Multiplayer

The focus will be on drafting for multiplayer

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Mechanics | Skeleton

IF YOU WANT TO HELP DESIGN/PLAYTEST

Leave comments regarding either new cards you feel would be at home or comments on how to improve existing cards. If I feel like your skills are strong enough then I'll add you. Please note, however, that I reserve the right to make all final decisions regarding every card.

Playtest feedback is welcomed. Also I have Magic Workstation, so we could easily test out that stuff hopefully, as it was designed to make user-created sets.

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Flavor:

The setting is a world where magic is rare. The connection that people feel with mana is non-existent for most. Mages are hunted and persecuted. It is important to draw a distinction between the fact that most on this plane do not believe in magic and the fact that magic exists. There will be slightly fewer instants and sorceries in the first block than usual and slightly more in the final block. The way that the first block will deal with the disparity between the amount of instants/sorceries and the fact that few people have seen or believe in magic is the flavor. For instance, a green pump spell could be flavored as radiation gorging lab rats to enormous sizes, or a black kill spell which goes by the name of 'Sudden Illness'.

> About 500 years ago on this plane, magic was commonplace. Scientific progress and mystical powers went hand in hand, and attempts by wielders of both powers were made to study and understand the masters of the other. As the population of the plane blossomed, cities grew larger. The proximity of persons in the largest of cities fed into this scientific/magical research and discovery, and made life better for all those on the plane. As the standard of living rose, those who were lower in the caste system of the ruling government began to tire of oppression. The ruling class grew wary, wanting to protect the power of their birthright. These conflicts could not be resolved peacefully, and war broke out. During the war the rulers of the plane waged a successful propaganda campaign through the church which cast the enemies of the crown as evil spellcasters. The upper elite of the ruling party, as well as the crown, who relied on magic to enforce their power, were forced into a new style of governance: everything associated with magic was hidden from outside observers, and when use of magic was necessary, it was done through a network of dead-drops and hired assassins. This was successful largely because even though magic pervaded the plane before the war, the middle and upper classes were largely very well-off before the explosion of the scientific/magical renaissance. Eventually the forces of the crown were victorious and the rebel army was driven into the wilderness. In the aftermath of the war the crown's army became a force in its own right, eventually winning privileges in the government akin to those given to aristocrats. The persecution of magicians and the remnants of the rebel army continue to this day. This is the history of the plane and the state we find it in during the first set of the block.

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Factions:

Outcasts - Primary color: Green. Secondary color: Red

This faction will dominate the battlefield through ramping, instants and sorceries. They should have both the best I/S's and most interaction with those card types. Secondarily this faction loves having lots of critters, which represents their ability to use magic to start building armies to strike at their opressors

Sub-mechanic theme: Bonuses for having swarms of creatures(Maybe if an opponent is at 10 or less life). good at getting +1/+1 counters.

Church - Primary: White. Secondary: Black

This faction will dominate the battlefield by securing a strong defensive position and subsequently lashing out from there. They will have the best Skepticism triggers since they are the most opposed to magic. Secondarily they will have strong instants and sorceries to represent their inherent hypocrisy in regards to the similarities between magic and spiritual mysticism.

Sub-mechanic theme: Bonuses for when creatures die. This will promote attacking hopefully. Also good at getting 1/1 flying tokens.

Implementation: 1. Creatures which get bonuses upon death. 2. Spells which make killing creatures more attractive 3. Sacrifice outlets

Scientists/Artificiers - Primary: Blue Secondary: Green

This faction loves playing enchantments and artifacts. They will dominate the battlefield by having both the most and the best artifacts and
enchantments Flavor: This faction will be allied with the church and the B/u group. Some in the faction will help provide justification for the church's persecution from magic. Some will be allied with the B/u group will show that they have no scruples about using magic to generate new scientific discoveries.

Sub-Mechanic theme: Both getting 1/1 tokens and putting +1/+1 counters on creatures.

Army - Primary: Red Secondary: White

This faction will primarily rely on having the best creatures, and be the best at dealing damage. They will dominate the board through superior creatures and damage-dealing potential.

Sub-mechanic theme: Bonuses for damaging an opponent. Promotes attacking. Bonuses when creatures die.

Dimir style mage-cult living underground in the city - Primary: Black Secondary: Blue

The primary strategy of B/u will be battlefield manipulation. They will dominate the battlefield through effects which are primary political in nature rather than relying on bomb effects. Secondary in amount of instants/sorceries to G/r

Sub-mechanic theme: Some critters/spells should get a bonus if an opponent is at 10 or less life. This will promote interaction rather than taking a defensive position. Bonuses for damaging an opponent

Flavor: This faction will pull the strings behind both the church and some of the scientists. They are major players in the politics of the capitol city but will have little control over the army.

Other color combo strategies:

• Red-Black
• Red-Blue
• Green-White: Traditional aggro deck
• Green-Black:
• White-Blue

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Design Principles:

The primary focus of the set is multiplayer. Therefore the following rules will be very important:

1. Small spells, especially creatures, need to have more utility than just the regular 'grizzly bear' use of some small creatures. Grizzlies can still influence a game strongly, but they will usually have to have another use since aggro decks suffer in the long game.

2. The power level of larger spells needs to be observed since games tend to go long. For instance, Exsanguinate can be totally game ending, and should probably be tested thoroughly.

3. Most, but not all, cards should adhere to the popular archetypes of multiplayer MTG:

** Cockroach: A card that just won't die, and is annoying, but not strong enough to draw the ire of the other players at the table. Bloodghast

** Gorilla: Bomb-ass spells designed to swing the game in your favor. Wrath of God

** Pigeon: Defensive bomb whose effectiveness increases with more players. Soul Warden

** Rattlesnake: Keeps opponents at bay by discouraging attacking. Executioner's Capsule

** Spider: Surprises and traps for your opponent. Sudden Spoiling

** Plankton: Cards that benefit everyone at the table. Hypergenesis

More examples abound online. Just because the card doesn't fit in one of these archetypes doesn't mean it doesn't belong. It just means that the card will probably have to go through changes/optimization.

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Mechanics:

Set One:

1. Cards that punish opponents for playing instants/sorceries.
2. Feature a variety of means to make creatures bigger. (Best on small guys but also ok for bigger ones)
3. Equiptment
4. Transform
5. Spells (see flavor section)
6. Cards that adhere to the Multiplayer archetypes listed above
7. Tribal subtheme. See Innistrad for how to do it right.
8. Artifact subtheme to go with the U/g faction
9. make sure that arts associated with them have something to do with those colors, either an activated ability or they get better if you're playing those colors.

Set Two: 1. Rebound. Represents that mana being tapped after so long spent without mages is extra-potent.

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Random Remarks:

• I enjoy the idea that sufficiently advanced technology is almost equivalent to magic. If that idea is incorporated into this block, that would mean that I could use the enchantment type to reflect things which are based very much in science as we know it, but could still be construed as magic. A good example of the past is the Simic Guild from Ravnica block.

• LARGE-small

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Pictures to use:

Druid

• http://guides.gamepressure.com/risen/gfx/word/600078968.jpg
• http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/bethesda/elderscrolls/elderscrollsv/bear610ed.jpg
• http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-acX34631oI0/TjMMeqoL8-I/AAAAAAAAAXg/qMDHAFmDHLw/s1600/beastman2.jpg

Army * http://www.fhm.com/App_Media/Uploads/Images/Original/image/skyrim-spellcasting.jpg

Robots

• http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/14/858x900_4187_Warmachine_2d_sci_fi_warrior_steampunk_robot_picture_image_digital_art.jpg
• http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh6w83mqwp1qdhvyro1_400.jpg

Cardset comments (2) | Add a comment on this cardset

The set creator would like to draw your attention to these comments:

On Sacrificial Altar (reply): on 05 Apr 2012 by Mandroid: Good call Visitor, I think that makes much more sense, even though unlimited buffing seems like a better card. If it's switched it may be able to move back to common since it's not quite as good.	On Sacrificial Altar (reply): on 05 Apr 2012 by Visitor: You might want to make it "sacrifice a non-spirit" creature - as it is, after the first sacrifice it becomes: "2W: creature you control get +1/+1 until end of turn" since you can just keep reusing the spirit token as sac fodder. Maybe that was your intention, but it doesn't really make sense flavorfully to be able to sacrifice spirits. Another idea would be to delay the creation of the spirit token (put the token into play at end of turn) a la Transluminant.	On Card14191 (reply): on 18 Mar 2012 by Mandroid: Wanted to move this further from Hell's Caretaker. Also I feel that it's quite a bit better than the aforementioned card, but in recent years the MTG teams have been much more willing to print really good creatures with a cost of 5+ to make up for their beefy casting cost. Willing to up the activation cost because I feel like it might need it.	On Divine Intervention (reply): on 15 Mar 2012 by Mandroid: Marking this down for changes, drawing a card is nice but not particularly relevant to what white wants to do. Maybe a nice fog variant? Also I'm pretty sure I've read on the MTG site that adding a 'draw a card' rider is the most uninteresting and uncreative of riders unless it interacts strongly with a theme (like dredge for example).	On Card13982 (reply): on 12 Mar 2012 by Mandroid: Which there really aren't going to be any of outside of rare. One of the problems which grows exponentially with player size is board complexity. If there are four people with hands full of flash/instant cards and a bunch of stuff like this and Skepticism on the board, wtf are you supposed to do on your turn? Who do you attack with so little info and so much room open to getting screwed by a Briarhorn or a Riotous Frenzy? There are going to be minimal Skepticism and no Flash cards at common/uncommon, unless some top-down flavor design absolutely necessitates the use.
On Card13982 (reply): on 12 Mar 2012 by Alex: This is also very interesting, especially in conjunction with flash artifacts/enchantments.	On Vonnemin's Creation (reply): on 07 Mar 2012 by Mandroid: ­Von Neumann is famous for working on the theory of self-replicating machine in the 1940s	On Card14065 (reply): on 06 Mar 2012 by Mandroid: I don't know if this is good enough in White, as all of thier commons are <= 3 powa. Unless the uncommons roll out some huge dudes this will probably have to change/move to another color

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