The Way of Kings: Comments

Which shard or shards should we put in this set? Maybe just Honor here, and then save Odium and Cultivation for set 2?

Yeah, Honor or Cultivation here, and the other two in Words of Radiance.

So, I was thnking, for the rare enchantment artifacts, we could do different shardblades?

Shardblades sound good for rares.

Hi guys, nice set. I'll run through the cards and put comments as I see them. I won't have the vision of the entire set so I may question some design decisions that have a plan. It also assumes that this is a set that follows normal MTG design principles. (limited and constructed)

• Devout is a good keyword. White commons look really good.
• Invest is very parasitic, especially for the cards that don't do anything except invest such as Stormlight Infusion.
• Why not just charge counters instead of investiture counters?
• Legends seem impossible to flip in normal play without another card putting investiture counters on them; this means they will never flip in draft.
• Legends (surgebinders and spren) seem to be very crowded text-box wise, with the abilities not really having anything much in common.

Thanks for the input!

Regarding Invest: The idea behind it is to have a flavorful, relatively self countained keyword across each set we design. The individual sets are going to be very different, but they are all based on IP within the same fictional universe. It's supposed to be a little parasitic I guess. Regarding the name: Mostly for flavor reasons. I have no problem with changing it to charge counters, and keeping it named invest. That would still have a reasonable amount of flavor. Regarding the legends: Yes, I am painfully aware of how cramped their text boxes are. They were all very top-down designs, and I'm trying to clean them up a little. We might remove the activate on transform abilities, and replace them with a keyword or two. Regarding flip costs: To which are you referring? With Shallan, you only need to gain life on three different turns to flip her. Shouldn't be too hard. With Kaladin, he needs to survive three combats to flip. Is three too much? Should it be two? With the Spren, we could make them easier to flip by removing the extra effects, and lowering the cost. The flavor pieces the mechanics represent could be put on other cards.

The set is an extreme work in progress, and I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on it.

Noted on invest. One last thing though about invest though. Its not explicitly stared, but I don't think WOTC has made any keyword ability that has no mechanical relevance by itself.

The current wording of invest is like that. Putting counters on a unit doesn't mean anything by itself. It should be a "pseudo keyword" like Channel I think.

Proliferate? It doesn't do anything on its own, does it?

Yeah, it's the same thing basically, putting counters on things. I think we can get away with it, so long as we include enough relevant cards for limited.

That being said, Samuel, do you mind if I start changing "investiture counter" to charge counters?

Sounds fine. Will we still keep Invest as the keyword?

Yes.

Samuel: good point on proliferate. I'll have to reconsider my design rules. Thanks.

Not saying MTG has to be grammatically correct all the time, but why did you guys choose "invest" over "infuse"? "Infuse this" sounds slightly better than "invest this", as the latter usually needs an 'in' (i.e., "invest in ~"). The book always talks about things as "infused with stormlight."

We chose invest because throughout Sanderson's universe, known as the Cosmere, magical energy is referred to as Investiture, so we can keep invest for future Sandersonian blocks. If you haven't recommend Sanderson's other works, I recommend it strongly, starting with the two Mistborn series, Warbreaker, and Elantris.

Will do, I'll put mistborn on my next reading list :)

And if those aren't enough to satisfy you, there's a collection of novellas and a graphic novel coming out later this year. :)

Regarding the rare shardblades...we have three named, non-spren shardblades (four if you count Nightblood). Do you think it's worth making up two names, and making them legendary?

No, I don't think so. Legendary equipment seems not to come in cycles anyway, so I think having them as legends without making a cycle is fine.

Okay. I actually might not make them legendary, as that would be too much to fit in the type line. We'll see.

Concerning the skeleton, can you replace the slots for MW02 and MG02 with a slot for MZ06 so we can fit Demoux in set 1 while cutting down to 15 mythics?

I'm working out the details of that. I also want to include walker Nightblood in WoR, which means we'll need a second Mythic artifact slot. (first is the Oathgate) I'll rearrange a couple things in both sets, and try to make room for an extra walker in both.

If you want, we could probably fit 10 total rare artifacts, 4 in WoK and 6 in WoR.

Looking back at it, why do we have Rysn as the green legend? Could we think of someone else? Green seems like the least mercantile color in the color pie.

Excelent point. Maybe swap her with Shen/Rlain?

We can remove the shardplate from this set, bringing it down to 7 in this set, and 5 or 6 in WoR. I'm okay with having a few extra artifacts. This set is supposed to have a minor artifact subtheme, if you will recall.

Sure. With how that works, we will still have two fortifications in WoR, since there's still the Oathgate.

I'll go ahead and move the black and blue blades to WoR, since we already have Syl and Pattern in this set.

Okay. I rearranged the skeletons a little. WoK now has 15 mythics: 8 of assorted colors, and 7 multicolored. (5 legends + 2 walkers)

WoR now has 16 mythics: 7 of assorted colors (white and green each get an extra since they didn't in WoK) 6 multicolored (5 legends + 1 walker), two artifact (Oathgate & walker Nightblood), and one land (Urithiru).

I made a couple simple balance edits, no concepts were changed and I noted what the edits were in comments. If you disagree with any of them, comment and we can change it.

Thanks for that. I'm fairly good with flavor, but I'm pretty bad with balancing. Thank you for helping with this, I wouldn't be able to do it without you.

No problem! It's a fun project, I can't wait to see where we go with Mistborn next.

I didn't remember two specific Thrills, if they are explicitly named then I guess we should only do two unless you want the cycle.

If we do end up doing a cycle, I might move it to WoR, so we don't run out of cycles for that set. We'll see how it goes. I have a good idea for "Thrill of Discovery" (the U one). It would represent Kaladin's dream.

I'm going to start putting notes in the skeleton for cards which we still need flavor for.

Mraize isn't mentioned until late in book 2. Can we do Zahel here?

Zahel didn't show up until WoR either. If we do him, this set will have a RW walker, a UR walker, and a WG walker. We need a black walked to keep it balanced.

Edit: What if we do Iyatil?

Iyatil works.

So, a thought for the eventual Elantris set: Sorceries and instants matter theme, with Splice onto Arcane?

Woah. Getting ahead of ourselves, are we? I'm not sure I like Splice onto Arcane, Kamigawa was generally disliked and splice onto arcane seems kind of weak. Also, Antagonize needs to say "creature card" not "creature" because it's in a zone other than the battlefield.

What color should Odium be? I hate is a very red emotion, but Rayse is a very selfish and black person.

And, regarding Splice, the flavor is perfect for Aons. We'd be fools not to use it. It doesn't necessarily need arcane, but the ability to combine spells is exactly what Aons do.

I think Odium works in , to balance with and for the other two. I like the flavor of splice, but the mechanic was parasitic and not well-liked, so I think we should make something else similar, but a new mechanic. I'll start thinking.

Okay. I'll have to rearrange the skeletons a little to make the needed slots.

Regarding splice, it would be a lot less parasitic without the arcane requirement. Maro has hinted that it might be possible to do splice onto instant or splice onto sorcery. That would require far less infrastructure, and the cards could be used with any deck.

I just don't think splice is a great mechanic overall. People disliked Forecast, and splice is the same principle (repeatable costed effect activated from the hand) if not worse (slightly parasitic even without Arcane). Maybe something more self-contained, a mechanic modifying the effects of the card it's on rather than onto another (like kicker)?

Maybe...what if we do the same thing as splice (combine instants and sorceries) but make the "spliced" cards go to the graveyard? Make it non repeatable, and make the splicing cost slightly cheaper than the actual casting cost to compensate.

How about simply a return of Kicker? It fits the flavor and was better liked than Splice. Also, for Formshift, I assume you meant that to say "put a counter," not "our a counter"?

So, do you have any ideas for a different legend in WoR? Sanderson recently confirmed that Lift will be the main character of the Stormlight novella included with Arcanum Unbounded. Accordingly, I think I'll move her to that set. Thoughts?

Can we switch the archetype from cards in hand matter to counters matter? It seems slightly less tacky and more on-theme. As far as legends are concerned, we could fit Venli back in. If I remember correctly, she's being shafted right now, right?

Venli is currently in the rare slot. We could move her up to Mythic, and put someone else there.

And yes, the counters matter makes more sense than hand matters. Go ahead and make the change.

Do you want to move Venli up and put Roion at rare in ?

I moved Venli up already. We could put Roion in, but I'm reluctant to do one highprince and not the others. (Yes, Dalinar and Sadeas don't count.)

Hm... maybe we could do Rysn? Red seems appropriate for a merchant with the rummage ability. Another archetype change idea: Could we do a lifegain archetype in and move enchantments aggro to since that's where Devout is?

Sure. It's a stretch with Rysn, but it could work. Go ahead and make the change with the archetypes. I'll update the front page in a few.

Regarding the archetype, I get the feeling we don't have enough ramp cards. I have an idea for an uncommon creature, but we still need more at common.

I was wandering on the Internet, looking for Cosmere fan-made cards, and I found you. My, what a good surprise. Just wanted to let you know that I love what you're doing here, I'll be following you as you progress. Let me know if a non-cosmere, non-magic expert can be of any use ;) Cheers from france~

Awesome! I'm glad you like it. I'm curious, how much of the Cosmere have you read? I ask because these sets will include major spoilers for their respective books.

I've read all of Mistborn era 1, 2 & Secret History, the two Stormlight Archive books, Elantris and Warbreaker. But I intent to caught up on the others ASAP. I won't wander on the risky ones, don't worry. I was fumbling throught a MTG adaptaion of Mistborn when I found your work, and I must say that I'm impressed. I knew I lacked experience in MTG to do a proper adaptation, but you guys seem to do the trick. Keep it on !

It sounds like you've got all the basics down. Just a few short stories you're missing. Those we won't be doing for some time. In any case, I would love your help. Would you mind going through the set, and see if there are any major events or occurances we are missing? A second pair of eyes would be much appreciated.

Thanks for your compliments. A fair amount of credit has to go to Samuel. I make whacky, flavorful effects, but he's the one who turns them into playable cards. :)

What would you define as "major" ?

The plateau runs, as an event, could be represented by a sorcery. I don't think I've seen something like that.

Another thing could be the swapping made by Shallan between the two fabrials. Like, swapping/taking control of an artifact.

Her Memories/sketches, but I can't see how.

Finaly, killing a few/week ones in order to save many/strong ones is a recurring theme of "evil" lighteyes in the book (and bad guys in the next one). It could make a nice card.

Plateau Runs: These might be a little complicated to represent with a single card. We have Raise the Alarm to represent spotting a chrysalis, plus other cards with other things. There's room in the red rares for another card or two to represent the rest of the runs.

For that, we have Desperate Theft.

I plan on doing something with that in WoR

Hm. This is generally black's tone in general, though we do have room for a black enchantment.

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it. :)

I was thinking of something like "make two cratures fight, the one who win gets mana/invested/other". It's more a battle than a run though.

Well, that's all I got. I may re-read it soon-ish, I'll let you know if it give me any ideas.

Flavor wise, I think Forgotten Lore would be a pretty cool reprint.

Out of curiosity, how did you arrive at transform as a mechanic for this set?

It seemed like a good idea for representing the different forms of the Parshendi. It also allows us to show how the Surgebinders evolve as they develop their powers. The first transforming cards we designed, however, were Syl and Pattern. It was the obvious choice for showing their blade forms.

Ah, of course. I hadn't even thought of the Parshendi.

So, I'm currently re-reading WoK, and I thought about those thing. You have all you need as for control blue spells, but the book make a big deal about the assassination attempt on the king and the whole highprince of Information thing. You also got all the artifacts you need, but it could be cool to get the Way of Kings, the in-world book, in the set. I think the author said that he wanted to name the whole series after in-world books (hence the name "Archives of Roshar"), so it could become a thing. The book have a big role in the story. Still loving your work, hope I've been helpful !

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. :) A second pair of eyes is always a great help.

I wonder if we have room for another mythic artifact in WoR. We already Nightblood and the Oathgate. Actually, come to think of it, do we really need a Nightblood planeswalker? At least in this set? It would probably be a better to have it in Oathbringer. We could replace Nightblood with Words of Radiance (the book) and add Nazh as a fifth walker. Thoughts?

We should have a lot more Nightblood in Oathbringer (compared to it's cameo on WoR), so flavor-wise it is a good idea.

Thanks for rounding out the set, Samuel. :) You beat me to it by one day.

Okay, while you are developing, I'm going to go through and sort out final versions of name and flavor, and add flavor text. Try not to significantly alter the flavor of a card now if you can help it. Thanks.

Giving detailed balance notes on every card seems to be proving too much. I'll just comment on cards that seem like they might be unbalanced in one way or another, no need to note that a vanilla bear is a vanilla bear.

Looks like I'm going to have to do some formatting changes, with the addition of create and all.

Do you have any ideas for the other four enemy color mechanics in WoR? We have Batallion for . What about the others? I want to start working on the set at the start of next semester.

For other mechanics, let's think about the archetypes we had in this set:

­: Lifegain. Our mechanic really shouldn't be lifegain based, people don't like lifegain as a stand-alone thing (the limited archetype should be alright though). Not sure about this one.

­: Ramp. I'm not sure where to go with this mechanically, but maybe a mechanic that cares about converted mana cost to convey the feel of a large-scale apocalypse? Or a convoke variant, for more ramp? I'm actually leaning towards the convoke idea. Something like:

Final Desolation

Sorcery

Mechanic (Each permanent you sacrifice while casting this spell pays for or one mana of that permanent's color.)

Exile all permanents.

­: Maybe artifact auras? That could be cool.

Cardname

Enchantment - Aura

Enchant artifact

Enchanted artifact is an enchantment in addition to its other types and gains ", : This artifact deals 1 damage to target player. Draw a card."

­: A mechanic for cards/abilities that target a permanent to care about the number of counters on that permanent?

Storm's Might

Instant

Target creature gets +X/+X and gains trample UEOT, where X is the number of counters on that creature.