You Make the Set 6

[Thomas David Baker]

So, what's the plan for this.  I'll either clear out Multiverse or add multiple set capability to it in the next few days.

But let's do some predesign(tm).  What's the plan for this set?

What's the theme?

Update: Multiverse now has the Wedges set in it.  Please do contribute - all are welcome to add cards or just comment on cards created by others!

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

CURSE YOU WORK

Thomas David Baker said:

Glenn are you using Internet Explorer 8?

It doesn't support the placeholder attribute on inputs so it will show only blank boxes.

I advise using an actual web browser from this decade.

[Thomas David Baker]

I took pity on you and added Modernizr-based support for placeholders in IE8.  I don't feel good about it, though.

[Kieran Symington]

Tom has got me worried that our set just doesn't feel different enough to make for a great drafting experience. The focus on the wedges is making it feel a bit like Shards crossed with Ravnica. Whilst that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I think we really want to work out if we want the set to play out like a normal limited experience - and I'm not entirely convinced that we do. If we want a set that plays like a Wizards set, we could just play an actual Wizards set (which would definitely save a lot of effort!). Limited formats are all kind of similar when you get right down to it. Is there no way we can make ours different? Cubes are fun precisely because you get to do something out of the ordinary. I feel like right now when we actually come to play the set it will feel like a real set, but it won't feel special for that very reason!

[Thomas David Baker]

What about if we make all the cards terribly underpowered but part of five card combos?

What about if we focused on alternate win conditions?

What about if we try and reverse as far as possible every rule of a normal limited format (bombs are bad, removal is bad, small creatures in a curve is bad, auras/all enchantments are good, decks with less than 12 creatures are good, ...) and see where that takes us?

What about if we just design 10 decks (5 x 2 color, 5 x wedge color?) that look like they would be fun to play then slot the cards into the set?

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

I do agree with Kieran, we seem to be going down the same path really, we are building a set that feels like a magic set but what is the point of doing that, I think the options for doing our own set are:

Cube based - very powerful cards without a huge amount of need for filler

theme set - this would have to be based on something unique to us

 

I can't see any reason to just build a set that could be built by wizards

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Reversing known norms of limited sounds hard and perhaps a bit too gimmicky, but potential for madness.

We could ease off the gas a little on wedges, and focus more on the enemy colour pairs, but then we are just more Ravnica than Alara.

Regarding a different draft experience, I think Towerfall was pretty decent, as we played up under utilized elements of certain colours, and had a pretty cool mechanic (foresight/portent), and that's even with the highly insular nature of it.

As long as we make 'Wedges' broader in scope, with enough interaction between wedges/enemy colour pairs, I think it will be better than Towerfall. To make it a radically different drafting experience we would probably need a gimmick, like double faced cards or planeswalkers.

Taking stock now, we are almost exactly half way with designed cards, so there is plenty of room still to add in some enemy colour pair decks/themes/mechanics, and we can easily slim down the wedge card distribution, and include some more independent 'build around me' style cards that are wedge agnostic.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

I personally don't have a problem building a set as Wizards would. There is a reason they are good and we like to play them. In fact we more often bring out graveyard or regular cube over any of our previous custom design efforts, because our previous efforts are all a little broken somewhere or other, and I think adhering to a Wizards style construction gives us a much better chance of producing something with some longevity.

Whether 'wedges' is that or not is another question. I can see a more traditional cube style, not so heavily defined by tri-colours, that we could add and subtract cards from over time may actually be the right solution, but I do enjoy the restriction of having a theme and how that helps drive design, innovation and flavour.

Glenn Goldsworthy said:

I can't see any reason to just build a set that could be built by wizards

[Thomas David Baker]

(I don't see us as half way.  I see us cutting as many as 50% of all cards, maybe even more.  So we're only 25% of the way to the total we will prune from.)

I think the lesson we learned from Towerfall is that you can push your themes too hard and if you want a set more like a Wizards set you need to ease back on how much you push your mechanics and be OK with a 2/2 Vigilance for 2 that has no special meaning to your set.

However we seem to be a little bit concerned that learning that lesson has resulted in us just aping Wizards and adding nothing new.

The advantage (although it can easily turn to disadvantage) we have over Wizards is that we don't have to think about new players and New World Order.  Is there something that the Spikes and ex-Pros in Wizards would love to do that is too complex or hard to understand for new players to sell?  Let's do that!  I guess Time Spiral block is the closest thing in what they have released.

Perhaps if we work out our themes for the wedges a little more clearly and push them a little harder we will find where we are at is ok.

We should probably playtest some of the new cards?  Do we have any super exciting rares or build-around-me cards we are excited to try out?  Can we add some?

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Your right about the actually only 25% there, but I'm an optimist, and didn't want to dishearten people with the amount of work potentially left :-)

I personally liked Time Spiral a lot, for both the nostalgia and the fairly open draft format. Future Sight is the closest to a cube set that Wizards have done, and I think it is pretty well liked, so if we find that our wedges are too conservative perhaps we can start putting in some crazier/wackier stuff.

Regards playtesting, I'm free this weekend, and there are definitely some cards/themes we have already I'm eager to try.

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

as I can't add cards I shall duck out of this bad boy

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Glenn, Tom has updated the Multiverse so you should be able to add cards now. If not, you can just post them here and we can add them in for you.

Glenn Goldsworthy said:

as I can't add cards I shall duck out of this bad boy

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

I can see the tab names now but when I click save it does nothing

Simon O'Keeffe said:

Glenn, Tom has updated the Multiverse so you should be able to add cards now.

Glenn Goldsworthy said:

as I can't add cards I shall duck out of this bad boy