Sands of Ajurai Block

OberonOracle · May 2015

The plane of Ajurai is located in a distant backwater part of the multiverse that all planeswalkers avoid as the inhabiting Djinn know and hunt planeswalkers that enter their territory for fun. The plane is an infinite plain of dunes and sand occasionally broken up by rivers, flooded fenlands, rocky ridges, and the occasional oasis. The mana is so course and dry in the dunes that it manifests as colorless. The plane is inhabited by many sentient races but is dominated by many royal broodlines of Djinn that have been at war with the other free peoples (namely Human, Naga, and Jackal-like Ainok) for as long as anyone can remember. The Djinn take their power from the harmony of the land and have magic powers that allow them to create limited miracles. Opposing them the free peoples have learned to harness and uses the opposing forces of mana from their plane and the strange dry colorless desert mana to fuel their battles with the Djinn. The Djinn live in cloud cities far above the sands on the southern side of the plane where they have built luxurious civilizations with their magic far from the scouring force of the desert below. The free peoples have built multiple multicultured cities near the major water sources in the North. The city of Alimbhalid is located at the delta of the Eufari rives and is the largest city in the plane. The Oasis citadel of Kreshok located near the border of Djinn and non-Djinn territory constantly scans the skies for signs Djinn invasions. And in the deep desert the city of Ishari the haruspex and viziers of the Ghrime Sultanate pray to their ancient gods to assist them in the battle against Obilis and his Djinn nation. The plot follows the adventure of Shera a desert nomad that has been living in the desert perfecting his dune magic and Tyra al-Razeem a Kreshok Floodmage that learn that each other are planeswalkers and agree to find a way to destroy Obilis and his mistress Dajial by searching for an ancient Djinn named Arasha that was exiled from the Djinnlands for helping the humans.

OberonOracle · May 2015

This is sort of my side project set. My primary set I don't want to spoil it yet but I feel fine about sharing this one. I hope I don't offend anyone with the naming conventions.

OberonOracle · May 2015

OberonOracle · May 2015

Mechanics for the set:

WISH COUNTERS - When a permanent enters the battlefield it gains a certain number of Wish counters, under certain conditions a wish counter can be removed and a choice of effects may be made

PROWL - A player can cast a card for its prowl cost if a creature controlled by that player shares a creature type with the prowl card, and dealt damage to a player that turn

PROTECT - When a creature with protect enters the battlefield you may choose another creature you control. If the creature with PROTECT is protecting a creature you may have all damage done to protected creature done to the creature with PROTECT, creatures that are protected or protecting can gain additional bonuses

BIND - When a permanent with BIND enters the battlefield exile target permanent target player controls. When the permanent with BIND leaves the battlefield of another condition is met, exiled permanent returns to the battlefield under its owner's control

DESERT LANDWALK AND BASIC LAND - The land Dune is a basic land with the subtype Desert that taps for colorless, in addition to this new land the landwalk type Desertwalk is added

OberonOracle · May 2015

I'm going to discuss the first cycle that I've designed in this set. I call them the Single-Wish cycle.

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sunstrike-jinni?list=user#.VUgvtJOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/oasis-manifestation?list=user#.VUgv2pOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/dreadful-shaytan?list=user#.VUgv6ZOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/worldfire-efreet?list=user#.VUgv9JOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/djinn-of-the-grove?list=user#.VUgwD5OGNWI

So the Wish mechanic isn't actually mine. I found another card on Cardsmith that had a similar mechanic and I just love that idea behind it. Stuff like Burning Wish gives you the cards when you need them from outside of the game but what if the wishes just worked like a charm whenever a condition is met. From there I was thinking about cards that give emblems other than planeswalkers and thus the single wish cycle was born. Now knowing that emblems are quite powerful and nothing is able to interact with them makes them extremely powerful now this allows me to make the effects these creature have powerful but it limits the amount of times they can be used. And this is why they only have 1 wish counter. Now I am fully aware this can be abused with effects like Proliferate and Doubling Season but I'm designing these in a vacuum (they likely won't be interacting with the above effects in Standard or Limited). The Djinn of the Grove was the first created and I wanted something that felt distinctly Green. Now Grovey is a little underpowered compared to the rest but can still be very effective for ramping into bigger things. Her second ability isn't a flag for a card that cares about the number of Forests you control but I feel like I should put that in just to get extra value out of playing Grovey. Oaisis was the second designed and I immediately had someone commenting on how over power she is. And yes she is overpowered at times. Her first Emblem gives massive card advantage which is something blue loves and her second emblem is kind of unfair. I've tried my best to balance it by making it's a technically free negate and making it actually quite hard to cast. To get full value out of it you'd have to be running a very instant intensive deck which I'm sure how support this set will wind up being. The last three were all made in the same sitting and so I'm going to address them all here. Worldfire works for two different kinds of red aggro decks. The first emblem is Rage Reflection a personal favorite of mine from Shadowmoor which just messes up combat math but being a symmetrical effect can both help and hinder the caster. (Note: Both of these emblems stack, so if one or more players have this emblem it will first double the initial combat damage for the most recently entered emblem then the next will trigger on that damage so you can wind up with a 4x or even 8x damage increase for combat. This will likely end games quickly). The second ability is very red tokens, nothing says game over like a wall of Goblins that burn you out before they even hit you. Next is the Sunstrike, he's an interesting one. I wasn't sure where I was going with the first ability, I was going to make him pure lifegain but then I remembered that lifegain isn't playable in constructed of even in limited most often. So instead I went with beef with the addition of lifegain for that added bonus. His second ability was the want of mine to use a new mechanic with the Single-Wish cycle, and so Bind was brought it. Now since Bind works like O-Ring and other temporary exile effects it would be odd for something to be temporary exiled from an Emblem if the emblem never leaves the Command Zone for the rest of the game. To balance this the "Whenever a creature you control dies return the last bound bound creature to the battlefield under its owner's control" This allows your opponent to get his/her stuff back but doesn't detract from the overall power the ability to multi-bind can be. Finally we have the Dreadful Shaytan. This Djinn in my homage to the greatest black enchantments ever printed. The first emblem is Grave Pact which just sucks to deal with (I know I run the mono-black sac trinity in EDH) so seeing this across the table especially with a sac outlet is just un-fun. The second emblem is Necropotence, and it's supposed to be Necropotence, and I will likely have to change that or add a spell that actually break Emblems because Necropotence is so overpower. Now all of the Djinn are very very strong so just to limit the power they have I made them only 3 toughness so they can be bolted pretty easily and you have to tap them to remove the wish counter effectively slowing the Emblem down by 1 turn allowing for even Sorcery Speed removal

OberonOracle · May 2015

Edit: I've changed Dreadful Shaytan so that it's no longer Necropotence. The new version can be seen here: http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/dreadful-shaytan-1?list=user#.VUkgh5OGNWI
And works similar to Maralen of the Mornsong from Morningtide

OberonOracle · May 2015

Since it seems like I actually have people looking at this thread I feel compelled to work on Sands of Ajurai consistently and release a new development article every once and a while. And since I was feeling inspired today I decided to design a cycle of commons:
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/hunter-in-the-dunes?list=user#.VUmFr5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/alim-street-thief?list=user#.VUmGFZOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sherok-guardian?list=user#.VUmGH5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/ghrime-conjured?list=user#.VUmGKpOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/reptillian-nomad?list=user#.VUmGNZOGNWI

I call them Enemy Bears!

Now since the non-Djinn faction on Ajurai are enemy colored I felt like there needed to be at least a set at common which could be the foot soldier for each enemy pair. The Hunter is your basic R/W fodder it has first strike, I'm going for a very warlike warriors matter theme with R/W and Bhalidian tribe. The Street Thief is the first card of the set to have Prowl on it. Originally Prowl was a mechanic in Morningtide for Rogue cards that got bonuses if you had done damage that turn with a Rogue creature. I like the mechanic and thought it would fit well with this sort of "Street Urchin" Thief group that would live in the major city but would be part of the undercity. I also felt like Prowl could go well with the U/B Djinn group as it originally was in U/B in Morningtide. The Sherok (yes Sherok not Kreshok, I had to change that for myself today) is mostly a basic bear but you can throw it under the bus. Protect originally came as an idea because I didn't want to use Absorb or Outlast as a mechanic for a very hardy defensive faction so I came up with the idea of an ability that redirects damage to a creature it is "protecting" which is determined by a way similar to Soulbound. I feel like Protect is a balanced enough mechanic to be at common while things like Bind is much to powerful, this is why the Ghrime Conjured doesn't exile things. The Conjured is mostly a flavor card, I want B/W to have a lifesteal and exile feeling to them similar to Orzhov on Ravnica but to be heavily influenced by Egyptian culture that's why if you've seen a couple of the other B/W cards I've made but maybe not yet posted here they are sandy, ruined, and covered in hieroglyphics. Finally the Naga is a bit of the oddball. It was the first I made but I'm not sure what form the G/B tribe is going to take. I want an interested way of either lifetrade for creatures or something that feels vaguely like Pharika from Theros where they have a medicinal theme that has to hurt something to heal something. With the Naga I can do things like shedding to regenerate and use snake poison as an offensive.

As always let me know what you think of them in the comments on each card. I would also like to know what people think about the set as whole, is it a good idea, is there anything people really want to see in it.

OberonOracle · May 2015

I'm continuing to work on the Non-Djinn faction on Ajurai because I feel like they are more difficult to design because all of the Djinn are just has X wish counters choose something that their color does.

I'm also really interested in where I can go with Colorless creatures because this set is supposed to contain the Basic Land Dune which counts as a Desert land subtype and generates colorless mana.

So here are the colorless spells so far:

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/hashashin-of-the-sands?list=user#.VUq1JpOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/nomad-of-the-wastes?list=user#.VUq1PJOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/vanish-into-dust?list=user#.VUq1SpOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/turn-to-sand?list=user#.VUq1XJOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sand-wraith?list=user#.VUq1aJOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/shera-desert-wanderer?list=user#.VUq1iZOGNWI

Their gimmick is that only mana from Deserts can be used to cast them forcing a colorless deck build but they have abilities from all the colors of the pie to make up for it. Turn to Sand is a colorless Path to Exile, now Path to exile gives them a land which might be more useful and since the Sand is colorless it won't give the opponent a land (that's not flavorful) instead it gives them colorless mana which winds up accelerating the opponent or refunding them for the permanent that was just exiled. Along with this Nomad of the Wastes and Vanish Into Dust work well together as they combo into Desertwalk, because we have a new basic land we need a new basiclandwalk and so Desertwalk and spells that make lands Deserts are more common. I feel if you're having a basicland walk as a mechanic in the set you need ways to make it trigger more often than if you're facing the mirror. Another idea wound up in Sand Wraith where the creature is colorless but has colored activated abilities, the Sand Wraith winds up being a shade with the basic {b} give creature +1/+1.
Finally Shera is a mixture of all the Deserty things I like in magic. There should be an additional line of text on Shera that reads can only be cast using mana generated from Deserts but I couldn't fit that on the card so...
However each of Shera's first two abilities is a reference to a different Deserty land that personifies the harshness of Ajurai's dune wastes. The ultimate does what the name implies, it is an ultimate effect that pretty much ends the game. It finishes things by Desertwalking all over your opponent

OberonOracle · May 2015

Alright one more article tonight,
I'd like to show off another cycle of 5 this time: very special lands.

These are the Ajurai Legendary Land Cycle

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/alimbhalid-city-of-cultures?list=user#.VUq3UZOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/ishari-city-of-the-ancients?list=user#.VUq3WJOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sherok-oasis-fortress?list=user#.VUq3YZOGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/ashara-beshar-city-of-djinn?list=user#.VUq3a5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/tosh-the-great-waste?list=user#.VUq3dJOGNWI

First off we have Alimbhalid which if you look up at the description for Sands of Ajurai you'll learn that it's the largest of the non-Djinn cities on the plane. It is inhabited by two groups of human among others. The Alim a group of merchants, scholars, and tacticians; and the Bhalid a group of desert hunters (Real imaginative name I know). Each of these tribes is U/R and R/W respectively so the land has to tap for all three colors, since it taps for many colors I have it enter tapped (naturally) but it contains three activated abilities for a single color and {t} which work with each of the three colors and one of the set mechanics. The white makes an attacker and equally good defender, the blue triggers Prowl, and the Red is a better single target trumpet blast.

Next we have Ishari which actually breaks the colorless desert rule for one land, which means that B/W/Colorless could be a thing but it's much harder to do. Ishari was actually the first I came up with and the first I designed. Since bind is the Ishari/Ghrime mechanic I wanted a land that could just exile permanents. But since the Ghrime are good and bringing things back from the dead (or in this case exile) I added that the land could summon cards exiled with it for a hefty mana cost of 7.

Moving forwards we have Sherok, the Oasis Fortress which pretty much what it says on the tin. Since flavorwise it's on the border between Freepeople and Djinn lands it becomes under attack a lot so it has to protect itself. Thus I made it a faux-creature, it can turn into a huge wall to block things and on top of that it stays a wall. And if you really need the defense you can make it protect other creatures (the Sherok Mechanic) to protect some of your smaller things or stop a really really big thing from dying to multiple blockers.

Next is the Djinn land, I wanted the Djinn land to work like any other Tribal Lands. It generates mana in any color that tribe is, but the mana has to be spent on that tribe's spells thus making it less effective in 5 colored decks. The activated abilities are pretty straight forward, the reason why the W/U one put a counter on if the Djinn has 2 or more is because I don't want to give a way to get both emblems out of the Single Wish Cycle (they are broken enough as is). The second ability is simply the Shaytan/Qareen influence ability that will show up on a lot of R/G Djinn

Finally we have Tosh, the Great Waste. It's the colorless Legendary land that accelerates and triggers Desertwalk simple as that. Also fun trick, since Tosh doesn't enter tapped if you wanted you could trigger one already on the field to float {2} then play another one Legendary-Rulling out the tapped one so that you only had to pay {3} to get its second ability

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

I love the idea for this set! I find that you chose the desert to be the main backdrop for the set is rather gutsy, since deserts are often rather barren and making things that would make sense in a desert can be hard. This whole set works great though! I love it. I'm personally trying to make a set myself, and I will probably check around this one again some time.

OberonOracle · May 2015

Thank you very much Blacktyger00, this is actually the second block I'm working on however I've switched gears to focus on this one. I just felt like Magic hasn't had an Arabesque set since Arabian Nights and I was interested in designing a basic land that only produced colorless because I'd heard a rumor about Commander players that play artifacts having to rely on only non-basics. The set just expanded from there. I will likely post the Dune lands shortly

JaceandRudi · May 2015

I really like this set and the artwork especially on the legendary lands. Again I like this set and find it amazing how you could put so much work into it. Would you mind if other people tried making some cards that fit with the set?

OberonOracle · May 2015

I am perfectly fine with that as long as they follow the style guide description at the top and I reserve the right to accept, deny, or request edits to any submissions. Is that fair?

OberonOracle · May 2015

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

Interesting choices. Although I would like some hel myself, I'm attempting to make a crossover set between the Tarkir Block and the Predator movies. Would you wanna help.

OberonOracle · May 2015

Alright

OberonOracle · May 2015

In response to the Enemy Bear earlier in this thread I present to you...

Genie Bears!

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sandstorm-jinni?list=user#.VVEPt5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/nightstalker-efreet?list=user#.VVEPv5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/hellfire-follower?list=user#.VVEPy5OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/crafty-shaytan?list=user#.VVEP05OGNWI
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/youthful-marid?list=user#.VVEP3ZOGNWI

They are a little more expensive than regular bears but because of the wish mechanic they had to have a draw back. Each of the Djinn are pretty obvious at what they do and how they do so just enjoy looking at them.

Sorry about the lack of art, google is running out of good Djinn pictures. If someone could link me some that would be awesome

Corwinnn · May 2015

try efreet

Corwinnn · May 2015

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Genie-171073083
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Genie-203176146
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Lava-Genie-111103218
http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Djinn-286773781
http://www.deviantart.com/art/DJINN-279317118
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Djinn-122355242
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Efreet-Warlord-159823425
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Lavapit-Efreet-124152629
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Crimson-Efreet-307936493

Corwinnn · May 2015

Here is a collection
http://dj-crunch.deviantart.com/favourites/40361082/djinns-and-ifrits
It ain't great

OberonOracle · May 2015

Alright thanks!

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/gorgion-the-consumed#.VVJDgnBHaK0
Something I whipped up, hope it fits into the Meta

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

Actually, for that card I made, it should be exile, not sacrifice

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

Would you want back story for this guy?

OberonOracle · May 2015

Yes, I think this would fit really well in the second Ajurai set, keep a hold of this I'll need it later, I'm going to comment on the card some ideas to streamline the rules text

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sahjar-ajurai-firstborn#.VVOMaXBHaK0

OberonOracle · May 2015

That is really cool but it needs some work, I'll get back to you on it

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

Yeah, I kinda wanted him to mirror the Dragon Djinn, because while The Dragon devours other Djinn, this one helps them.

OberonOracle · May 2015

yeah it's a cool mirror pair but I feel like it's a little unwieldy right now

Blacktyger00 · May 2015

True. I'm working on another Crossover set of Theros/Ravnica. All I have are two Archetypes.

Shadowcast · May 2015

Did you create protect? it seems similar to the totem armor auras in Rise of the Eldrazi

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