We Make the Set (Brainstorm on Mechanics and Themes)

[Thomas David Baker]

We're making a "set" (cube?) of cards we have invented for drafting.  If you're reading this you're welcome to get involved.

This thread is for ideas.

Posts that say "X is crap" or "Y won't work" will be deleted.

Let's have some ideas, then we'll work out which ones we want to keep.

For now we are particularly interested in mechanics and other things that will affect multiple cards.

[Thomas David Baker]

Do we want to reuse or create a twist on any of the existing mechanics?

Absorb, Affinity, Amplify, Banding, Bloodthirst, Bushido, Buyback, Channel, Convoke, Counter (noun), Counter (verb), Creature Offering, Cumulative Upkeep, Cycling, Deathtouch, Double Strike, Dredge, Echo, Entwine, Epic, Equip, Fading, Fear (ability), Flanking, Flashback, Flying, Fortify (ability), Free Card, Frenzy, Graft, Haunt, Hellbent, Horsemanship, Imprint, Indestructible, Intimidate, Kicker, Landcycling, Landwalk, Madness, Mana Pool, Modular, Morph, Ninjutsu, Phasing, Poisonous, Radiance, Rampage, Reach, Replicate, Scry, Shadow, Shroud, Soulshift, Splice, Splice onto Arcane, Split Cards, Split Second, Storm, Sunburst, Suspend, Sweep, Tapping, Threshold, Transmute, Unblockable

[Thomas David Baker]

Do we want to focus on any particular part of the game:

Combat, Instants, Sorceries, Creatures, Graveyard, Exile, Battlefield, Planeswalkers, Lands, Artifacts, Enchantments, Upkeep, Draw Step, Counters, Hand, End Step.

"Enchantments that trigger in your draw step giving you options to do things other than 'draw a card'."

"Creatures with Flash".

[Thomas David Baker]

A simple thing that Kieran did in his set was to give a mechanic to each color. It's very simple but it's a neat idea, we could steal it.

[Thomas David Baker]

No (or very little) multicolor.

"Multiple ways to win." It would be great if the set could support multiple archetypes with wildly different win conditions: Poison, Mill, a Burn deck, stupefyingly slow (possibly draw-go) Control, Zoo-style or White Weenie aggro, aggro-control. Some "in your upkeep if you X, you win the game" that are achievable (but not easy!)

[Thomas David Baker]

Alternate win con cards: Barren Glory, Battle of Wits, Celestial Convergence, Chance Encounter, Coalition Victory, Darksteel Reactor, Epic Struggle, Felidar Sovereign, Helix Pinnacle, Mayael's Aria, Mortal Combat, Now I Know My ABC's, Test of Endurance, The Cheese Stands Alone.

See also: Amulet of Quoz, Abyssal Persecutor, Angel's Grace, Platinum Angel, Dark Depths

Most of these are terrible and can never be achieved in draft. BUT the advantage we have here is that we don't care how broken the cards we make would be in Constructed. So we can make them plausible strategies in draft.

[Thomas David Baker]

Permanents with "Sacrifice ~: X" that also do something from the graveyard.

[Thomas David Baker]

"Homage to the great turn ones" ... can we include something in the set that echoes great opening plays of the history of Magic. I'm thinking particularly about things like Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter or Swamp, Duress, or Mishra's Factory, Trinisphere plus the usual U stuff like Brainstorm, Ancestral Recall, and something like Moxes.

[Thomas David Baker]

Literally no Vanilla creatures. Or even no French Vanilla creatures?

No use of any existing keyword.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Another way to approach it is to look at the aim of the cube as a whole and the kind of gameplay situations you want to engineer, whether it be intense creature combat, or tempo control and racing, or out of nowhere comebacks, two card combos, attrition style grind outs, or control on control who blinks first...

Obviously different people are going to like different aspects of the game, but hopefully there is some common ground.

[Dan Barrett]

Without trying to sound unhelpful, i think it might be easier to work with a theme (flavour-wise) semi-in-place.


Aside from that:

I like alternate win-cons.

Empahsis on non-creature cards would be nice after a lot of creature-heavy standard recently. Similarly mechanics.

Lots of cheap cards that cycle/cantrip please.


Basically, beating with generic 2/2 and 3/3's is pretty boring. Watching Rob storm combo against Graham in cube draft was not.

[Thomas David Baker]

>Without trying to sound unhelpful, i think it might be easier to work with a theme (flavour-wise) semi-in-place.

I built a set this way around. It isn't great. But these two things may not be related. I'm pretty sure they do it this way round at WotC. But feel free to leap in with flavor ideas. I like Norse mythology. Or "five orders of wizards".

[Dan Barrett]

Five orders of wizards-in-training at some kind of wizarding academy, each specialising in a different kind of magick (win conditions)?

White - something life-related

Red - something stormy / burn

Blue - Mill / somethign else to do with library

Black - poison?!

Green - ?!?

Thomas David Baker said:

>Without trying to sound unhelpful, i think it might be easier to work with a theme (flavour-wise) semi-in-place.

I built a set this way around. It isn't great. But these two things may not be related. I'm pretty sure they do it this way round at WotC. But feel free to leap in with flavor ideas. I like Norse mythology. Or "five orders of wizards".