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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-12-19 21:29:13)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-12-19 21:29:13)
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."
Hm? We do have a lot of themes:
I was quite excited about it when we were originally working on it, and I was originally quite interested in the themes, but now I've sort of lost touch with them. I think part of it is due to the fact that we've not agreed 100% on our interpretations of the story.
I confess I haven't had much enthusiasm for the community set. It does rather feel that we're just writing a bunch of cards. Perhaps for the next one we could have a bit more direction - people volunteering for Head Designer, creative, etc, and soliciting card ideas to a specific theme. Does that sound boring? I don't know.
We should dust off the challenge.
By the way, this might be a fine time to mention to all Multiverse's recent new members that The Community Set is intended to be open to all. It's probably not especially clear where to get started, but I think we'll shortly be asking for uncommon designs for each of our six factions, so if you want to come up with some ideas for uncommons for a multicolour-versus-monocolour set, feel free.
Oy! That's a lot of reading, writing and editing. I need a soda.
Technically, you need
to make one of those combinations of mana. Two Fire-Lit Thickets only make 
. But I agree. It's a better card.
It looks like Mossfire Valley and friends would just be worse than Fire-Lit Thicket, generally.
Anyway, to respond to the original question: Yes, I do agree with those criteria. I think the checklands are pretty much the perfect dual lands for the core set. They're easy to understand and at a great power level.
I remember reading, when tenth edition came out that Maro expressed regret that they were forced to use Yavimaya Coast and Caves of Koilos in the core set. That's why, when Odyessey came out, they made sure to use generic names on the rare land cycle (Mossfire Valley et al.)... which is kind of funny, since those 5 never appeared in a core set. They're due some day, I guess. Either them, or a set of lands like them that also produce colorless.
I don't think the rule so much is that Wizards won't put rare off-world lands in the core set, so much that they try to make promotable lands generic in the first place.
What I mean is that a complete set of simpler duals duals than be occasionally reused in expert expansions would be a valuable asset. Not many of the dual land sets qualify for that (in fact, there are so few 10-lands sets that we can expect a few of them to be completed, especially upon revisiting the planes they came from).
I think you're a bit wrong, Alex. While Wizards has indeed been making an attempt to add some planar flavor into core sets, and had a sort of "tour of the planes" theme in M13, I'm pretty sure I read a statement from Maro somewhere stating that they try to print dual lands with neutral flavor. That way they can reprint them in whatever set they think is necessary. That's why the shocklands don't have guild-specific names, after all.
The "plane neutral" requirement is an old myth that refuses to die. If it was ever true of core sets, it hasn't been for a long time, but I don't think it ever was: Adarkar Wastes was in lots of core sets, the Caves of Koilos and Yavimaya Coast are storyline locations, and so on; more recently we've had characters like Odric, Master Tactician and Krenko, Mob Boss, who are from Innistrad and Ravnica respectively but were introduced in core sets.
I'd love to see Coastal Towers with basic land types, but I don't think it'll happen for some time, because they'd be inherently overshadowed by the shocklands even though they're usually better than Guildgates.
Rare dual lands are always a tricky proposition. On the one hand, experienced players are usually rather excited to get a dual land as their rare in a booster (because they're very valuable, because they go in so many tournament decks, because good duals are mostly kept to rare, because that sells more packs for Wizards). On the other hand, new players are usually not very excited at all about dual lands, and there's not much that can be done about that. I imagine lots of kitchen-table newbies cracking Ravnica packs were even disappointed in the shocklands they opened (until they made it to a FLGS with people with trade binders). The one exception to that that occurs is the Celestial Colonnade cycle, especially notable for Creeping Tar Pit and Raging Ravine. Those were popular both with newbies and with tournament players.
I'd emphasise "Simple". You want people to see them, get them, use them. Drawbacks are needed ofr obvious power-level concerns; but they shouldn't be fiddly.
ETB tapped Tri-lands seem promotable to rare. Might require a few more years for people to appreciate that move, though... Alara uncommons aren't really in short supply yet.
I don't see why we can't get something similar to Tainted Isle and company. Taps for colorless, or U/B if you control an Island or Swamp. Just Glacial Fortress with the etb tapped switched with colorless, I suppose.
Also, I wonder if we'll ever see "When this land enters the battlefield, search your library for a Mountain or a Forest and put it into play..." Better than Wooded Foothills because you don't pay the 1 life, but worse because you got to choose as soon as you play it. Seems kind of broken. Which only reminds me how broken those damn Foothills really are.
Discardlands (~ ETBs tapped unless you discard a card) will happen, but probably not in the core set. Basic taplands are still an option, if only because the basic set of allied-color ones is not plane-neutral. I wonder if the move to more uncommon doesn't mean there will now be duals at that rarity again?
Yeah; I guess having "Do this and you'll at least stand a chance" advice was allowing too low a barrier of entry :(
Note that the high cost of common removal isn't new in Theros; it was the case in Return to Ravnica block as well. Trostani's Judgment, Angelic Edict, Explosive Impact, and so on. The reasoning I thought I'd seen for it was to make Draft pick choices more interesting than just "always take the removal". Any common removal that isn't extremely expensive will be rather restricted or conditional (Viper's Kiss, Smite, Mugging) or coloured-mana-intensive to restrict splashing (Annihilating Fire, Grisly Spectacle).