"Norse" set: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to "Norse" set: (Generated at 2025-04-30 16:51:20)
Page 1 - Older activity
Page 1 - Older activity
So we all recognize you pioneering Sagas, but it took me until today to realize these also use flavor words ahead of time. It might be, that we could do with more flavor words on Sagas.
"after your draw step" is actually quite a cool option since that timing would coincide with the timing of schemes and allow stuff like adding mana (without necessarily having the rider that you don't lose it as steps and phases end).
All the trigger ever needed was a short way to refer to the condition. "At the beginning of your precombat main phase" is a mouthful.
One of the reasons I didn't go with that is that the keyword's reminder text becomes quite wordy. I eliminated the possibility of just using "enters" instead of "enters the battlefield" since it's too ambiguous (it enters grave/exile/whatever?). It seems WotC decided against that.
> (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, ...)
It kind of puts the whole "the battlefield" debate back on the table since that ETB phrase being so long is a real issue.
This is kind of off-topic as well that I mentioned in the discussion of the Dominaria mechanics (EDIT2), but have you ever considered or seen been considered, that "after your draw step" would be favored over "at beginning of your upkeep"? Not changing rules in any way, just starting to prefer that trigger over an upkeep trigger? I faintly recall seeing discussion about that somewhere...
Regardless, I'm okay with updating Saga to work more in the vein of WotC's proposed way. I'm not really in hurry to do so though since I don't have any real plans to undertake the development of this concept of a set at the moment. The set is open for editing, so if you feel strongly about, you can go ahead.
I mentioned it on the discussion of the Dominaria mechanics, but gameplay wise I prefer their version getting the initial effect on ETB.
Flavor obvously is deeper on yours.
Weeeell, I could say that they did it; but executed less flavorfully.
Like, "Yay, it's chapter 'I,II' followed by 'III' of 'Chainer's Torment'" or whatever while with this implementation you can go full ham with stuff such as "'Long night falls' followed by 'Upon forsaken lands' in the 'Doom of Yorin'".
Btw it's still worth of note that I merely formulated this from (was inspired by) an existing idea
> Saga: The Story Mechanic
Hey! You did it!
This seems to be the paragraph most important for us:
> "If we were just counting lands, we had to keep the threshold number somewhat low in order to make it something players actually got to experience—but having that lower number took away people's feeling of accomplishment. Furthermore, we don't really give players many ways in Magic to remove each other's lands these days, so there wasn't really much counter play if you happened to be losing to this strategy except trying to win before your opponent could do it—which wasn't a terribly satisfying answer. Finally, the gameplay wasn't very dynamic and exciting, because unless your opponent had access to green mana, you could kind of just look over and roughly estimate how many turns they were from getting there and know that there likely wasn't much either of you could do to change that (short of them missing land drops)."
My gut instinct still tells me that Ragnarok should be something that "happens" (possibly multiple times or not at all) and not a threshold state that is achieved / reached. That has a lot of flavor, mechanical, and design implications that I'm not sure I can verbally express properly. Nothing short of mocking a playtest session isn't gonna move this forward though so maybe I look into that at some point...
There is a section about the design of ascend in today's article over on wizards.com that might be interesting with regards to gameplay of a land threshold mechanic.
Well, ok, technically ragnarok itself is't. But this is kiiinda useless without a lot of other cards that also happen when ragnarok arrives.
Ragnarok itself is not parasitic at all - inless it suddenly changed and is only this now. In which case... eh.
Honestly, this card is bad. It turns Ragnarok from a new name for a common enough element of gameplay (like devotion) into something you do on demand without putting any prepperative work into it like the worst aspects of energy.
EDIT: After checking this also seems to just purposely undermine the gameplay around Ragnarok by giving Constructed a totally different condition to achieve it than Limited.
Gibber. Ragnarok on demand.
Parasitic of course (which is a concern of the ragnarok mechnic in general) but still, flashy.
-> 
and shuffle effect
-> to 
lol
Ahh, I hadn't considered the multiplayer angle. And I missed the text on the mechanics page. I'm much more comfortable with the current version then.
I do think that there should be cards that have access to abilities/buffs during Ragnarok though. It'd function similar to how City's Blessing/Ascend functions in Rivals (from what we know so far, anyway), and is fairly simple to keep track of. Ragnarok is a very long event, with a large series of battles (and events unrelated to said battles). There should be some persistent effects for stuff to occur during Ragnarok. Shit doesn't hit the fan all at once.
The multi-occurrence might be a bit confusing for reminder text to convey succinctly. Besides, even in EDH, Ragnarok is only liable to occur twice, mayyybee thrice during the game, if the players are dawdling. Most of the time, games are over once somebody hits 8-9 lands. But I like the concept of having Ragnarok occur in "cycles".
Oh, you are playing a four-player game? Well, Ragnarok arrives on turn three now!
I think the current version Tahazzar has described for this set is a good trigger. Ragnarok thematically wants to be turned on and stay.
I'm not so much settled on the "not caring about Ragnarok once it has arrived" angle. Certainly one could imagine a cataclysmic event shifting around how creatures work e. g. more destructive abilities trigger if Ragnarok has arrived.
The current Ragnarok text on the mechanics page reads:
> Ragnarok arrives the first time any player's seventh land enters the battlefield.
So it will only trigger once any player has their seventh land enter the battlefield.
There was this one set where Ragnarok was a threshold mechanic that required you to have seven lands in play. IMO it's much more resonant that Ragnarok is an event that "comes", not a state that "is". That should be reflected mechanically as well. So I would have it be this one "enormous event" with lots of triggers that will most likely eventually happen and that players will prepare for. That is quite unique mechanically as well.
This would mean that once it has happened, well, that's that. Think using your planeswalker's ultimate or planeswalking in a Planechase game. Perhaps triggering only once is a bit harsh, so I could see a variant that would trigger on every seventh land play - so, seven, fourteen, twenty-one, etc. That could be nice for EDH and also have this nice "world ravaged by perpetual cataclysm" feeling.
> Activate this ability only any time you may cast a sorcery during Ragnarok.
This reads horridly IMO and as I stated before, it would make sense for players to be wary of Ragnarok coming - not that much whether it's "on" or not - so something like Accursed of Yore would be indeed be the variant I would go with.
That's interesting. I'd set the number a bit higher than 12 for, basically, all the reasons you give - but I like it.
Flavourwise; the name seems wrong - the first time around, it's just a normal hero. Then it comes back.
Which reminds me of another Norse thing - lots of different afterlives. Not really sure how to implement it though.
Since this is a collaborative set, here's an alternate interpretation. Since Ragnarok is a worldwide event, it feels odd that each person can begin it separately.
I figure twelve lands total is an alright amount in that its roughly six lands per player. The only potential issue I see is that it might discourage playing a land due to it turning on your opponent's Ragnarok cards. But giving access to a whole host of abilities at 12 lands total ensures games don't drag on for too long, hopefully. One concern is that Green might be able to trigger Ragnarok earlier than expected, so that the opponent has little ways to make use of the mana. Either Ragnarok abilities should be balanced around that possibility, Green shouldn't have wanton access to Rampant Growth type ramp effects, or Green Ragnarok should be balanced with this in mind.
> What else; cold and ice. A winter night that lasts for, literally, weeks on end.
One important point to note is that this likely should differ from Ice Age, and by extension Cold Snap, so Snow is something that I would think twice before including though it comes to mind quite quickly. This would also mean that there shouldn't be too much of a focus on undead (you know with Lim-Dûl and all that).
> Warriors (mainly) proving themselves.
Glory at least touches upon this. Including something like Renown might feel redundant.
> Bets! Oh so many wagers! Usually with disastrous consequences that have even the one who set the terms saying "No, it's ok you don't really need to" and the loser saying "But I must! I'm not welsh!"
Hmm. A couple of cards with "random" effects sure. Dangerous Wager? Menacing Ogre? Pain's Reward? Choice of Damnations? There might be some kind of mechanic hidden within those processes...
What else; cold and ice. A winter night that lasts for, literally, weeks on end.
And, how did DnD phrase it? "Points of light in the darkness" - small holdings that are far apart from one another.
Warriors (mainly) proving themselves.
Bets! Oh so many wagers! Usually with disastrous consequences that have even the one who set the terms saying "No, it's ok you don't really need to" and the loser saying "But I must! I'm not welsh!"
I stand by "and then it got worse" as the central theme though.
> Another big theme would be doom. Unavoidable prophecies of death and disaster.
Ragnarok is this straight-up and Saga can play into this (this card for example).
> I think that would translate into some kind of conquest theme. Both Odin and Loki are prominent tricksters, as well as other gods and entities, and as two central figures that would want some sort of deception mechanic or theme maybe?
Sounds like Conspiracy to me, but otherwise Idk.
My best memory of Norse Mythology comes from Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. Most of what I remember are the elements Mal mentions. While there were a number of unique items the gods had, I think they'd work better as singular pieces rather than a mechanic or archetype. From Gaiman's telling, there's a lot of taking, if something can be commodified, the gods (or giants) will try to take it by cunning or force. I think that would translate into some kind of conquest theme. Both Odin and Loki are prominent tricksters, as well as other gods and entities, and as two central figures that would want some sort of deception mechanic or theme maybe?
Another big theme would be doom. Unavoidable prophecies of death and disaster. Theros did some prophecy, from greek myth perspective. That has a similar "Run to avoid it, you only make it happen" - but Norse has lots more of a "And then it got worse" feel.
My experience with Norse mythology was that rhe central focus of most of the stories were of the gods and giants, rather than Nordic peoples. So my main beef with the existing Norse myth sets is that the focus a bit too much on the Viking aspect rather than the myth aspect. Its perfectly fine to do so, but don't advertise your setting as Norse myth if you want to make a Viking set.
I'm not too familiar with Norse myth either (its honestly one of my least favorite mythos), but a central aspect of a lot of the stories was transformation - something like Skinshifter might make an interesting base for a
mechanic. Almost all of Loki's stories involved him transforming into some sort of animal, and many of the gods had transformations of their own. Its a common thread throughout several different mythis, but I found it most prevalent in Norse myth. It also might be interesting to use a Gods vs. Giants theme (like the Mirran vs. Phyrexian theme) - it captures the early part of the mythos quite well leading up to and during Ragnarok.