Gate to Ukmor: Comments

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Mechanics | Mechanics by Colour | Archetypes | To-do list | Ideas/Graveyard

5 keyword mechanics seems like a lot for one colour, but it's not clear whether that's a NWO-style critique or whether or not that means you're using broad design ideas too narrowly. probably a bit of both

siphon is risky territory. traditionally mechanics that give downside to the casting player - even if in exchange the cast is costed much more aggressively - haven't gone over well

  1. Siphon feels randomly stapled on to things just for balance. It doesn't invoke any cool magic or anything. I think it should be restricted colourwise and flavourwise... 'these are the magical beings that siphon to augment their power', as opposed to 'urrr, this guy is kind of overcosted I guess we'll just give him siphon'.

  2. Creatures that have cool effects that trigger on damage are one of the funnest things in magic, for me at least. Good feels. There doesn't appear to be too many in this set. Perhaps try to come up with some good ones that involve the keyword mechanics.

agreed on both counts. triggering abilities when you crack someone is good; incentivises people to do the thing they're meant to do and feels like you're getting good value from your creature

agreed on all counts. im going to leave siphon in for the first playtest but i have a feeling its going to wall away for something else.

also, there is a distinct hole at the 5cmc slot in blue and green

Siphon overhauled. Drawback mechanic -> charge counter based mechanic. Lots of variables to play with.

Card naming complete! Art assignment and card comment addressing before moving to first playtest.

i'd wait on art selection until after the playtest, you might find yourself going back to the drawing board more than you think

That's a fair point. I guess I'll hold off but if i come across any nice art i will just jam it.

Anyway, big things to keep in mind for the next update:

  • partitioning mechanics more into colour combinations rather than spread amongst all.
  • giving each colour (or most colours) some way to interact with infuse and the graveyard
  • tweak the numbers on siphon, or play with when it triggers. (at the moment im leaning towards removing the becomes tapped trigger, and only triggering off landfall, and revising each charge counter cost downwards)

Removing landfall trigger from siphon.

Replaced landfall trigger on siphon. Removed 5 uncommon gold cards (20 -> 15)

First Playtest Conclusions:

-Infuse needs to change. It's very all-or-nothing at the moment, and leads to repetitive gameplay and uninteresting decisions, with minimal chance for counterplay.

-Lineage needs to be cleaned up, both in terms of a consistent trigger condition (at least at common, but ideally for all) and consistency within the colours for the creature types which trigger it. Players felt taxed keeping track of all the creature types in the graveyard and what the triggers were on each of their cards. (art may help, but it will still probably be an issue) - Siphon! Trigger on tap tends to snowball (if youre attacking youre winning, and then your creatures get better). Landfall only may be the way to go. Also, creatures with more situational abilities tend to pile on charge counters.

-Toughness too high and power too low across the board. Many standoffs with no way to punch through. also, more fliers!

Potential solutions: -To address lineage issues and make drafting have more archetypes, leave class-matters as is, and have race-matters across the other 5 colour pairs. This will tidy up all the lineage creature types, and reduce to 5 major races, and allow emphasis on race subthemes for drafting.

-Infuse: maybe change to a cost reducing mechanic if a creature ETB'd your turn? POtenially with extra triggers (or copy for some condition?)

-Siphon: lower the power or raise activation cost of some of the siphon commons (elvish kreltender and bokor thrull in particular). change to a landfall only trigger or potentially an outlast-type thing where you tap it for charge counters.

Trying out next iteration of Siphon.

Land ETB or become tap granting charge counter -> Siphon an activated ability that puts a charge counter on the permanent (template as outlast? instant speed? we will see)

what's the flavour of infuse exactly?

also if you need a tiebreak for your siphon options, the tap version is pretty similar to my tap mechanic and might make PRB standard a little dull. especially if you make the tap version only work as a sorcery, which is what they needed to do for outlast

Cutting uncommon multicolour infuse cycle. Might end up keeping GW and GU ones, but definitely scrapping the idea of a full 5-card cycle.

good call, i've ended up cutting the couple of horizontal cycles i had. hard enough making a set that works let alone getting cute with things like that

have you considered making infuse an ability word that triggers if a creature etbed under your control that turn?

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