Renaissance Set - Creative Team

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Comments

  • Tamiyo could also be studying the art of Rezatta (If I got the name right) and trying to figure out how one's abstract ideas can become full-fledged life forms. From what I understand about Tamiyo (which is very little), a lot of her motivation seems to be discovery, so I think that could work with flavour. But, I could be completely wrong.
  • I was thinking lore wise instead of monsters we could have the crusades going on and they are caused by the muses leaving
  • That is if we wanted to include weapons in the set ^^ I retract my earlier statement
  • Also, is there going to be a trace of Bolas or someone working for him?
  • Please, No Bolas
  • No Bolas. I'm just picturing the plays Machiabrelli has written and I totally dig him, but I think the princess armor is too similar to other characters. That art is dope enough to use (I'm so jealous of @ningyounk for always finding the best art), but it is just the same as basically every other construct. I don't see a reason for Tamiyo to be here. I could see her on Mirrordin or Amonkhet, but we don't have a moon matters thing and so many other characters to use.


    Here is my shot at explaining a white color Gorgon:

    Rosalie, the Stone Gardener
    On Rezatta, even the eyes of a gorgon see the beauty of art. Rosalie, one of the greatest sculptors in the history of the plane. Perfectly she poses her subjects before lithifying them for the ages. Perhaps a few rather beautiful young men and women even have come to her to be her models, that they forever might be beautiful pieces of art. How much more extravagant must these become when the muses return?

  • @brcien, could you please explain why this concept fits the color white? I'm a bit confused.
  • Stoneforge Mystic
    Nahiri, the Lithomancer
    Lithomancer's Focus
    Declaration in Stone
    Aurification
    Stonehew Giant

    I love the gorgon tribe. I think a good gorgon would be so cool!
  • @DoctorFro
    I think the Crusades are more tied to the Middle-Age in the collective mind (think Assassin's Creed etc.)

    @SpiritDragon @brcien
    Poor Bolas, so much spite xD

    @brcien @MagicChess
    I tried to find a way to make a white gorgon make sense by looking at this article about White's Philosophy: THE GREAT WHITE WAY REVISITED.
    Looking back at some posts explaining the philosophy of Nahiri, a mono-White villain, can also bring interesting solutions.

    Out of all this little brainstorm, I think this is the White Gorgon I like the most (I made her the Michelangelo character):


    Michella


    image


    Michella is one of the most recognized artists or Rezatta, only Avinzi himself can dispute her the title of best artist of all times. Her inspiration often comes from the Rezattan Church, and many of her most prestigious works depict religious scenes, for example when she painted the whole ceiling of the Corte Magnifica's chapel. Still, her most defining masterpieces are a series of sculptures made out of illustrious people that she turned to stone after their death so the community would remember them forever.

    Ideal—Everyone and everything is beautiful in a myriad of ways.
    Bond—I can't resist a challenge.
    Flaw—I am too attached to details, I feel like my work is never really finished.
  • edited April 2018
    @ningyounk @MagicChess @Tigersol and everyone else!

    After ningyounk mentioned the ideals, bonds, and flaws concept from DnD, it reminded me of one of the "Planeshift" products that WotC made for DnD that allowed you to visit the many planes in MTG while playing DnD! More specifially the Ixalan one! Take a look at the last seven pages of the file!

    https://media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf
  • @ManaChrome
    That's a very good catch, actually the description for White's ideals send you to the same article I mentioned just above ^^
  • edited April 2018
    I tried to make a proof de concept. This is more of Vision Design, but I think since it is more to see if Gorgons can work in white than to make a solid card to test, I think running it by here first makes sense. Hard to make what I wanted it to do fit in a text box. Is it a white enough card? I don't know. It feels like imprison in the moon, song of the dryads, sword to plowshares, declaration in stone, gild, etc. As an almost exclusively commander player, this looks like plenty of fun, and fun is the focus of design.
    image
  • @brcien It's definitely a good start, it probably needs to be a little flashier because this effect has been done before. Ideally, we would mix in some flavour elements to give her a mechanical identity that's unique to her and wouldn't be found on any other gorgon ^^
  • edited April 2018
    Maybe:

    Whenever [cardname] blocks a creature, exile that creature at end of combat. At the beginning of your next upkeep, compose X, where X is the exiled creature card's power.

    [2/5]
  • But the main thing is, is it a white card? Can a gorgon feel right in white?
  • Of course it can just has to have the right theme to the right abilities.

    What if instead of blocking like @Faiths_Guide said it is tap discard a card then Compose X, where X is the number of cards in your hand...

    That way you compose all of your "remaning ideas" and whenever you lose an idea (discard) you get the product
  • edited April 2018
    @brcien
    Exiling attackers feels white to me (Settle-the-Wreckage-esque). It gets the Gorgon part down (turning them to stone), and also ties into the set thematically by creating art with her victims (composing).

    @DoctorFro
    Discarding feels neither white nor Gorgon-like to me.
  • I dunno I was more relating it to the art and theme that she as an artist seemed to be heading in
  • Like I feel that because she is a grogon and an artist the discarding works well
  • @DoctorFro
    White doesn't really do discarding though (barring some major set themes like in Innistrad.) Discarding as a cost is usually black or red, having an effect scaling proportionally to the number of cards in your hand is mainly a blue or green thing. So I'd say that effect is a mix of black and/or red + blue and/or green. (Hence why it's really weird in White.)
  • Well since the muses are gone we could say that people have gone crazy and hat could affect the discard ^^
  • But @DoctorFro, the muses are coming back after being gone, and that is the cause of the surge of art creation. They're not the source of sanity on the plane, as far as I know.
  • edited April 2018
    @DoctorFro
    Having discard as a mechanical theme is an element that has to be weaved into the structure of the set early on, it doesn't really work as a subtheme because it's one of those themes like Exile or Colorless-matters that require a lot of extra support from the set to work. Innistrad II had a graveyard theme, the madness mechanic, and plenty of support cards to make discarding a thing that would do something in the set. Still R&D said it was very difficult for them to make it work because the right balance of discarding cards vs. cards that cared about discarding was immensely hard to get. We planned none of that, so warping the Muses around the idea of madness and discarding would not be possible at that point unless we cancel everything and start back from square one both mechanically and thematically ^^

    TL;DR: Discard is a difficult theme to adress, it requires too much support.
  • @ningyounk
    Any thoughts on my solution above? ^
  • Oh I thouhgt the muses has disappeared
  • @Faiths_Guide
    I'm not sold on two points:

    1) Flavourfully, it looks like she's transforming her enemies into statues, like a regular Gorgon. It doesn't feel like the solution to the "White Gorgon Problem" to me, if a black or green gorgon did that, I wouldn't bat an eye as it feels a bit like deathtouch.

    2) I don't feel like the level of splashiness is at the level you'd expect from a Legendary. You can't really build around it and it's not doing something new or especially splashy. It feels like a strong glue card to me, but if this was the Michelangelo card, I'd feel a bit overwhelemed I think.
  • @ningyounk
    Oh, I thought we did want her to be turning enemies into statues (as expected of the creature type), and then sculpting those statues. The mechanic was supposed to be a bit like Loyal Sentry

    It might not be splashy enough... true.

    So, what do we want her to do if she's not turning people to stone?
  • @Faiths_Guide
    Yeah I saw the reference to Loyal Sentry ^^
    It's a riddle: What is a white worgon? I personally don't know what the answer is, though we don't need to design her mechanical identity right away. If we like the character enough I'm sure we'll come up with something eventually.
    So she could turn her enemies into statues as long as it was done in a way where people would say "So, that's what a White Gorgon is!" It's more a general flavour package (for instance I think making the exile ability a combat-relevant ability pulled it away from what I personally expect the answer to be.)

    Here are two random designs for the white gorgon where I try to hit the flavour of the character sheet I wrote above. I'm designing both top-down from the flavour of a sculptor that makes statues out of famous dead people to honour their memory, making them immortal in some way:

    image image


    Looking at these I realize adding a creature type that hints at a statue would probably not be a bad idea, oh well.
    My point with the first one is to make a version where you don't have to exile an opposing creature (the returned creature is supposed to be a statue, I'm not sure it's very clear as this is a little roughly designed.)
    My point with the second one was to have a version that exiles an opposing creature but still felt like its purpose was not to be "mean". It actually incentivizes you to exile your own creatures from a deck-building point of view. I don't know if that came out the way I wanted, but the second ability is a twist on Compose.
  • The main point though is: does Michella in general feel like she should be a white creature? And is she a character that is relevant to the story?
This discussion has been closed.