Music-Themed Enlightenment Based Set- EXPLORATORY DESIGN PHASE

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  • Or Compose + Rebound. It works great!
  • edited June 2020
    @Alextorrez6 I like this! I see what you mean when you say it would balance well with the other mechanics in the set, as most sets don't introduce more than one or two new mechanics anyway. While the name encore might fit the theme a little better in general, I see that this would be a great world to bring Rebound back in. Besides, Harmonize and Compose are both music themed in any case, so we don't really need another heavily music-based mechanic.

    In conclusion, we'll be changing it to Rebound! 

    At this point, I want to shift our discussion back to Harmonize. While the name does great with the set's theme, the ability itself is pretty ridiculous. Right now, every time you harmonize, you add a ton of power to the board, and all the tokens support each other. If you harmonized 5 times in a game, you will have 25 power/toughness! I came up with this mechanic, so I am certainly to blame, but I think we need to go back to the drawing board for this before we start on the set skeleton. 

    Thoughts? 
  • OK, so I've been thinking about this, and I settled on something interesting: 

    Harmonize: Put three +1/+1 counters on target noncreature permanent you control. It becomes a 0/0 Song creature in addition to its other types.

    Here's an example: 

    I actually really like this new version, and it seems much more balanced and less broken. This is kind of like what the newest Nissa does, and I really like the theme of "Harmonize" bringing the plane itself to life. This would also allow us to still use the Song creature type, which I think is pretty cool. I would be happy for any feedback on this new idea! 
  • @Ral1000 I like this version of Harmonize a lot more! Do you think having something like this would be good:

    Harmonize N. (Put N +1/+1 counters on target noncreature permanent you control. It becomes a 0/0 Song creature in addition to its other types.)

    I think it opens up more design possibilities.
  • edited June 2020
    @shadow123 thanks for this! About Harmonize N, I do like the concept, let's see how it looks here...


    The text "Harmonize 3" looks a little awkward, but I think it could work! As you said, it would definitely open up more possibilities for design. I say we should use it.

  • At first I thought this was basically just amass, but it's actually quite different. Unlike amass, it can't keep adding to the same permanent, because once it becomes a creature, the ability cannot target it anymore. This is a good thing in my opinion, because it prevents "voltron"-style strategies with the song tokens.

    Another thing I like about this is that it forces you to use an existing permanent, rather than creating one from scratch. As you mentioned, this makes a lot of sense thematically, since it simulates bringing the plane to life through music.

    It also forces players to be strategic, because, yes, you could animate your lands, but at the same time, players will now be able to remove your lands much more easily (because they are creatures). Additionally, people will also be able to animate things like enchantments, artifacts, sagas, and even auras (which may or may not be a ruling nightmare... I don't know, can auras attack on their own if they're creatures?). Regardless, it will be a lot of fun. You could even do stuff like static artifacts that say "if this artifact is a creature (or "if this artifact is a Song creature"), it gets +1/+0" or stuff like that.

    Overall, lots of design space, especially with Harmonize N as Shadow mentioned.
  • Thanks @Alextorrez6! My thoughts also. 
  • ANNOUNCEMENT

    We have finally finished settling on the new and old mechanics for this set, and I can't thanks you guys enough for all the support and ideas within the past few weeks! I'm excited to get things rolling with the large scale design and common skeleton. 

    The next step would be to determine how many of each mechanic we want to have in each color within the common skeleton. We must remember that the two mechanics Harmonize and Rebound belong to the two main factions of the plane. The outcasts are Selesnya (G/W), and use Harmonize, while the music school is Grixis (U/B/R), and utilizes the mechanic Rebound from older mtg sets. The other two mechanics, Inspired and Enlighten, are utilized by creatures and spells respectively, however they make use of the entire color pie. 

    That said, here is my first attempt at a basic distribution: 

    Harmonize: 3 White, 2 Green

    Rebound: 2 Blue, 2 Black, 3 Red

    Inspired: 2 White, 1 Blue, 2 Black, 1 Red, 1 Green

    Enlightened: 2 White, 1 Blue, 3 Black, 3 Red, 1 Green

    When it comes to the fifth and final mechanic, Compose, this is the one that I was struggling with the most. It isn't symmetrical with any of the other four mechanics, however because it is our scry replacement, it should be in fairly high numbers: 

    Compose: 3 Blue, 3 Green, 1 Colorless

    Another option would be to just cut compose all together, replace it with scry, and distribute more Blue and Green within the main four mechanics. What do you guys think of this idea? 

    I'd be happy for any feedback anyone has to offer! 

  • edited June 2020
    @Ral1000 Do you think that five mechanics would be too much? I feel like three or four would be better.
  • @shadow123 this is the turning point! Thank you for helping me to see reason- We're taking out Compose indeed! 

    Here are the new distributions: 

    Harmonize: 3 White, 3 Green

    Rebound: 3 Blue, 2 Black, 3 Red

    Inspired: 2 White, 2 Blue, 2 Black, 1 Red, 2 Green 

    Enlightened: 2 White, 2 Blue, 3 Black, 3 Red, 2 Green

    You can see that, in taking out compose, I have added three more of the Blue and Green colors to the original four mechanics. Do you guys think this would work? 
  • Mechanics that put a lot of text on commons are nothing new.


  • edited June 2020
    @Arceus8523 I figured, and there are going to be a lot of cards like that in the set, especially with rebound, so it's good to hear that we're not breaking the rules of magic too much with the commons (:

    Card Search - Search rebound - Gatherer - Magic The Gathering

  • Hey, what do you guys think of these names for various important aspects of the plane: 

    Plane/Set name: Ozorion 

    Name of Music School: Sazani 

    General Name of Outcasts: Krokr

    I would be happy for any thoughts! 
  • Good names to me!
  • Does this mean we can start planning out specifics and logistics of the actual design process?
  • In other words... are we starting the "real thing"?
  • That's what I keep asking about my India Set @Alextorrez6...
  • edited June 2020
    @Alextorrez6 yes! I'm thrilled for this. We can probably stay in "Exploratory design" for a while, so we don't fill up the forums, but I'm really excited to begin the real thing. 

    I've been working for the past few days on a spreadsheet for the common skeleton. You can find it here to track our official progress: 

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CxEiRzdxi3FxjCbNMjzJoTLYRbuXIw7MwOI2Dh2o628/edit?usp=sharing

    NOTE:
    -The boxes in the skeleton with just numbers refer to creature cards with that mana cost.
    -Everything below the 19 cards of each color are just mechanics and keywords we will need to include. 
    -I have set aside some space for each of the central mechanics next to the skeleton so we can track our progress as we go. 
    -This uses the skeleton, more or less, for Amonkhet, if anyone was wondering. I also constructed it around the commons skeletons of recent sets Theros Beyond Death and Ikoria for better balance. 

    I'll be using mtg set editor to make the final cards, but until then, anything is welcome! If anyone wants to start coming up with ideas for the commons, please do so, and I'll do the same. Let's do this! 
  • This set will be (or would be) "standard legal" right?
  • edited June 2020
    Correct @Alextorrez6. It's probably going to be meant for draft and some standard gameplay, and I made the skeleton around recent standard sets for this reason. 
  • edited June 2020
    What do you guys think of something like this as a white common:


    Meant as a sort of a more flavorful version of Healer's Hawk... 
  • @Ral1000 Maybe it should be a 1/1 perhaps, knowing Aven Skirmisher is a 1/1 flying common?
  • Fair enough @shadow123. I think you're right about that. 


  • Iz be likins the cardz
  • @LordTachanka123 what? If you're saying you like the cards, thanks! 
  • Something to keep in mind as you're creating cards (just as a proactive reminder)... you have one ability that's only for creatures (inspired), two that only work on spells (enlightened and rebound), and one that works on both (Harmonize)... so to keep things balanced, just remember to make Harmonize equally proportional to Inspired for the creatures, but for the spells, it will be a smaller proportion because it will be split among three abilities instead of just two. Again, just a proactive reminder.
  • edited June 2020
    @LordTachanka123 Ok then...
  • @Alextorrez6 I didn't think about that! It's good you mentioned that now, thanks! 
  • If you guys have any ideas for cards, feel free to post them on here as well! I'd love for anyone to post concepts using these mechanics! 
This discussion has been closed.