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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-16 03:40:18)
For Challenge # 088. This mechanic is a bit forceful, jamming players forcing players into a two-color only deck. That said, I think most players will find the trade off very useful, since, if they are playing two colors, they will never have to worry about mana requirements again after playing a warp stone. Ghost Council of Orzhova is a lock after playing a Scrubland Warp Stone on turn three.
The big problem is what happens when someone gets wise, and puts two different ones into play. I know that the latest one overwrites the oldest one... but I assume most new players wouldn't guess that, and assume they get four land types and names now. That's not a great interaction at uncommon, I know. My unfortunate fix, I guess, would be to add the type 'warp' to this artifact, and add "As ~ enters play, sacrifice all other warp permanents that do not share its name." That's fiddly, and an official drawback, where the card only kind of sort of had one before. Meh. Back to the drawing board.
For Challenge # 088. Not a revolutionary mechanic, I know. In fact, I'm not treading any ground that Lorwyn didn't break. But I figured this was a good place to start to get the basic qualification out of the challenge out of my head, before I tried to do something funkier.
I think it's supposed to reduce the cost of
, e.g. 
and 2 dead creatures gives +4/+0. I'm not sure if it works, though.
So essentially it's a drawback ability word, telling you that if your graveyard is filled up with, say, 5 creatures, you're not allowed to activate the ability for any less than 7 mana?
Created for Challenge # 088.
Created for Challenge # 088.
Strangely, this also encourages 3 color play, if all my creatures are multicolored. Perhaps this would be better as "Sacrifice two white and or black creatures, or one white and black creature"?
It does seem appropriate. I agree that if this was the Simic ability in Ravnica, I'd be a little disappointing, but it isn't a bad take on an evergreen ability. More appropriate to a set that just happens to link blue and green, but not necessarily the other 9 colors.
Also, I think I personally would have made the blur more difficult to process in a three color deck, by doing something like "Blur 2 -
" or so... but it's certainly fine as is.
Vindicator's Pet
I think one dragon hatchling is probably fine, and really really cute, as long as it stays an exception. But when I disagree with Rosewater about what's ok where, I assume I'm normally wrong :)
Coffin Embers Emberlisk EDIT: Added a creature card. I know the wording is incorret, it only affects the card its on.
It's probably worth noting that Dragons are one of the single most beloved categories of cards to a large number of new and casual players. I think putting them at rare works fairly well with encouraging those players to keep buying cards hoping to get one. A less-than-rare Dragon is very unusual, and I think some people in Wizards have said making Dragon Hatchling at common was a mistake.
(Also, ooh, Archwing Dragon is nice with evolve creatures in the same way Viashino Cutthroat is :) )
Come to think of it, Shivan Dragon and Archwing Dragon are rare, and they're not very rare, they're just fun and good. I really don't like that I'm arguing for putting good cards at rare, that's not as much fun, but it may be the only sensible conclusion. (Or the card could be toned down a bit and be a fine splashy uncommon, or powered up to make a splashy rare, and still be appropriate for Bolas.)
...When you put it that way, I think Wizards' approach is that if the card is too good for uncommon in Limited, then you make it a rare. A set can handle a small number of rares that are lackluster for a variety of reasons.
i made a cycle of these guild-like mechanics not long ago on a whim. probably too weird or clunky to see print.
maybe this one is acceptable:
guild
Familia — When ~ enters the battlefield, do something with X, where X is the number of creatures you control more than target opponent.
OK, I don't like the result, but Pargreased Boggle has my thoughts on how to approach it.
My logic for this challenge is: what's the difference between a two-colour deck and a two-colour deck with a third colour splash?
The two colour deck doesn't play a small number of off-colour producing lands.
That means mechanics that scale with the number of G&U you have aren't really sufficient: it stops a LARGE splash but it's often still worth splashing another colour for removal even if it makes your X/X creature slightly smaller.
It has to be a mechanic that makes having only one or two off-colour lands a significant drawback. But not so significant that you can't compromise: you could have a 2/2 creature with a bonus if "all your lands can produce G or U", but that removes a lot of potential for interesting decision.
So I tried to think of something that would scale, where having 9 on-colour lands instead of 8 still matters, but having 8 doesn't completely kill you.
One answer is hybrid-heavy costs: Boggart Ram-Gang says "play RG" pretty clearly, because it's sooooooo much better if you can drop it on turn 3. But that only really works for aggro decks. You could do the same thing with a creature with a dramatic "level up" like monstrosity costing
. But that's not really a mechanic.
So here's an attempt to fulfil the same design space in a scaleable way.
I think it sucks as a mechanic -- "bad hexproof" isn't fun, and "any sort of hexproof" is too non-interactive to be a major (even small) mechanic. But I wanted to start off with something simple and see if it nudged me to come back with any other mechanical ideas which were more fun.
For what it's worth, I consider a strongly linear mechanic in a given two color pair to qualify (as in, you have to commit to the mechanic, which will most likely make you commit to those colors).