You Make the Draft Set Draft - Aftermath

[Thomas David Baker]

I enjoyed this even more than I thought I was going to, despite most of my cards ending up in sideboards :)

I've put up a full Visual Spoiler here:

http://magic.bluebones.net/ymtdsd/


All cards in one Magic Set Editor file:

everyones.mse-set

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

I would very much like to get involved in the next one aswell or even just if this set ever gets drafted again I definately want in.
as for rules, you could easily do almost a list of requirements per person, maybe a certain amount of old mechanics, 1 max plainswalker, 1 max legend, a certain number of certain creature types (say 2 wizards each makes 16 wizards and there will obv be a chance of a theme deck). That sort of thing might work, but you only learn from experience and the guys who played will know better than me

[Simon O'Keeffe]

I forgot to say, hearty slaps on the back to all participants for getting all their designs in and turning up on the day. Too often these things can easily fall apart with one or two abscences.

PS. An extra slap to all those who put art on their cards, or even drew some frogs!

[Dan Barrett]

Defo want in again next time, i'll suggest errata for my own 45 cards and review some others later.

[Daniel Royde]

Definitely count me in after the 21st.

I had a brief look through the full list- very nice. I think the comments you made all sound sensible.

I agree with you about more Timespiral than M10 BUT I don't think that complicated is what's good.

Complicated for its own sake mightn't be a good thing: I'm thinking of using hybrid mana symbols like 2/U.

What's maybe better is being presented with options that arise from interactions with other cards. I can't think of many good examples, but eg: certain toughness values being more important than normal in some formats because of how much damage common/uncommon board sweepers/ removal do.
So that cards have to be considered much more as part of the format than on their own.
I guess that'll happen with time.

ALSO
I've realised that I was wrong wrong: Art does matter- the cards with pictures were much easier to assess/ remember than the ones without.

Thomas David Baker said:

A random collection of thoughts on possible future directions:

1. Other people (Dan, Charlie, possibly others?) would like to join in some future version. I definitely don't want to automatically restrict this to the 8 people that happened to play in the first one.

2. It would be fun to make a proper set with rarities and more than one of cards and that kind of stuff.

3. It would be fun to make a cube where all the cards are interesting and powerful.

4. My cards and to a lesser extent Dan's don't really lend themselves to being part of anything remotely serious. They probably get most of their value from the first play rather than repeat play.

5. It would be fun to make up yet more cards.

6. It would be fun to make this a regular thing.

7. It would be fun to refine whatever we make to the point where you could say to Magic-playing strangers: "hey, play a draft of this with us, it's good".

8. Some of the cards that were invented are really cool. I've pretty much fallen in love with Corrupt Seer and I will still love him when his ability costs 3 life like it should.

9. We threw together some ideas a few weeks back about a possible set. It involved a lot of Wizards. A lot of the cards we played with last night were Wizards.

10. Rob may have been on to something with further exploitation of existing mechanics. Cycling/Madness/Dredge/Unearth/Channel anyone?

11. Something tells me that if we make a set or a cube it should be more Time Spiral block and less M10. Err on the side of too complicated rather than a bunch of well balanced Commons. We don't have the exact same design goals as Wizards R&D.

12. We seem to like Zombies and Wizards.

13. "Next time" we should probably have some rules or some suggested theme or something like that so that we can contrast it with this time and see what works better.

[Kieran Symington]

This set was so much fun to draft and play. I think it was really helped by Dan and Tom both doing comedy sets - it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good without them. Some utterly broken cards did manage to win several games by themselves, though - the biggest problem being Wizard's Apprentice and his total lockdown of your opponent when flipped.
Of the cards I submitted, the two that definately get axed are Bahamel (what made me think a free Swords every turn was fair?) and Restless Ashes (it has some serious rules issues and the ability is just way too good anyway).
I hope we get to try drafting this again - Kieran Symington/Explorer of the Mist for the win!

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Okay, my set review/developer comments/whatever:
In order of visual spoiler.

Beer
Maybe only target creatures you control just for clarity. Were instances where Gary was targetting opponents creatures and they were sacrificing them. You can't sacrifice things you don't control.

Broken
Not sure it is broken enough really. Compare to Eldrazi Conscription which is easier to cast and much more likely to win you the game. Just make it cose WUBRG

Cascade Lottery
Beautiful. So simple, so good. Elegant design MaRo would say.

Confused Goblin Elf
Kind of fun, but probably too random for people to actual pick and play.

Fixing Artifact / Flaming Lotus
Very similar to my Flaming Lotus, but strictly less powerful. One of these should stay I guess.

GGs
Probably too powerful. Compare to Titanic Ultimatum for a similar effect

Good Luck
An example of a "funny once" card. I think a few of Tom's suffer from this. Excellent the first time you encounter them, but not so cool subsequently.

Mise
Felt pretty broken when on the receiving end of this, but it might actually be okay. Maybe needs to cost an extra mana?

Mystical Teachings Variants
These are all pretty cool, but I think we had almost too many teachings variants in the draft.

Park Ritual
Great design, too powerful to put in a normal set, but could work in a cube style set.

Really Good Sideboard Cards
These were also a nice design, some far better than others. The green one was excellent as either an instant speed 1 mana rampant growth or a cheap Plummet. Red one should probably do 4 damage or its burn is just far worse than Lightning Bolt. The White one seemd pretty poor, maybe due to the paucity of actual enchantments in the set

Rob Stanjer, Scrounger
This was a beating to play against. A lot of power for single card. Probably too good. A flash 2/2 that draws 2 cards would probably cost 5 by itself. Maybe make it modal and reduce the cost by 1?

Slightly Dodgy Fixing
Probably just worse than Rampant Growth as there is no acceleration and no card advantage. There was a 3 mana search for two lands which just seemed better

Vodka
Too good for its cost. Add some mana too it's first ability, probably 3. Second ability is obviously superb

Well that was just Tom's and took some time, and some cards I wanted to mention but didn't for sake of brevity.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Next, Dan Barrett:

Ball's Deep
Could probably trim a mana of this, but without playing it hard to tell. I imagine it is one of those cards that looks a bit crap but is actually amazing in the right deck.

Dan Barrett
Baneslayer Barrett. Probably a little too good. Knight of Meadowgrain was awsome, adding two great abilities, probably a step to far :)

Dream Crush
Really cool. Reminded me a lot of Hero's Demise, a well costed but restrictive removal spell.

Heart of the Cards
Another card very close to Fixing Artifact and Flaming Lotus, but with a nice twist on the extra ability

James Mills
I thought this card was nicely balanced at first, but everytime I drew it I never wanted to cast it. Boarded it out every game. I think this is the wrong environment for him. With everyone designing tricksy card advantage cards, you never wanted to discard your hand for a vanilla monster

Magic Madhouse
Too strong. Compare to Urza's Blueprints which cost 6 and has Echo! Blueprints is probably a little underpowered so this card can certanly be fixed. Maybe add a mana cost to the activation?

Mid Game Mulligan
Stritcly worse than Windfall, or other discard your hand redraw spells. Even the Hellbent ability makes is just a Counsel of the Soratami. If it cost just U maybe?

Obv Cycle
This look really strong, but in play were actually fairly well balanced I found. The potential is there to have an uber-spell but I think it offers nice tension between casting it early or trying to wait for more value.

Ruhh!
Nice twist on Mob Justice, and I had to check to make sure Wizards hadn't already made this card. Nice.

Ross Miles
Probably a little strong for 2 drop. I liked your idea of making it a kind of Sengir Nosferatu style bamf Talon Trooper

Trailblazer's Mandals
Only works against dual lands? Or is it if the defending player has at least two different land types? Second version makes it basically unblockable, still fair.

All in all a nice group of cards, mostly well balanced if not underpowered compared to others!

[Charlie Grover]

Im in for any draft once we get to about mid july... yeah thats ages, fucking exams. Sets look cool though :)

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Crazed Zombie
Probably not good enough. Compare to Carnophage. Could lower it to 1 life, or the tap of Carnophage, or make it a 4/4 or 4/3

Goblin Hideout
Mabe make the land tap for R too?

Lightning Attack
Causes all sorts of issues I imagine. Probably needs to state you have a full combat phase. Cool effect though

Shared Rewards
Seems like a bad Counsel of the Soratami

Skydrifter
Should have flying!

Teferi Planeswalker
Seems broken, needs much lower starting loyalty at least

Try Again Later
Worse than Delay

Zombie Cemetery
Very similar to my Death Horde, one of these should stay

[Thomas David Baker]

I started playing around with a prototype web-based Multiverse:

http://magic.bluebones.net/multiverse.html

But to bring it to a level anywhere near Magic Set Editor is too much effort. All the little things like automatic reminder text and setting up your own mechanics and resizing art would take a long time to reproduce in a web-based version.

Perhaps we can have a two-tier approach. Work on your cards in MSE and then provide some simple export into some kind of wiki format so that people can add/edit comments with one page for each card and the ability to link between them?

[Kieran Symington]

This is a pretty good idea. Allowing people to just change their cards on MSE and replace them seems fine since they already have the original card saved anyway.

Thomas David Baker said:

I started playing around with a prototype web-based Multiverse:

http://magic.bluebones.net/multiverse.html

But to bring it to a level anywhere near Magic Set Editor is too much effort. All the little things like automatic reminder text and setting up your own mechanics and resizing art would take a long time to reproduce in a web-based version.

Perhaps we can have a two-tier approach. Work on your cards in MSE and then provide some simple export into some kind of wiki format so that people can add/edit comments with one page for each card and the ability to link between them?