Conversation: Recent Activity
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-08 18:07:55)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-08 18:07:55)
To truly answer this question, we have to look at what
needs and what you/we want 
to be. Frankly, Wizards couldn't care less about this color combination. Sure they'll gives us a bone here and there and pull us along with some trap johnny cards, but there is not (and probably never will be) a coherent set of cards or mechanic to form a staple strategy or archetype like other color combinations. Their focus right now is all about creatures and creature-based strategies. And this color combination is as alternative from their mainstream profit as it gets.
So I say we can't rely on what Wizards may think or do about this color pair. I suggest we ourselves should forge an identity and playstyle for this color pair that we are satisfied. And most importantly, cost them appropriately and competitively, unlike those frivolous trap cards they use to trick us with--overcosted unplayable combo junk that even a retard knows is trash in every format.
This means we have to look at the past of
and envision the future of 
. Past archetypes in 
are typically counter-burn control and combo. That's basically it. There are a few mechanical overlaps, like instant/sorcery focus, looting, copying, stealing, power-switching. However, most of these can't be the centerpiece of an archetype. Instant/sorcery might get there, but most of the time it's very little reward for going through a lot of hoops. Why bother with Blistercoil Weird when one can just cast a Giant Growth for a simple 
for 3x the effect?
One philosophical identity overlap between
I want to expand on is trickery and sabotage. Specifically to get an advantage when your creature successfully strikes an opponent. Also red is starting to get temporary card draw. Blue gets efficient real card draw on spells, but on creatures it is more expensive and slower. So maybe a middle ground like so:
Stash N (When this creature deals combat damage to an opponent, exile the top N cards of your library. You may play them this turn.)
Blue already has this effect where you get to draw a card, but only one at a time. With Stash, blue can effectively draw two or more cards when N >= 2. The downside is you have to play them the same turn. For red, this type of effect is still new, so N = 1 is fine for now. With access to double-strike, N is effectively doubled anyway. see Prophetic Flamespeaker.
Besides Stash, I'd also like to see other effects when a
creature deals combat damage.
I believe jmgariepy is referring to Mangrove Beach, which, indeed, I meant to imply as part of a cycle. The cycle "justifies" its basic land types by the fact that they're all able to search for each other. I'm probably guilty of overusing basic land types on my lands, but there are a few where, looking back, I feel that it makes sense. That's one of them. Grove of Growth, Morphic Tidepool, and Scarred Valley are others.
I think I might have been the most vocal about this on Multiverse, because it drives me a little nuts.
I don't have a problem with the principal of adding basic land types in theory. I just want the designer to have a good reason why they included the basic land type besides "It makes the card more powerful/sexy." I can accept flavor justification, but the flavor justification has got to practically scream for it. After all, what makes your land more of a Forest than Karplusan Forest? More of an Island than Teferi's Isle? It doesn't make much sense for those cards to not include a basic type, but for a card named "Jungle Island" to do it.
As for mechanical purposes, I'm cool with that, too. But there's got to be a greater reason beyond 'This effect feels very green.' Sapseed Forest doesn't seem any more green than Pendelhaven to me.
The only time I've ever seen anyone use basics in an intriguing way for the land, mechanically, is one of Link's designs. I can't remember what it did exactly, but I think it was something similar to Naya Panorama, and operated something like this:
Land - Forest Plains
: Add 
to your mana pool.
, 
: Search your library for a Forest or a Plains, etc., etc.
Sacrifice ~,
That was cute, since players could (assuming a cycle) slowly wheel around the color pie, eventually fetching their Swamp. I wouldn't be thrilled to see them added to the game, but I wouldn't be upset with it, either.
Alternatively, I could see duals with neither flavor, nor mechanical application being added to the game if there was an obvious downside to adding the basic type. For example, a block that included 10 common lands that looked like this:
Land - Forest Plains
: Add 
or 
to your mana pool.
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, lose 1 life.
Again, I wouldn't be happy with that, but I'd understand the purpose of what was going on. These lands aren't better just for the sake of it, but are filling a specific function in the game, while respecting the fact that basic, in general, means more powerful.
Yep, Vitenka has it. The upsides are interacting with Forest-matters cards like Wood Elves and Misty Rainforest; the downside is interacting with Forest-matters cards like Choke and Acid Rain.
In real Magic, I and many other people would love to see more lands with basic land types. I think that's the problem. Wizards have been very, very cautious about it (the Sapseep Forest cycle was fine but not exactly a high power level), and the general expectation on Multiverse is "like Wizards except as otherwise stated", which in this particular case sets a very high bar. Most designs with basic land types (though by no means all of them) don't seem to meet that bar, making them seem more like wish-fulfillment.
As always - if you have a really good reason to.
The downsides are confusion and them potentially being much easier to bring into play that you intend.
Thge upsides are... um... well, it's much easier to bring into play. And you can save a few words, if you don't mind amping up the confusion.
You mean nonbasics having land subtypes? I think what happens is that typed lands are generally very easy to get from the library. Generally R&D doesn't seem to like the idea that te manabase is so flexible as to make colored symbols in spell irrelevant, especially if those lands ca ETB untapped.
Of course this is by and large only a problem in eternal formals, but in so far as Wizards actively support Modern, I highly doubt the likeliness of seeing another set. As far as custom sets go, it all depends whether or not your design specs include that you intend your set to play nice with eternal formats.
I'm not as against including them as some people, but it's rather hard to justify them, really. One of the only ways is to include them in a set our block where basic land types matter.
I can't think of a white card that does that. What am I forgetting? Are you talking about Brimaz, King of Oreskos or Hero of Bladehold?
Astral Projection on Double Dragon: i can see it in U/R. it's just unfortunate that this effect is seen more in white. which means this could be a WUR keyword as well.
Made ((C32887)) for http://goblinartisans.blogspot.de/2014/03/weekend-art-challengeredblue-mechanic.html with further speculation on this.
I kind of like combining unblockability with firebreathing...
Saboteur 3 (When you attack with this creature, you may give it +3/+0 until end of turn. If you do, it becomes unblockable until end of turn, then sacrifice ~.)
Oh; I was looking for blue things, and red things. Blue red overlap is pretty much "Non-creature".
Let's see. Weird, Elemental, Djinn, Shapeshifter, Wizard...
Oh, how about "You may move power to toughness and vice-versa"? Not sure how to template it, it's been done a few ways over time; but it captures the shapeshifting fluidity that UR share.
Otherwise, it's all "something something instant or sorcery something something" Which isn't really keywordable, let alone at common.
I guess you could make something a bit like rampage? "Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, ~ gets +1/+1 UEOT" that might be keywordable?
Flickering is white-and-blue, though, not blue-and-red. (Momentary Blink, Turn to Mist, etc; Avacyn Restored has a flickering theme and its commons included Cloudshift and Ghostly Flicker.)
Red could keyword "When ~ blocks or is blocked by a creature, it deals _1 damage to it" Dunno what to call it.
It already gets first strike, and this unkeyworded firstest strike.
Conceivably, you could keyword 'firebreathing'
Blue gets 'unblockable', woiuld be nice to use 'illusion' as a keyword, but it already means the downside 'this will vanish'.
Flicker? As in 'exile, unexile'? It's a common enough ability for blue.
Recast (Whenever an ability or spell targets this permanent, you may copy that ability or spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.)
Thanks, guys.
You also get my vote Link. Truth is, it probably isn't any more work than you're already doing. The only difference is that you'd be able to say "Okay, we're going with this, instead of that." Honestly, we could use someone saying that.
@Link: You've certainly had many of the good ideas for the creative. That doesn't always translate into being good at also soliciting and choosing between ideas, but I'd support you taking on head of creative and seeing how it goes. If you don't have much time, that's no worse than now.
Mostly, as the closest thing to head designer, my job has been to filter everyone's ideas into the closest thing everyone can agree on, and compile the cards in as structured an order as I can. It was one heck of a task to get those common skeletons to align. It sure helped that Jack took red, and Alex took Multicolor, while I focused on the other four mono-colors plus colorless.
In theory, Alex's explanation for what's going on in set looks like a mess. But the truth is, that Ravnica and Alara look like a mess too, when explained from a "This is what Naya does. This is what Esper does" point of view. Alara is about 5 tri-color sets that haven't seen each other in ages, slamming back together. Aer is about Multicolor vs. Monocolor... at least in flavor. I think we mostly captured that. I think we missed our mark on a number of other things, though, yes... but part of the problem, I guess, is that different people disagree on what we missed on.
I have no problem with the idea of shuffling the roles. I took head-ish designer/diplomat as a sort of "Well, no one else is really stepping up, and if no one does anything, than nothing will happen." That said, while I have no qualms with anyone taking a more pro-active role, I've got to advise against questioning the basic tenets of what we've established so far. Little tweaks, sure. Up the fungus theme, or up the plants and mana theme. That's fair game. But going back and trying to reinvent the whole set would probably end in disaster.
Instead, I'd suggest pushing forward and (hopefully) finishing this set. And learning from our mistakes for when (and if) we ever did this again. This is, after all, a pretty big experiment. It isn't pretty, but it might be the first of it's kind: A purely organic set made by amateur designers, created by using piecemeal tactics on a message board. Personally, I'm rather impressed at the progress we've made. Any reasonable person should have assumed this wouldn't even get past the conception stage.
That said, here's an idea: Why not propose two blocks with vague themes that we can pretend are around our set in Standard?
And another idea: As creator of Multiverse, and someone with a proven knowledge of all sorts of things Magical, I would like to nominate Alex as the Head Designer. I feel that he's the person most likely to give us a good direction, but also that he is one of the least likely to volunteer for the job.
I would like to nominate myself as Head Creative, but I'm not sure I'm confident enough in my abilities or dedication.
Circeus, we didn't answer those questions probably because we thought the answers were obvious, as Alex said. If it were a core set, it wouldn't be including Multicolor and a bunch of new mechanics. If it were a "noncompetitive expansion" (didn't think I'd ever hear Modern Masters called that) we would have explicitly called that out.
It's true that it's difficult to find the focus and organization of the set. I'm having a bit of trouble myself figuring out the current incarnation of our ideas. There are a lot of old comment threads to wade through in order to feel sure that I know what I need to know in order to progress with the set, and it's intimidating.
The original brainstorming threads can be seen on the set's comments thread. The original idea was "multicolour versus monocolour". We spent a long time hashing out what that would mean, before settling on the idea that multicolour can have flying and each of the five monocolour subplanes can have their own mechanical identity, which will naturally draw players to build monocolour decks focused in one of the colours.
We did ask several times for people to volunteer as Head Designer etc, but it seems we were all too humble. (Or dubious about our ability to do a good job, given for none of us is this our day job.)
I think the answers to how it's intended to be played are probably the "default" answers for any custom expert expansion on Multiverse unless stated otherwise. So that's - an expert expansion; intended to work in draft and sealed; intended to be part of standard for constructed, but without any clear knowledge of what blocks will be before and after it (so no ability to do cross-block design).
I don't think any of that stuff got thought about.
The idea was, pretty much; "Hey, lots of people making cards here, why don't we see if we can make a set together"
Reading Alex's summary, I'm sorry to say this sets sounds like an unfocused mess, and that's not counting that as someone who is hearing of it this way, I have no idea what its design specs are.
Is it bottom-up or top-down? (clearly the former, admittedly) Is it intended to be a core set, an expert expansion, a noncompetitive expansion (not part of standard like MMA, cube and the upcoming Conspiracy)? How is it played? Limited, block constructed, standard? Do we want to ensure we don't accidentally create eternal-format monsters or are we "severing" it from standard magic?
This is all relevant information, and aside from some story discussion, I can't find any of it summarized anywhere!
I was't saying we don't have strong, readily apparent themes, because we do. It's just hard to get back into the mood for something from over a year ago. I still like it, though, and what we've got going has the potential to be good.
I do think that it would be a good idea to have a head designer, head creative, and possibly a head developer, if we have anyone who thinks they'd be good at that (I don't.) I think we might be too deep into this set to try and fix that side of it up now, but I could be wrong.
Obviously, with our small numbers, each person would still be participating in all other roles. It would just be good to have a single person "in charge" of each department who could say "Yes, this is a good idea," or "No, we shouldn't do that."