Polynesian Set - Design Phase

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Comments

  • @TezzeretofCarmot21,
    I think that's a great idea! Perhaps we should reword it so that we could include triggers other than mana. For example, "When CARDNAME deals combat damage to a player, it becomes seaworthy. (Put a +1/+1 counter of in. It becomes seaworthy). However, this wording makes it a bit redundant. Thoughts?
  • @MagicChess Maybe we could do it both ways - a cost trigger on some cards and an action trigger on others. For instance, "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, if it wasn't seaworthy, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it becomes seaworthy." It's probably never been done before but I think it'd be fun to do.
  • All right, people, after surfing Gatherer for a while, I had two (read: one I like and one my brain hates me for) mechanic ideas.

    Legion -- As long as you control a creature token,...
    I thought up this mechanic because I want this set to be a token set. What sort of mechanic do you want in a token set? One that cares about tokens, of course!

    Ritual {cost} (You may sacrifice a creature and pay {cost} rather than pay this spell's mana cost.)
    I thought up a red-black "shaman" mechanic and immediately thought
    a) this mechanic is cool, I like the flavor of it, it seems shaman-y for La'akea
    b) are you kidding me, this is a token set, this ability would be way too abusable
    c) change the name from "ritual" to something without an already established Magic connotation (mana producing spells) and we're good

    I like Legion but I'm still on the fence about Ritual. What do you think?
  • Annnd kicking back this thread yet another time. I’m beginning to craft the set skeleton.
  • Seaworthy is almost an exact copy of "Renown", but renown varies to have more than 1 +1/+1 counter. I really like Ritual, unlike most sacrifice mechanics, sacrificing tokens doesn't generate huge amounts of card advantage. However, it's really similar to emerge. Legion should be for more than 1 creature token in my opinion, or "for each creature token you control". With such an easy condition, I think that the benefits would have to be small to counter it. I'd rather see it be "Creature tokens you control get..." so that it scales, but in a reasonable way.
  • @HeWhoHasCake I intend for Seaworthy to have two forms - you can pay mana to activate it, like the Pirate I posted, or it can be activated in a different way. For instance:
    Sailor Wizard 1UU
    Creature - Human Pirate Wizard
    Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if ~ is seaworthy, draw a card. Then if ~ is not seaworthy, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it becomes seaworthy.
    2/1
    That's just a concept.
    Ritual is really similar to Emerge, you're right, though I intend for it to have more of a fixed cost.
    And now that you mentioned it, Legion would be better if it was for, say, two or three creature tokens- that plays better and has more of a Legion-y flavor. It could also be "Creature tokens you control get..." though I might un-keyword it if I was to do it that way.
    What do you think of Weave, the mechanic I mentioned earlier in the thread?
  • edited April 2018
    Weave is similar to treasures but could be really interesting. I'd like it better if it was "1, T, sacrifice this artifact: add 2 mana of the woven color to your mana pool" - that way you can convert mana from one color to another, distinguishing it more. Seaworthy definitely looks better with an extra cost like that.
  • @TezzeretofCarmot21, is weaving an important enough theme to get a mechanic devoted to it?
  • @MagicChess I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.
  • Hey I've been busy and haven't been able to get on MTGCS recently. Can somebody get me up to speed on what's happened here since I last commented?
  • @Arceus8523 In CliffsNotes-
    - I thought up a few new mechanics.
    - The thread was dropping off the main page so in desperation I kicked it back.
    - @HeWhoHasCake, a new user, and @MagicChess provided some critiques on the mechanics.
    - I’m unkeywording Weave.
  • I can help with world, character, and mechanic design if you still need it. I can also help with making two-colour archetypes once we have themes and mechanics set up.
  • Perhaps we could add something like cycling, but with a twist. My current thought is:

    Typhoon N: (N, discard this card: Reveal the top N cards of your library. Put one into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.)

    This could be a five-colour mechanic with varying degrees of synergy. It would be best supported in slower graveyard-based sets.
  • @NokiSkaur We’ve established that one planeswalker is going to be Kiora. I had a thought that one of the other planeswalkers could be a red-white Dwarf, though nothing is certain yet. For the world, I thought of this:
    1. There are five mono- or possibly ally-colored gods. I have (theoretical) names if you need them.
    2. A dispute between the gods led to them taking sides - the black and blue gods against the red and green gods. The white god is trying to keep order.
    3. A whole bunch of nasty stuff is happening after the aggression from the gods entered the mortal realm.
    On Typhoon: I intend to make this set care about tokens, so there's not a lot of graveyard stuff going on. It's a pretty good mechanic, and a flavorful one, but it may not be the absolute best fit.
  • Alright. The plot seems like a cross between Theros and Kamigawa, so we might want to change it a bit. Perhaps there's an unknown force (possibly an elder demon) beneath the plane, and its influence is causing Nightmares to seep from the ground. The gods, as usual, offer protection to the people, but they demand greater sacrifices to appease them.

    Cumulative Upkeep could be a decent way of representing this part of the story from a flavour perspective.

    Meanwhile, the ten dual-coloured demigods start a competition amongst themselves to see whose army of followers can get rid of the negative influence on the plane.

    This could be represented by a token theme and a possible multicolour/tribal subtheme.
  • edited April 2018
    Maybe a god is being controlled by an ancient force or something @NokiSkaur. Nightmares seem like a pretty good idea, though I’m not crazy about Cumulative Upkeep. Ten dual-colored demigods is a pretty good idea.
  • I think that we could use Cumulative Upkeep in an interesting way, like scaling effects. I can understand why you wouldn't want it, though. There are very few things you can do with it that don't end up being 'your entire turn is spent with keeping this one card alive,' but there's plenty of space we could explore with it.

    Here's an example of what the demon/entity could be.

    https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/kathantea-abyssal-nightmare
  • edited April 2018
    @NokiSkaur I love that card!! Just one thing - with the new Dominaria templating, I believe the first ability would be, “When you cast this spell...” rather than “When you cast Kathantea...” Other than that, it’s incredible.
    (Sorry, I have a Dovin Baan complex - I see the flaws in everything :P)
  • Gotta love five-mana uncounterable Smallpox with the possibility of multiple bodies attached!
  • @NokiSkaur Pox is in the top five reasons why I play black.
  • https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/toku-toku-shaman

    I thought that this set could have a BR sacrifice strategy with the Tikis. If we use a tribal subtheme, could the Tiki tokens be 0/1s that sac to give us C, or would that be too strong?
  • edited April 2018
    @NokiSkaur Eldrazi Scion Tikis? I could hang with that.
    I’m in the process of naming all 10 of the demigods from Google Translate, which is usually a semi effective method.
  • That's what I did with Fall of Ravnica (Remember that mess?). Just make sure you change things a bit, or else it'll sound like garbage.

    How are you naming the demigods? Will they be based on planned archetypes, or just words that come to mind with their colour identity (Like 'Insanity' for Dimir and 'Rot' for Golgari)?
  • edited April 2018
    @NokiSkaur What language did you use for those translations?
    I am naming them based on words based on their color identity.
    W/U: Kanawai - means "law"
    U/B: Mana'o - means "mind"
    B/R: Mekanu - roughly means "cultist"
    R/G: Kahuhu - means "fury"
    G/W: Hopakele - roughly means "savior"
    W/B: Manaonui- roughly means "greed"
    B/G: Hoku'u - roughly means "undead"
    G/U: Ke'ano - means "nature"
    U/R: Ike-Ike - roughly means "wizard genius"
    R/W: Palekaua - roughly means "warbringer"
    I'll probably change them somewhat.
  • I used Slovak and Czech.
  • @NokiSkaur What is your opinion on the names?
  • I can work with all of them. I'll change them up a bit, just to give them a bit more identity. Could you translate 'Influence' and 'Greed' for the WB legend? Antihero doesn't really fit...
  • How picky are you on art?
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