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?

[Paul Hodgson]

Aaaand done...

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Thanks for bringing the set on Tuesday Tom, sorry I couldn't stay any longer to play!

If you get a chance to add it to the visual spoiler and upload the MSE file that would be great.

Some very cool cards, and obviously a few that were a bit too strong. Hats off to Kieran, Tom, and Daniel for a good power level on their designs, and Paul and I still need to go through development a little longer :-)

[Paul Hodgson]

Nothing wrong with birdfeeder! It dies to dirty harry!

[Thomas David Baker]

Set is now up at:

http://magic.bluebones.net/ymtd/?set=7

and

http://magic.bluebones.net/ymtd/ymtd7.mse-set

Thoughts in no particular order:

* There were a lot of broken cards. Things like Birdfeeder and even less answerable things like Big Bird's Roost were kind of crazy. The card that pissed me off the most ended up being basically a functional reprint of Ant Queen, though, so I guess we weren't in completely insane territory.

* In the second draft I built a mini combo deck around Lighthouse Builder with the Creaturecycling land to fetch him and all the U and W humans I could muster (including the token maker that makes 3 humans). I only played two games with it and that part of my deck was inferior to just slamming Big Bird's Roost but it was fun to try it.

* One of my cards ended up in a sick combo ... Lurking Muckfiend + Trapped Reflection gives you a 3/3+Regrowth for 3U and no card as many times as you can pay.

* I was quite shocked to have one of my spells countered (for 5 colorless) by a mono R deck. Not sure I approve of that but it was notable.

* My many value/2-for-1 type cards seemed to get some love. Beastcatcher and Temple Rat were both remarked upon.

* Cycling for 1U AND getting a 1/1 flying bird token is very very good. I feel sorry for the turtle as you would never not cycle him.

* Double Lightning Bolt is not correctly costed at RR.

* Breakthrough and then recurring it with Scribe and Repurpose Thoughts was pretty awesome.

* SWAT Raid was probably OP at 2WW or at least in context with all the tokens.

* The legendary lands with abilities seemed very very strong.

* Hire Bodyguards seemed nuts

* Drawing cards, countering spells, drawing to an inevitable win condition and recurring from the graveyard are still the most fun you can have in Magic.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Cool thanks Tom.

I get a 403 Forbidden when trying the link for the set file.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /ymtd/ymtd7.mse-set on this server.

---

Apache/2.4.6 (Ubuntu) Server at magic.bluebones.net Port 80

[Thomas David Baker]

Should be ok now.

[Paul Hodgson]

So many of my cards were borken :)

I think the cycle & get a bird needs a mana or 2 and then should be fine, it's basically a cycle of split cards so both sides of each needs to be viable. The squirrel nest cycle is a bit busted, was looking for a cycle of recurring token makers that were on theme, I think they would be "ok" in a regular set, maybe tag a destroy if you control no creatures of the type they produce, or make them tap 2 creatures of the type to spawn a new one?

I think Tom's overall stance of don't make rares at all is correct, given that they make games bombtastic and getting answers for them into the set can be difficult with a limited number of cards to work with. I may have a fiddle with my cards and tone it down a lot. The token theme has got some value I think, it's difficult to balance against potential stalled board states - hence cards like swat raid and hissing iguanar.

[Thomas David Baker]

Even Modern Masters had Sword of Fire and Ice and Meloku and Skeletal Vampire. As far as R&D are concerned bombs do good work in limited in several ways including letting the less skilled player win some of the time and giving you a reason to go one color or strategy over another.

When they start design they make cards with a flat power level so that each is about as good as each other. They also play sealed, not draft.

Later on development gives the cards power levels and the focus is much more on draft than sealed.

So it probably worked out sort of well to have some busted rares amongst my "top draft commons" style cards. I guess it depends on our goals. Not sure we're going to take this particular set of cards any further but it might be the seed for the next Towerfall? I'm not sure if the playerbase is there to support another set, though!