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?

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

come on people get on board the tv show theme

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Excellent!

Also bad because my work productivity will go down sharply.

Given the short deadline I think we want as restrictive a set of criteria as we can get, so I'm happy to go with Egyptian theme.

Or maybe it is time for Core Set Masters?

Whatever happens I'm definitely in.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Is there enough salvageable content from Wedges to use that as the basis for something?

There are close to 200 cards there, would be unfortunate to just waste them.

[Thomas David Baker]

There are a lot of cards in wedges. If people want to pursue that I'm game. I thought we kind of petered out uninspired in relation to wedges. But perhaps that was just me :)

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Well maybe just prune down to all the non wedge related cards and see if there is anything there.

I think Wedges are cool, and there is a lot of design space, but I'm not they actually work that well as a limited format. I don't remember full Alara block being all that great. Just Shards was okay, but I think our Wedges set was a combination of cube power level with wedges and that is a bit messy.

Thomas David Baker said:

There are a lot of cards in wedges. If people want to pursue that I'm game. I thought we kind of petered out uninspired in relation to wedges. But perhaps that was just me :)

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

as a random question why not use british history for the set there's plenty there rather than egyptian

[Simon O'Keeffe]

When you say British history, are you referring to Colonialism?

East India Trading Company / Boer War / etc..

Or are you more thinking Renaissance

Tudors / Stuarts / War of the Roses type of stuff?

Glenn Goldsworthy said:

as a random question why not use british history for the set there's plenty there rather than egyptian

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

again we have enough history of our own to use why use anyone elses, we could pick an era and run with it

Simon O'Keeffe said:

When you say British history, are you referring to Colonialism?

East India Trading Company / Boer War / etc..

Or are you more thinking Renaissance

Tudors / Stuarts / War of the Roses type of stuff?

Glenn Goldsworthy said:

as a random question why not use british history for the set there's plenty there rather than egyptian

[Thomas David Baker]

You sound a bit English Defence League Glenn and it's disturbing me!

I think Egyptian mythology lends itself to a fantasy card game a lot more effectively than any period of actual British history. King Arthur and so on is probably the most Magic-like British thing. Egyptian mythology is possibly too similar to Theros' theme to make a good theme. Norse mythology is an exceedingly rich vein. But perhaps using any mythology just encourages us to ape Theros?

We could do something commercial Magic can never do like Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz.

Or Vikings, Samurai, Underearth, Farming, Pirates.

Or we can have a mechanical theme like wedges or lands.

Or perhaps no theme is best as we have a deadline of less than 3 weeks?

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

maybe time for around the world in magic sets, I still want to do a tv theme and maybe a movie theme

[Kieran Symington]

A British History inspired set sounds awesome! Top-down design always makes for more thematic sets, and it fits the 'theme' of Baker leaving Britain for the US (especially if we make it Colonial-themed). The Multiverse helps make a cohesive set, but I like having something new to discover at the time. Cube-style with all cards secret would be ideal (everyone submits as many as they like then someone trims it down to a workable set).

[Kieran Symington]

Having said the above, an actual mechanical theme would probably make more sense if we wanted the set to hold together as a limited format - especially if we aren't going to put the cards up on Multiverse!