Elementis: Concept

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Mechanics | Concept

Elementis focuses on the elements and how they interact with the everyday world. Everything is made up of one or more elements and those with a particular affinity for a specific element have that element supertype. Element Supertype is, for the most part not limited by colour (though most water element cards are blue and fire element red - of course). The Magic colour pie is mostly unaffected - specific abilities/keywords etc are still tied to their specific colours.

The Introduction of Elemenal Mana does create exceptions. Any permanent with an element supertype can produce either its regular mana or elemental mana (that of its supertype). Also, any spell with an element supertype can have any coloured mana symbols in its casting cost substituted with the appropriate elemental mana. So an Earth card with a cost of {2}{r}{r} could substitute {Earth}{Earth} in place of the Red Mana requirements.

Most permanents with an element supertype and an activated ability that costs mana require the relevant elemental mana to activate that ability rather than regular coloured mana - much like many snow permanents.

Each element has an opposed element: Air - Earth; Fire - Water; Void is the exception to the rule. Void isn't opposed to any other element, nor is it aligned with any other element. Any mana produced by an element card cannot be used to cast a spell of its opposed element. EG: (((Volcano))) is a Fire Land - Mountain that can tap for {r} or {Fire}. Water Mephit is an Water Creature that costs {1}{u} to cast. Any mana produced by (((Volcano))) - be it {r} or {Fire} cannot be used to cast the Water Mephit as it is a water creature - Fire's opposed element.

As previously stated, not every card in the set will have an element supertype - roughly half of the set does. Several cards without a supertype see the return of an old mechanic - Affinity (yes this was broken first time around). These cards will have an affinity for a specific elemental type (eg: Affinity for Void), to limit the effect of Affinity most of these spells (all coloured) have two or more coloured mana in their casting cost. There are No "Free" affinity cards this time around.

Associations:
Air is associated with Fire and Water but opposed to Earth; Air is mostly associated with {w}{u}{r};

Water is associated with Air and Earth but opposed to Fire; Water is mostly associated with {u}{b};

Void is neither associated nor opposed to the other elements; Void is mostly associated with {b};

Fire is associated with Earth and Air but opposed to Water; Fire is mostly associated with {r};

Earth is associated with Water and Fire but opposed to Air.Earth is mostly associated with {r}{g}{w};

Whilst the coloured mana associations listed above are not even, care is being taken that each element is balanced with the other 4 in terms of both number of cards and playability. Also, whilst this set focuses on the individual elements, the next set in the block Rifts will deal with the ways the various elements interact and will include multi-element spells/creatures/etc

Updated on 29 Jun 2011 by Blakemeister