You Make the Set 7

[Thomas David Baker]

After a little informal discussion I think it's time for You Make the Set 7.

We've done this a few times before. As always anyone is welcome to contribute as much or as little as they'd like.

Saturday October 12th looks like the date for the official draft to me as there is no TGC event and it's before I am off to the US.

I'm a little vague on exactly what You Make the Set means this time around. Here are some options.

1. Invent some cards, send them to me, I'll print the lot, we show up on October 12th having not really seen each others designs and having not tested and we draft them.
2. Design a set on Multiverse with a little editing and feedback and tweaking and set mechanics. With a deadline of three weeks it will necessarily be a little rough but something less free-for-all than (1).
3. Bring together classic Magic cards with some (how many?) new designs of our own to make a sweet set to draft. Evoke meets Landfall meets Blind Seer.

   Additionally, if we are having a theme, I'm not sure which theme we like out of:

   1. Whatever you like/no theme.
   2. Wedges.
   3. Lands.
   4. Top-down Egyptian theme with Sphinxes, Pyramids, Mummies, Jackal-headed creatures, etc.
   5. Some other theme I haven't thought of

   I'm inclined to go with 2 (multiverse) and D (Egyptian) or maybe 3 (classic cards) and C (lands) but what do you think?

[Thomas David Baker]

OK so let's have everyone vote.

Vote #1 is How Do We Make the Set:

    (A) In secret. Cards are revealed on day of playing.

    (B) On multiverse with comments and editing.

Vote #2 is What is the Theme of the Set:

    (i) Movies

    (ii) British History

    (iii) Egyptian Mythology

    (iv) Lands

    (v) No Theme

    (vi) Something Else (write-in!)

You can vote for more than one of these.

I'm voting for (B) and abstaining in the second vote!

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

Ai & Aii

[Thomas David Baker]

Oops I meant (B) ... changed my post!

[Kieran Symington]

I just can't see that there's enough time to work things out on Multiverse. I can see how it's useful for stopping overpowered or terrible cards being created, but the most fun YMTS experiences for me have been turning up on the day and seeing what everybody has made for the first time, playing with all the broken stuff, then removing half the cards due to power level concerns. Plus I think we'd get more takers for the much easier 'make a bunch of your own cards' plan. It would probably also help to have either no theme at all or a very lose theme since it just lets people be as creative as they like with no real rules. So I'm voting for A and v this time.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Hmm tough choices.

Perhaps a buddy system could work?

Each designer pairs up with another and that way they can bounce ideas and hopefully kill overpowered nonsense, whilst retaining some surprise as they won't know the other 75% of the set on the day?

I don't know how feasible it is but perhaps some access restricted Multiverse shards could be setup for each pair?

Considering we only have 4 people posting here so far we may not have the critical mass required to let the buddy system work.

I really think some theme is important to help produce some kind of cohesion across the designers. Also I think having a theme makes it easier to design cards then having no theme.

Since we are likely to be only playing this as a one off I'll vote:

#1 - A

#2 - ii or iii

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Also I'll just repost the learnings from the previous "secret design" YMtS we did:

• No planeswalkers. Having 8 untested planeswalkers in a draft can be pretty lopsided, especially as people tend not to design simple answer cards as they are dull
• Super power mythic bombs - try and limit yourself to 1, if you desperately need more, let us know and we can try and accommodate them
• Cards must have art (designer secret - finding lots of art first inspires lots of ideas for cards!) (DeviantArt is a pretty good resource)
• Designing heavily linear/parasitic cards, as your 45, that all interact with each other is not really going to work if we get 360 cards total. If you want to do something like this then let everyone know so they can either support your theme or veto it mercilessly
• Having a theme or design goal would be a great way to help tie different peoples 45 cards together. If you have any suggestions please post them

[Kieran Symington]

I'm not against an Egyptian theme since there's a lot going on there and it's loose enough that you can just design cards then stick an Egyptian name and type on them. Plus everyone knows it at least reasonably well.

[Thomas David Baker]

OK so it's 45 cards each 8-man draft. Craft in secret, show up on the day, use Egyptian Mythology or British History as an inspiration if you like.

I know who 4 of the participants are.

Who are the other four? Any volunteers?

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Well I would hope we choose one of British/Egyptian mythology. I guess there is some crossover regarding British explorers and then the British occupation of Egypt from the beginning of the 20th century, but I don't really think they interact too well.

[Kieran Symington]

I think it might actually be better to have a mechanical rather than a creative overlap between cards. It won't matter if I design a bunch of Fantasy Staple creatures and Baker devises a race of sentient Space Cucumbers if they share a mechanical overlap - the set will still play cohesively. Cubes don't tend to have an underlying creative theme, but the best ones tend to focus on certain mechanics.

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

don't know why I am throwing my hat into the ring pretty certain that I can't make the 12th sorry to get everyones hopes up of making a special guest appearance

[Thomas David Baker]

Heh. OK well if the usual suspects are the only ones interested in this perhaps the right plan is to find 5 willing players and us three will come up with a set for the event?

Anyone willing to play but not interested in making cards?