You Make the Set 5

[Thomas David Baker]

We are doing this in our Multiverse app:

http://mv.bluebones.net/

(Old shared Google spreadsheet for this is here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag7TtjWsLhYkdHBBUHF4RG... )

Channel Fireball just did Top 8 Mechanics:

* Retrace

* Dredge

* Landfall (not for attacking like Steppe Lynx - Grazing Gladehart and Roil Elemental style)

* Scry

* Flashback

* Kicker

* Flying

* Cycling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiNNg5aj-xo

I wonder if we could use that, or some of that, as the basis of You Make the Set 5.  I know that some of you were keen on Landfall.

Not sure when we would play it out but some time in late May probably?

[Thomas David Baker]

Ross - can you try clearing your cache/Ctrl-Shift-Refresh and see if you can add?  If not let me know what browser you are using.  Thanks!

[ross miles]

yep - although artifacts are usully more expensive than coloured creatures - worried that a 4/4 for 5 might become the best creature in every colour given that the rest are 2/2s!

 

go for 4/4 and see what happens

[Paul Hodgson]

stone golem was a vanilla 4/4 for 5 in core set, so should be fine

[ross miles]

still no joy

i'm logged in with goooogggllleeee

Thomas David Baker said:

Ross - can you try clearing your cache/Ctrl-Shift-Refresh and see if you can add?  If not let me know what browser you are using.  Thanks!

[ross miles]

is it ok that i dont know what a cache is?

[Thomas David Baker]

Re: the skeleton.  Maro's example at http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/132 has the following sizes of creatures at Common:

(small is P+T = 1-4

medium is P+T = 6-9

large is P+T = 10+)

W: 4 small, 2 medium, 0 large (2:1:0)

U: 2 small, 1 medium, 1 large (2:1:1)

B: 3 small, 3 medium, 0 large (1:1:0)

R: 3 small, 2 medium, 0 large (3:2:0)

G: 3 small, 3 medium, 3 large (1:1:1)

Our current skeleton at common:

W: 17 small, 2 medium, 0 large (17:2:0)

U: 13 small, 0 medium, 1 large (13:0:1)

B: 15 small, 5 medium, 0 large (3:1:0)

R: 8 small, 3 medium, 1 large (8:3:1)

G: 14 small, 2 medium, 1 large (14:2:1)

Maro's set has 34 creatures in 60 commons.  We have 88 / 150.  So very similar there.

Simon's outline for this set has us at 70 Commons.  So the time for hard cuts may have come.  And small creatures are on the chopping block!

The proposed set breakdown was:

360 card set (8 man cube)

70 Commons x3 = 210

55 Uncommons x2 =110

40 Rares/Mythics x1 = 40

(13 commons per colour (5 artifact/multi)

10 uncommons per colour (5 artifact/multi)

7 rares per colour (5 artifact/multi))

 

[Thomas David Baker]

Ross - The cache is a copy of what you have been looking at on the internet on your hard drive.  Your browser looks there first before it trundles off to the internet to find things.  If you have an old version of the multiverse code it might not work right.  If you are in Google Chrome you can choose Clear Browsing Data... off one of the menus (not sure which on Windows).  Then put an X in Empty the cache and nothing else and hit the Clear Browsing Data button.  That might sort you out.

[Paul Hodgson]

I've added a couple of unite enablers, as I think it's a bit weak when most unite abilities are etb triggers on creatures and count only other creatures

[Kieran Symington]

I'm preparing to retire quite a few cards. Unless anyone has a good reason why not, I'll be pretty happy to retire all the hybrid guys, all the allied 'heralds' and a few random cards that never see any comments.

[Kieran Symington]

Oh, and all the enemy colour portent guys as well.

Culling things is almost as good as making them!

[Thomas David Baker]

Combining Maro's skeleton with Simon's numbers I get something like this:

70 Commons x3 = 210

55 Uncommons x2 =110

40 Rares/Mythics x1 = 40

(13 commons per colour (5 artifact/multi)

10 uncommons per colour (5 artifact/multi)

7 rares per colour (5 artifact/multi))

CW01 - creature, small
CW02 - creature, small, lifelink
CW03 - creature, small, first strike, lifelink
CW04 - creature, small, flying
CW05 - creature, small, flying
CW06 - creature, small, vigilance
CW07 - creature, medium, flying
CW08 - creature, medium
CW09 - creature, medium, enchatment removal
CW10 - instant - creature removal
CW11 - instant - combat trick
CW12 - instant - lifegain
CW13 - sorcery - creature removal
CU01 - creature, small, flying
CU02 - creature, small, flash
CU03 - creature, small
CU04 - creature, small
CU05 - creature, medium, flying
CU06 - creature, large
CU07 - instant - hard counter
CU08 - instant - soft counter
CU09 - instant - card sifting
CU10 - instant - twiddle
CU11 - instant - shrinking
CU12 - sorcery - bounce
CU13 - sorcery - card draw
CB01 - creature, small
CB02 - creature, small, flying
CB03 - creature, small, deathtouch
CB04 - creature, small, intimidate
CB05 - creature, small
CB06 - creature, medium, lifelink
CB07 - creature, medium
CB08 - creature, medium, flying
CB09 - instant - creature removal
CB10 - instant - damage/drain
CB11 - sorcery - creature removal
CB12 - sorcery - discard
CB13 - sorcery - graveyard retrieval
CR01 - creature, small, haste
CR02 - creature, small, first strike
CR03 - creature, small
CR04 - creature, small
CR05 - creature, medium, intimidate
CR06 - creature, medium, trample
CR07 - creature, medium
CR08 - instant - direct damage creature
CR09 - instant - direct damage creature
CR10 - instant - grant haste
CR11 - sorcery - land destruction
CR12 - sorcery - direct damage both
CR13 - sorcery - panic
CG01 - creature, small,
CG02 - creature, small,
CG03 - creature, small, deathtouch
CG04 - creature, small, flash
CG05 - creature, medium,
CG06 - creature, medium, reach
CG07 - creature, medium, trample
CG08 - creature, medium
CG09 - creature, large,
CG10 - instant - pt boosting
CG11 - sorcery - artifact/enchantment removal
CG12 - sorcery - flying destruction
CG13 - enchantment, aura - pt boosting
CA01 - creature
CA02 - sac
CA03 - tap
CA04 - equipment
CA05 - equipment

Now I want to add set keywords to the skeleton but I'm not trying to be sure what goes in what colors.

Here's what we have right now (some cards counted twice in here when multicolored or when they do two things but mostly not):

(commons/total across all rarities)

Portent - U (3/7), B (3/4), G (2/3), W (1/2), R (1/2)
Play with the top card of your library revealed - B (1/6), U (1/5), G (0/1), R (0/0), W (0/0)
Scry - U (1/4), B (3/4), R (0/1), G (1/2), Colorless (1/1)
Other manipulate the top card of your library - (0/3) (all of these cards are also included in "play with the top card of your library revealed")
Temporarily revealing the top card of your library - 61 cards in all colors especially U, B and G (the most, centaurs!)

Unite - W (3/3), U (2/2), B (0/1), R (0/0), G (2/2), Colorless (5/5) + the hybrid guys 1 in each allied color pairing

Mindstorm - R (1/3)

Soulsong - W (5/8), G (0/1)
Gain life triggers - W (0/7), U (0/1), R (0/3), G (0/1)
Life gain - W (8/10), U (0/1), B (2/7), R (0/0), G (2/2), Colorless (2/2)
Lifelink - W (4/8), B (2/2)

Looting - U (3/3), R (8/18), W (0/1)

Discard - B (4/8), R (1/2), G (1/2), W (1/1), U (1/1)

In his example commons he has his "gravetwist" mechanic on 8 commons out of 30: WUBBBRGG

So to get a good representation in Commons in our set a mechanic wants to be on about 10-11 cards.

So one thing I wonder is, are we trying to do too much?

Would it be better to simplify to:

W - Lifegain and associated triggers Enchantments and other triggers in Uncommon.

U/B - Continuous reveal (Foreshadow), Scry and Portent.  Need to separate the identities here so each has a twist.  U is about Foreshadow to cast off the top, B is about revealing to manipulate your draw step?

R - Looting to advantage, Mindstorm in Uncommon.

G - Centaur mechanic

That's quite a lot of stuff.  Is it better to have Unite and Soulsong in there too and spread all the mechanics to some degree across all the colors?  The disadvantage to this simplification would be if UB always wanted to be together in a deck or something like that.

One thing that I think needs to be sorted out is the interaction between the Centaur mechanic and Portent.

Here's my solution that I am happiest with:

1. Portent is NOT like Miracle, you still have to abide by the cards timing rules, you can just cast it off the top of your library.  Like Future Sight and Magus of the Future.

2. In order to make the Centaur mechanic non-annoying in relation to Portent we reword it to say, "Reveal the top card of your library until end of turn."

3. But we want looting to interact with G (as well as helping U and B get dig with Future Sight) so we reword it to say, "Reveal the top card of your library until end of turn.  If the top card of your library is revealed and is a Creature card ~ gets +X/+X" or similar.

Now all of our major mechanical interact with each other except lifegain.  Which I guess we could (shock horror) get rid of in favor of a top-of-library mechanic for W.  Or we could just leave W with a few top of library effects and its own thing.

WU - Manipulate your library to bring about good lifegain and portent interactions.

WB - Gain life then pay the life you gained to manipulate your library.  B drain effects trigger the lifegain triggers in W.

WR - Gain life with triggers that wipe your opponent's board

WG - Make dudes and attack?

UB - Reveal and manipluate the top of your library to great advantage

UR - Mindstorm or mill combo

UG - Manipulate and reveal your library to buff your centaurs to ridiculous levels and get free cards

BR - Kill everything and win with Great Tower Bats and Madness

BG - Manipulate your library to the benefit of your Centaurs

RG - Burn things and bash with big creatures

???

And how does all that translate into adding keywords to our skeleton?

[Thomas David Baker]

Additionally from http://mv.bluebones.net/stats/ we have the following non-evergreen keywords:

3 Cycling

2 Dredge

1 Fateseal

8 Flashback

1 Hellbent

1 Kicker

1 Rebound

14 Retrace

1 Undying

4 Unearth

1 Vanishing

6 Landfall

With looting as a theme I like keeping the graveyard theme and allowing a light sprinkling of Dredge, Unearth, Cycling, Madness, Flashback, Retrace.  But is it too much?  Can we cut Undying, Vanishing, Rebound, Kicker, Hellbent, Fateseal?  Should we be cutting more?  Is it not important because this is not a set for novices and the keywords have interactions?  I really like the Landfall cards, but perhaps they need to go too.