Adak
commented on the cardset Pemberly
Ah, yeah. Seems there's two that are. Most were uncommon, so I missed those two apparently.
As for Legendary matters, I was mostly just noting that Grandeur would allow him to slot that in if he felt like it.
i think he's got a couple of grandeur legends at common already, but i'm not seeing a lot in the way of legendary matters. might be hard to weave it into the overall set without seeming too parasitic, but i think it needs that to not feel like a bolted-on mechanic for future sight's sake
2016-04-11 00:10:51:
Adak
commented on the cardset Pemberly
Oh hey, you're using Grandeur too!
I used it in my set, Hylonautica. You can click my username to get a link to it; feel free to borrow any of the designs I made.
A note about Grandeur is that it allows you to support a Legendary much better than Kamigawa did; Grandeur allows you to draft multiple copies of a single legend without the second copy being dead in your hand when you draw into it, allowing you to put legendary creatures at common as long as they have Grandeur. I feel that there's a lot of design space that can be examined there.
wanted to say that overall i really like the flavour you're evoking here, i think it's a new and interesting direction that opens up some great flavour options
and i think you've designed some mechanics that really evoke that flavour, glory and bargain both do a good job conveying what you want them to convey (although cards with just bargain on them need other cards around them to make sense).
i think you've had that as your first priority, and now you should look at tweaking the mechanics for gameplay. i remember on one of his podcasts maro talked about how at first mechanics often really strongly evoke flavour at the expense of gameplay, and as the set develops further you loosen the links in order to make things run smoother (that's the whole point of development, and designers do it as well).
turns out that the message still comes across loud and clear if the design is good; during design the innistrad team played around with a bunch of werewolves variants including one that involved a moon card waxing and waning, and in the end settled for a much more abstracted implementation. but it still delivers that anxious moment where the opponent knows they're going to transform and wreck shit but they can't stop it. that's what the mechanic had to do, not deliver the most accurate depiction of werewolf transformation possible
hope i'm not coming across as too critical here btw, like i said i like the ideas you've got. keen to see where it all goes.
i think this ability is probably too clever by half. it means you're constantly playing this involved hand manipulation subgame, and playing that game often involves playing cards/not playing cards at times where it would otherwise be optimal to do the opposite
threshold (Krosan Beast)is an ability that's been widely derided (i personally quite liked it) for the subgame reasons, and it wasn't as fiddly as dignity is; everything triggered at 7. but graveyards are a lot more linear than hands; they typically only go up where hands can go all over the place
basically i don't think hand size is a great variable to be using for ability word triggers. it's too variable and controlling it isn't much fun
i understand why you've set this card up the way you have - the idea is that with bargain enablers out paying life suddenly becomes more worthwhile. the problem you've got is that in a vacuum, this card looks silly and that means it needs synergies to make sense. personally i think that's leaning too much on them when there's an easy way to fix it: make them do both
example:
First strike
Bargain (When this creature ETBs, you may pay life equal to its CMC. If you don't, gain life equal to its CMC.)
Whenever you pay a bargain, target creature gains first strike UEOT.
Additionally, I'd like a o thank keflexxx for all your recent insight :)
Legendary matters will be a small sub-theme in all colours, mostly intended for constructed, and will be the RG draft archetype. There is also a small discard matters subtheme.
I will admit that this card is a very poor Dignity design; it's always sad to have it as the only 2-drop in your opening hand.
That would be too good for a 1 drop. This card is meant to go in a CMC 1 artistry constructed deck, and thus doesn't want to be more expensive. I have done paper playtests, and in my original draft environment it was quite playable. I may, however have to rework it, since I'm keeping less than half of my original designs. I do, however, still have more to import.
Oooh, yeah I was having trouble with bargain templating. That sort of style was my original intention.
lol no need to defend your set, i haven't taken as close a look at it and don't really have any business commenting on it just yet
happy to give it a once-over if you like, we should all be collaborating a bit more really
Well, I also put in a discard theme.
my thoughts on grandeur is that without supporting cards around it, you're just making a bunch of Faerie Miscreants and cards like that have never been good. there has to be a strong reason the mechanic is in your set, because otherwise people will just think "oh it's here because they wanted a future sight flashback". legendary matters is a clear & obvious one, although it's not perfect unless you want to make the legendary supertype a core component of the set. at the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case
you're right that grandeur makes supporting legendary easier than it was in kamigawa block, but the reason that's a good thing is because it allows you to achieve greater saturation of legendary cards making legendary matters a better set component. unless you do that, you're not really getting much benefit
oh also i'm more or less purely approaching this from a limited perspective, most of this is irrelevant for constructed. so how important this all is depends on what people will be using your set for
Ah, yeah. Seems there's two that are. Most were uncommon, so I missed those two apparently.
As for Legendary matters, I was mostly just noting that Grandeur would allow him to slot that in if he felt like it.
i think he's got a couple of grandeur legends at common already, but i'm not seeing a lot in the way of legendary matters. might be hard to weave it into the overall set without seeming too parasitic, but i think it needs that to not feel like a bolted-on mechanic for future sight's sake
Oh hey, you're using Grandeur too!
I used it in my set, Hylonautica. You can click my username to get a link to it; feel free to borrow any of the designs I made.
A note about Grandeur is that it allows you to support a Legendary much better than Kamigawa did; Grandeur allows you to draft multiple copies of a single legend without the second copy being dead in your hand when you draw into it, allowing you to put legendary creatures at common as long as they have Grandeur. I feel that there's a lot of design space that can be examined there.
wanted to say that overall i really like the flavour you're evoking here, i think it's a new and interesting direction that opens up some great flavour options
and i think you've designed some mechanics that really evoke that flavour, glory and bargain both do a good job conveying what you want them to convey (although cards with just bargain on them need other cards around them to make sense).
i think you've had that as your first priority, and now you should look at tweaking the mechanics for gameplay. i remember on one of his podcasts maro talked about how at first mechanics often really strongly evoke flavour at the expense of gameplay, and as the set develops further you loosen the links in order to make things run smoother (that's the whole point of development, and designers do it as well).
turns out that the message still comes across loud and clear if the design is good; during design the innistrad team played around with a bunch of werewolves variants including one that involved a moon card waxing and waning, and in the end settled for a much more abstracted implementation. but it still delivers that anxious moment where the opponent knows they're going to transform and wreck shit but they can't stop it. that's what the mechanic had to do, not deliver the most accurate depiction of werewolf transformation possible
hope i'm not coming across as too critical here btw, like i said i like the ideas you've got. keen to see where it all goes.
sorry i didn't reply earlier
i think this ability is probably too clever by half. it means you're constantly playing this involved hand manipulation subgame, and playing that game often involves playing cards/not playing cards at times where it would otherwise be optimal to do the opposite
threshold (Krosan Beast)is an ability that's been widely derided (i personally quite liked it) for the subgame reasons, and it wasn't as fiddly as dignity is; everything triggered at 7. but graveyards are a lot more linear than hands; they typically only go up where hands can go all over the place
basically i don't think hand size is a great variable to be using for ability word triggers. it's too variable and controlling it isn't much fun
i don't see a huge issue making this card a 1/1, and it means it's not useless on its own which is never a good thing for a card to be
i understand why you've set this card up the way you have - the idea is that with bargain enablers out paying life suddenly becomes more worthwhile. the problem you've got is that in a vacuum, this card looks silly and that means it needs synergies to make sense. personally i think that's leaning too much on them when there's an easy way to fix it: make them do both
example:
First strike
Bargain (When this creature ETBs, you may pay life equal to its CMC. If you don't, gain life equal to its CMC.)
Whenever you pay a bargain, target creature gains first strike UEOT.
This needs a replacement