1. We only have two Vanilla cards in the whole set. We probably need to changes that. And some French Vanilla and some Vanilla after ETB too (what do they call those, I've forgotten?)

2. Unite. This is quite similar to both Radiance and Metalcraft neither of which excite me greatly. We should test it and see how these play out but I'm a bit concerned about this one. Everyone else seems bananas for it.

3. Hybrid Mana. I don't like it! Do we want it? Just for Unite? Maybe I'll make a play to remove it after we have tested Unite.

4. Rarity. Are we going to 3xCommons, 2xUncommons, 1xRares/Mythics to test? Or some other proportion?

5. We could call "Play with the top card of your library revealed" "Foreshadow" as a keyword.

6. When are we going to test some of these? At Nottingham?

7. I'm not sure if I love Descry (scry from the bottom of your library to the top) or if it is too similar to Scry to be worth doing.

8. Tokens. So far we have 1/1 White Bird, 2/2 White Bird, 1/1 Red Human Wizard, 4/4 Red Giant, 2/2 Green Bear, 1/1 Green Saproling. We should possibly consolidate the birds in some way or make one of them a Spirit or something.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas David Baker on May 27, 2012 at 10:08pm

Re: Multiverse ... do we need to do something to allow retiring of cards from active consideration? (I'm ready to let the Child of Night reprint go in favor of Kieran's portent version for example.) Is deletion OK or should we archive?

Also, do what stats do we want to see? Curve by color? How the cards we have match up against the theoretic design file Simon linked to? Numbers by rarity/color?

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Permalink Reply by Glenn Goldsworthy on May 28, 2012 at 9:20am

Tom

The multiverse is awesome great work man.

As I am not going to Nottingham, I won't be able to test but am happy to be involved in the building process.

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Permalink Reply by Kieran Symington on May 28, 2012 at 10:04am

The Multiverse is looking great now. I assume we'll be removing things at some point, but I don't think everyone needs to be able to as long as you can.

As far as the other stuff goes:

1. I don't think we need vanilla creatures at all. Any creature can have a mildly useful ability at basically no cost. Look at something like Crypt Creeper - the ability is nearly always useless but sometimes randomly amazing. Those are the sort of 'vanilla' creatures I think we should be making.

2. I like Unite because it helps the aggro decks over the slower decks. that said, I'm sure we could find another way of making aggro viable if nobody likes the ability.

3. My hybrid guys were literally only there for unite and when I thought of adding more effects that cared about the colour of the top card of your library. I never got round to making those so they only really help with unite. The good thing about hybrid, though, is that you can put in something like a Disenchant effect in both White and Green but it only takes one card out of the set.

4. Maybe 4x Common? Though that might be too much.

5. Like it

6. I can't make Nottingham but otherwise am good for testing either the next weekend or on Tuesday this week or next.

7. If we replaced all instances of Scry with Descry it would be awesome. It does work a little differently since you can't use it to get rid of lands from the top of your deck, and you're kind of taking a gamble that what you put on top is better than what was already there.

8. Maybe make the 2/2 bird creator make two 1/1s instead? Might be a bit too similar then, though.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas David Baker on May 28, 2012 at 10:09am

Thanks Glenn. I'm sure we will do some London-based testing soon as well. Anyway it's not important that the playtesters and the designers be the same people or who does what ... the more the merrier and it's a group effort. Let me know if you have any feedback/feature requests on the Multiverse as you use it!

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Permalink Reply by Glenn Goldsworthy on May 28, 2012 at 10:13am

the only suggestion I would make is to have a designer column, just so I can see my stuff quickly.

Thinking about it maybe when everything is done and dusted there should be a vote system for the final cards, taking into account the correct set size plus number or commons in each colour etc, but that is probably the final piece

Thomas David Baker said:

Thanks Glenn. I'm sure we will do some London-based testing soon as well. Anyway it's not important that the playtesters and the designers be the same people or who does what ... the more the merrier and it's a group effort. Let me know if you have any feedback/feature requests on the Multiverse as you use it!

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Permalink Reply by Simon O'Keeffe on May 28, 2012 at 10:13am

1. I think we just need to make some vanilla cards to fill certain slots. For example it is important to have the odd vanilla 2/2 for 2 and red likes to have Hill Giant, and black used to have the 3/1 Spined Basher. Do remember that vanilla cards are not exciting to draft or to play with, so if we can fill them with on-theme things instead then that might work. e.g.

Filler Bear - 1G

Creature - x

Portent 3GG

2/2

Nine times out of ten this will be a vanilla bear, but it has something to make it interesting.

2. Unite was just an idea in my random ideas file, it wasn't necessarily intended for this set. I think the idea was to find an ability that thematically fit White and Green since they didn't have any top of library stuff (at the time). I have no problem killing it and trying it in another set. Especially as you probably do need to support it with multicolour and/or hybrid mana.

3. Hybrid Mana - I'm also happy to remove this. I like Kieran's guys with it, but I assume he designed them purely to support Unite

4. Rarity - I think we should try the multiple cards by rarity breakdown, especially as I think we are pretty close to having enough cards to fill it.

5. This is probably the kind of thing Wizards would keyword, so I'm happy to do it here too. As for what to call it, I'd be tempted to go with "Future Sight" as a clear nod to probably the best known card that does it. Could also consider "Insight" or even "Aperture"

6. I won't be at Nottingham either unfortunately, but most other weekends in June are free for me, or there is always a weeknight?

7. Descry - I suggest we keep it, only a handful of cards just to see how it plays out. I think it will have some pretty cool interactions.

8. I think Birds are definitely a creature type for white, we could always just retire one of the bird token makers (I think there are just two)

Thomas David Baker said:

Various things.

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Permalink Reply by Simon O'Keeffe on May 28, 2012 at 10:19am

I'd quite like it if we could archive, especially if do something like cull all the Unite cards.

As for stats I think we want at least the following:

• count of cards by CMC, by colour, by rarity

• count by type, by colour, by rarity

• power/toughness curve by colour, by rarity

Thomas David Baker said:

Re: Multiverse ... do we need to do something to allow retiring of cards from active consideration? (I'm ready to let the Child of Night reprint go in favor of Kieran's portent version for example.) Is deletion OK or should we archive?

Also, do what stats do we want to see? Curve by color? How the cards we have match up against the theoretic design file Simon linked to? Numbers by rarity/color?

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Permalink Reply by Thomas David Baker on May 28, 2012 at 10:23am

Let's test Unite ... you never know I may love it. No point in not trying it out. I think I was just feeling grumpy last night :)

Interesting thoughts on vanilla creatures. I'm leaving Bone Beast in (5/2 vanilla - never before printed!) but if we can Cube we can cope with a set with very few actual vanilla creatures - agreed. We don't need to worry about people encountering Magic for the first time through our boosters, etc. so we should optimize for the enjoyment of experienced Magic players the way Wizards designers cannot.

Testingwise I think I am going to be a pain being in the Midlands for a while (after Nottingham WMCQ this weekend I have a wedding up here on June 9). Doesn't mean you guys can't test without me of course and tell me how all my broken cards ruined it afterwards. I'm in London the week of the 18th although England are playing in Euro 2012 on that Tuesday. Maybe Sunday 17th in Penderel's Oak?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Hodgson on May 28, 2012 at 10:49am

re tokens - white birds should always be 1/1 flyers

descry - it's a bit rubbish if you don't want either of the cards to go on top, as unless you have a shuffle effect you're not going to get any value from other descry effects.

how about colourshifting unscry into B? They're a bit dull, but a reasonable implementation

Unportent B Sorc

Descry 2

Draw a card

Unponder B Sorc

Look at the bottom 3 cards of your library, put them back in any order

Descry 1

Shuffle & Draw or Draw