Welcome back! Sometimes you stumble across a mechanic that's so obvious, that it makes you wonder if it has been in the original game for years and you just haven't seen it yet. I don't think Wizards has done this, but I'm also kind of surprised they haven't.

Maybe the reason is the razor's edge nature of this card. In order to be playable, you need three lands. Opening a two land hand with one of these cards is a problem. And it sure is a clunky land. Keeping mana up to cast Giant Growth during your opponent's turn is rough. But this card also cuts through the challenge of assembling a mana base, giving players exactly what they need, and making casting Doran, the Siege Tower a non-issue.

And sure, Temple of the False God kind of has these problems. But the temple was one land; this card infers a cycle of at least five lands. I don't think Wizards would say 'no' to this mechanic, so much as they probably just keep passing on it for something a little less dynamic.

But what is the card's name?

Oh, interesting. I think wizards do avoid doing many "give net 1 mana cards" because of the finnicky-ness of remembering when they don't help, but they do do some and this would make sense for a three-colour focussed set.

I submit:

­Saltsteppe Roost

The obvious connection here is Azban, or Tarkir generally. But most lands benefit from being able to be reprinted in other sets. So I chose "Saltsteppe" to evoke "Sandsteppe" from the other Tarkir cycle of wedgelands, to help remember which triland is which. And "roost" to evoke dragons (without necessarily needing physical dragons). Also, the dragon connection suggests "magestic, powerful, exciting, but hard to aim" which I thought fit the land :)

It could be part of a cycle of "something roost" or "something place" where the places are different dragon-y terms evoking the different clans' strengths. I don't have to choose which for this challenge :)

And I can't resist a second:

­Orzholgnya Resurectorium

I asked myself where this card could come from OTHER than a wedge set. And I considered a revamped Ravnica where the guilds have been remixed, breaking apart and forming into ten three-colour factions which each represents some aspects of the three guilds in those colours, e.g:

WBG: Orzholgnya, Orzhov/Golgari/Selesnya, obsessed with melding the spirit, body and flesh into technique of perfect resurrection
WBR: Orzhov/Rakdos/Boros, perfecting the perfect implacable crusaders
WBU: Orzhov/Azorius/Dimir, secretly ruling from the shadows, basically the illuminati
WGR: Selesnya/Boros/Gruul, basically Naya
WGU: Selesnya/Azorius/Simic, "growing" the perfect society for a culture
WRU: Boros/Azorius/Izzet, time police, or gadget police
BGR: Golgari/Rakdos/Gruul, feral zombies
BGU: Golgari/Dimir/Simic, secret fleshcrafters
BRU: Rakdos/Dimir/Izzet, secret agents of chaos
GRU: Gruul/Simic/Izzet, we make giant monsters who smash, oops

The flavour on Ravnica is so strong. I love how most of those ideas just came to me, but also represent fairly well defined tropes that fit into those colours, but are often distinct from the shards or wedges featured on other planes.

E.g. BWG is plausibly the colour of "true resurrection", given those are creature-graveyard-y colours, and BW are the most spiritual colours and G the most living-things colours. But it's no the only flavour. Resurrection has been seen in UBR with a more zombie-ish flavour. And BWG could also be the colour of "Abzan fortitute" or "treefolks" or "permanent destruction" instead.

But here I tried to capture a quintessential Orzholgnya place, something with both religious and somewhat scientific overtones, that featured their core concept.

And being on Ravnica would also explain the restrictive use: it's supposed to help you cast Orzholgnya coloured spells in one, two or three colours, not to be splashed into a different three colour deck to just round out the colour fixing.

Hmm, so this is Sungrass Prairie/Selesnya Signet extended up to three colours. Seems reasonable. (Wants the gold frame like Sandsteppe Citadel and Cascading Cataracts.)

Jack's got some excellent setting-evocative names. I guess I'll go for something more generic then. Maybe... Deepwood Tower.

Jack's fused Ravnica triples are magnificently flavourful though. Awesome work.

Right. It seems weird to use the multicolor frame on tri-lands, but it's what supposed to be used.

Oddly, Jack is pushing into some of my Great Designer Search entry. I had an idea for 'tribunals' which consisted of three guilds that all hate one guild in specific. BWG would be the tribunal for UR (or Orzhov, Selesnya, and Golgari would all find common ground in how much they hate Izzet.) Likewise WUB would be the tribunal for RG (or Azorius, Dimir, and Orzhov would find common ground in how they hated Gruul.)

It's a cute idea that goes around the wheel like that. But honestly, Jack's idea is cleaner. It has more flavor, requires less explanation, and requires fewer cards to pay it off.

Thank you for the enthusiasm on the 3-guilds! Now I just need ten mechanics... :) More seriously, that's a good example of what I mean by "good sequel", of adding something to Ravnica more than just "Dimir, again". Although I think there's a lot of room for sequels less changed than that but more changed than the actual sequels, e.g. "the same ten guilds, but the city is destroyed" or "the same ten guilds, but they're only just being founded"

That also reminds me that flashbacks are probably a good idea for more magic sets, since if they (say) decide that blowing up a plane was a bad idea and don't want to wait 20 years to have a good idea what comes "next", they can fill in a bit of history earlier, or between two events, and build on the flavour that worked.

I like jmg's way of thinking about the triguilds too. I know I'm previously tried to remix the guilds somehow, trying to do mergers of two guilds or something, and it never quite clicked, but somehow "mix of three guilds" just fit perfectly for some reason.

I got another idea. Ten guilds of two guild pairings, exclusively. So Azorius and Dimir, but not Orzhov (they're the secret police.) This might sound counterintuitive, but if you're only doing it for a block, there's probably got to be way to make this work. Cards that look a lot like Castle Sengir or Keldon Mantle would be a decent way to start.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I like the idea of mashing up two guilds. "Secret police" has compelling flavour, and a lot of others do as well.

I guess you could start with the five shards and the guild pairs that share a central colour, and the five wedges and the guild pairs that share the central colour. And then the five+five that share the anticlockwise colour. And then the five+five that share the clockwise colour. And then finally the fifteen pairs that didn't originally overlap in colour :) Probably wizards would probably get bored by then, although maybe not given we've already had several sequels to Ravnica, they could have had a different set of 10 guild-pairs every time.

Poll is up! Click here to vote on your favorite choice!

Alex picks this one up with Deepwood Tower. See everybody in (((NTC #063)))!