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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-14 14:25:53)
I enjoy writing fantasy.
Out of interest, is it worth working out some roles for people? I know this is primarily a design site, but it might be nice if someone came up with a compelling back story for the world which we're developing here. Anyone with any creative writing streaks? (I'd be up for this bit, but I'd need an idea of what the world mechanics we're going for are)
Here are what I see as possible linear mechanics for monocolor:
White-Lifegain, Tribal
Blue-Mill, Tribal
Black-Discard, Lifedrain, Tribal, Graveyard
Red-Burn, Tribal
Green-Ramp, Lifegain, Tribal, Graveyard
We could make it different, flavorwise, from shards by having the multicolor be the norm and the monocolor be rebellions or something breaking out.
Actually, to me at least, what we're doing here seems very similar to Shards of Alara. Creating 5 separate universes (in our case, 5 mono-colored universes. Shards had 5 three color universes) that would often be seen as incompatible, paired up against the possibility of a 5-color domain deck. Funny.
I do think that Jack's words of warning hold true, that the idea of creating anti-synergies for the sake of anti-synergy is dangerous. However, that's exactly how Alara block went down... all 5 shards had their own linear strategies, though, the majority of the cards, upon close examination, were just vanillaish mono-colored cards that could be thrown into any deck (not counting the all gold set, of course).
While I do think you could make the cards just care about multicolor, just care about monocolor, and some that don't care about either without building linear strategies in color, I must admit, I don't know why one would. After all, as a player, I'm not particularly interested in being rewarded for playing monocolor, or multicolor. That idea, after all, has been around since Alpha, and I've been playing for a very long time. Had this been all the set offered, and I had $4 to spend, I'd spend my four dollars on another set.
That's not really a big problem, though, since, if we build our set correctly, it would be roughly impossible to end up with just a mono v. multi theme. I admit, I've been jumping ahead to the next step, unexcited by the first and eager for to do what comes next.
But I do think that no having anti-synergy cards in the set might make some players angry. Think of the alternative. Let's say that the set included a lot of modular mechanics and cards with casting costs like
. As a player, wouldn't it be frustrating that you've got an excellent idea for a deck that needs a white card that has a heavy mono commitment, a blue card with a heavy mono commitment and a black card with a heavy mono commitment? If all the cards in the set worked well with all the other cards in the set, but their casting costs were restrictive, people would probably hate the set. However, if there was an interesting selecton of Vampires to choose from, some of which were costed 
and some of which were costed, 
, you probably wouldn't be so annoyed with the color commitment. You'd just be asking yourself "How dedicated am I to this Vampire Mechanic, and how far down the rabbit hole do I want to go?"
Had this all not appeared in Shards of Alara, I'd probably be a bit hesitant myself. But I kind of think that may have been one of the strongest designs for a set that Wizards put together. It certainly had a cohesive identity, and exciting cards. I don't see why we wouldn't want to mimic it.
It is very wordy, but I think we have found better stuff.
Mono white gets Dedication help and multicolor gets mana fixing. They both get an ok body if they don't need that.
Sorry about the cardset options! I had not realized that.
I like the idea of multicolor, probably along with another theme (enchantments? tribal?). I'm not sure if I like the mono-vs-multi or not; I think it's an interesting idea, but don't want something that will divide the set into two in compatible subsets.
Ravnica had a few "pro-multi" or "pro-mono" cards, but only a few.
It seems to me, the idea of deliberately creating anti-synergies is a red herring. There's always room for some explicit disadvantages, but you normally want people to be able to put things together in creative ways if you want. Someone hopefully has more experience at this phase of design than me, but I think the way to think of it is, which combination of decks do you want to enable (especially in draft). Eg. Ravnica enabled color-pair decks, but you could also go heavily into one color or splash a third (or fourth). Lorwyn and Shadowmoor enabled tribal-based decks and color-based decks (?) but not very sharply at all.
Mono-vs-multi suggests to me you want rewards for playing multi (either for playing 2, or for playing multi in general) and rewards for playing mono (eg. very strong CCCCC creatures and linear mechanics).
The problem being, people will want to play mono for the reward, but multi decks inherently have more cards to choose from, which is why people play multi when they can, and you need at least some mana fixing. So how do you avoid all red decks being the same, because they all have to play the same mediocre common creatures in order to have enough cards?
This to me suggests:
Then you may be able to have distinct archetypes of a U/R deck, or a U deck or a U deck with a r splash, or a U/R/b deck, etc. Maybe.
/me edits the cardset options to make creating new cards open to everyone.
I like the idea of each colour having a mechanic that has some self-synergy, which is a nice subtle way of encouraging monocolour without being harsh about it. I think jmgariepy's ideas have a lot of merit.
For discussing particular ones, I suggest we do go and create individual cards to discuss them.
What about the multicolour half of the set concept? Is it going to be possible to enable "multicolour" decks that would rather try to add another colour than add some monocolour cards?
Really, I'm just scratching the surface here. The majority of Linear design, I suppose, is saying "something matters" that normally doesn't matter as much in a normal magic game.
Linear Mechanic 11: Morph
Creature - Cat Soldier
Morph
First Strike
4/2
Once again, this assumes that all the morph creatures are in one color.
Linear Mechanic 10: Creature Tokens Matter
Creature - Elf Ranger
When ~ enters the battlefield, put a 1/1 green Ferret token, and a 2/2 green Wolf token onto the battlefield.
Token creatures you control get +1/+1.
2/2
The temptation is to make a token tribe, like Saprolings matter, but it may blur the line too much between a tribal color and a token tribal color. Probably better to have a bunch of cards in one color like token creatures (or enchantments, or artifacts).
Linear Mechanic 9: Combat Tactics
Creature - Goblin Warrior
~ gets +1/+1 for each tapped creature you control.
1/1
This could have included the word "Exalted" instead, or a number of other combat strategies.
Linear Mechanic 8: Assemble the Doomsday Machine
: Deal 1 damage to target attacking creature. If you control a Wall, a Construct and a Soldier, instead deal 3 damage to target attacking creature.
Artifact Creature - Construct
2/2
A number of cards in Magic have asked you to assemble both parts, or all three parts (See Urza's Tower or Brothers Yamazaki.) If all those cards can only be found in one color...
I need to make a tour around the building, but I'll be thinking of some more I can add in the interim.
Linear Mechanic 7: Life Gain
Creature - Elephant Cleric
Lifelink
Whenever you gain life, put a 1/1 White Elephant Soldier into play.
2/5
Life gain as a strategy is rarely a good idea, since it doesn't move you toward winning the game, just from not losing the game. Players have reacted very positively, though, to cards that say "When you gain life" or "If you have 30 or more life" or something along those lines. I'm pretty sure we can get more creative than that, as well.
Linear Mechanic 6: Graveyard Recursion and Sacrifice
: Sacrifice a creature: Return target creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Creature - Insect Shaman When ~ enters the battlefield, draw a card.
2/2
This version of the card is probably far from good enough, but I slapped its mechanics together to show off how Graveyard Recursion, sacrifice engines and come into play abilities work well together. If a single color had the lion's share of these abilities, players would start to catch on.
Linear Mechanic 5: Mill
Creature - Crab Rogue
When ~ enters the battlefield, target player puts the top three cards of their library and puts them in their graveyard.
3/3
Some Milling cards get the job done all by their lonesome. This is an attempt to get blue (or possibly black) to do some very occasional Mill. On the surface, the mechanic would seem bad. But if you played mono, and every card in your deck milled some cards from your opponenent, the result could be a very strong deck.
Linear Mechanic 4: Tribal
.
Creature - Bird Wizard
Flying
You may play Birds in your hand as if they had flash.
Whenever you play a Bird, you may counter target spell unless its controller pays
1/3
I'm not specifically endorsing birds here... I just like to give them a break, since they kind of got the shaft in Onslaught. If we do use Tribal, I would suggest only having one color have one tribe that matters, so that players don't think this is a tribal block. In fact, if we went the linear mechanic route, I would suggest exactly 5 linear mechanics for 5 colors. Anything outside of that would just muddle the presentation, and make what we're doing lose meaning.
Linear Mechanic 3: Madness
Instant
Madness
Discard two cards, then draw two cards.
Madness, in theory is not a linear mechanic. But if there are no real ways to discard your own cards except in one color, then the mechanic defacto becomes linear. I went for a card that both had Madness, and enabled madness to showcase the concept.
Linear Mechanic 2: Infect
Creature - Zombie
Infect
3/1
The idea behind all these linear mechanics is that they are only appear in one color. Infect creatures by themselves aren't spectacular, but when every creature in your deck has infect, they're deadly. If only black creature in your set have infect, then players would lean toward mono-black when making an Infect deck, but we aren't telling players what they can and can't play at the same time, and they're more than welcome to mix and match mechanics.
Linear Mechanic 1: Modular made Linear
Creature - Human Knight
Flanking
Whenever three or more Flanking creatures you control attacks, destroy target enchantment.
1/3
The first mechanic here isn't an advertisment for Flanking, it's more just a reminder that any mechanic can feel mono-color if it is turned into a linear mechanic. In fact, making modular mechanics linear could be an interesting twist on how that modular mechanic works. I'd go further into it, but the subject is a pandora's box, and I've got a lot more linear ideas to throw out.
Ah. Was planning to add a bunch of new cards for the purpose of discussing individual mechanics, but it appears that adding new cards to this set is not open to everyone. That may be a wise plan... I just wish there was, as an alternative, a way to start multiple comment threads about multiple different ideas, but I know that the situation we're in is a bit unique.
Anyhow, I'll just make it a bunch of comment posts, instead.
I like the card, but I can't see this being a cycle with the wording as stands. I don't know if I'd want to see a Electrostatic Bolt variant of this and a Worldy Tutor variant of this and so forth.