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Renaissance Set — Creative Design
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Also, an idea of a character or two "bailing out" would be a really cool story dynamic, with the character(s) shifting the other ones out of order. I could see that being a really cool, in-vocative plot-point that would set the less happy tone of the story's falling actions.
@Brcien, seems a little like the situation with Thermo-Alchemist, a really good red uncommon that fits in a spell-heavy deck. I do think it needs a little bit more balancing, but I really like the idea and flavor. B+ from me for a balanced Grapeshot ^^.
I don't know much about story writing, but we would need to define the basic aspects of a plot skeleton:
1) Initial situation / Disturbance / Adventures / Resolve / Final situation
2) Goal / Consequences if that goal is not met / Conditions for filling that goal / Things that prevents filling that goal / Personal costs to filling that goal (sacrifices,...) / Additional personal restrictions the character have in the goal-filling (He wants to keep everyone safe for instance) / Steps to success to know the goal is getting closer.
@Terramorphic Funny fact, this is not even my set, it's actually an original idea by @OneBigBlueSky
With both @Lujikul and @MagicChess, I think you have what it takes to build a mini-team dedicated to the story, if you want?
For the Muses, I pictured them myself as not having known motives and just floating mysteriously, but if you have a cool idea that requires them to have a clear motive and talk and everything, then don't hesitate, nothing is set in stone yet!
@MagicChess A cycle of planeswalkers sounds fun ^^
Touching the Muse sounds something quite unexpected to do for me, a kind of plot twist, something no one had thought of before to human's knowledge. So I didn't picture a whole team of five people doing it. (Then again, your version does work, this is just me brainstorming a bit.)
If the plane has its own personal cyclic Gatewatch, then them touching the Muses should probably be more at the beginning of the story, so we can see them accomplish a task as planeswalkers?
Another try with the one-person version of the Touch-The-Muse story:
The main character is in trouble and touching the Muse is them coming up with a desperately out-of-the-box solution. For instance, the kingdom offers a huge reward for whoever can make an art piece so beautiful it can spark an emotion in the sad princess. The protagonist needs that reward to save someone in his family from an illness, and decides to seek the Muses to ask for inspiration. After a long exploration and some adventures, he/she finds a Grand Muse who is blissfully unaware that character is even here trying to engage conversation with an alien being thay may not even be sentient, so he/she decides to straight up catch the Muse and sparks at its contact.
@brcien Very cool design, definitely the kind of things that could end up in the final design skeleton!
I like it, it reminds me of Firebrand Archer and Thermo-Alchemist. Except it also triggers on creatures, so that's great
Virtuoso doesn't need to be an enchantment anymore if we give up on the enchantment-matters archetype which felt too redundant with the must-have Virtuoso/Art archetype. Also, the all colours thing is an old remannt of a potential colour-matters theme for the set but since that never really caught, it's not needed either. Finally, we can save two more words by making the sacrifice a floating ability instead of giving the ability to the token itself (which also makes the token cleaner by only having Haste). Which gives us 19 words instead of 23:
Virtuoso N (Create a colorless N/N Art creature token with haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of your next end step.)
Besides, I also managed to make the blinking Monstruous version of Rebirth fit in the 22 words mark. It's not super clean but it's exactly 22 words already so it's difficult to do it another way:
Rebirth {cost} ({cost}, Exile this creature not reborn: Return it to the battlefield reborn with two +1/+1 counters on it. Rebirth only as a sorcery.)
I have to say "Return it to the battlefield reborn" sounds super flavourful to me, I kinda like it ^^ And the design space is, I think, quite large:
- (As a french vanilla just for the counters.)
- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, effect. (Just to use it twice with the blink)
- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if it's reborn, effect.
- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, effect. If it's reborn, alternative effect instead.
- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, effect with X, where X is its power/toughness. (Scale up +2 the second time, a bit like Eternalize.)
- As long as CARDNAME is reborn, it has BONUS.
- Use this ability only if CARDNAME is reborn.
- Reborn creatures you control have BONUS.
- Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control reborn, effect.
- And everything with +1/+1 counters matter.
It would be worded as follows. Tee hee, I made it 21 words!
Rebirth {cost} ({cost}, Exile this nonreborn creature: Return it to the battlefield reborn with two +1/+1 counters on it. Rebirth only as a sorcery.)
Now, Is rebirth going to work the same way as undying? Where, if it leaves the battlefield and returns, it is no longer "reborn"? Other than that, I feel like there's not much else I have questioning this mechanic. It's solid.
I also wanted to ask you, do you still need an Emotional Outburst mechanic, or is that no longer suited to our current archetype grid? I had an idea about a sort of threshold, where when your psylian life gets to a certain point (~5), [EFFECT]. I had also had an idea of having it where the effects triggered when your base life-total got below your psylian life-total, but I felt like that would take too long in a set populated by fast strategies. Also, it would really only collaborate with the WB archetype.
But, if you still need that mechanic, I can draft up a few rough variants and see what suits the situation.
(Finally, I just realized, he better LOAD this set up with Terese Nielson art. It works perfectly.)
@Terramorphic It does work like Monstruous, so if you use the ability a first time it becomes reborn and you can't use it again, but if you blink a reborn creature it comes back nonreborn and you can rebirth it again yes ^^ The good thing is the counters always tell you if your creatures is already reborn or not ^^
We can do the treshold psylian life even without a dedicated mechanic, I think that's an excellent idea ^^ For the emotion mechanic, we may need it but it's not essential right now and if we realize we need an additional mechanic during design, it lets us put the emotion flavour on it so I'd rather not make an emotion mechanic for the sake of it right now, if possible. Then if we find a very good one, we can still do it ^^
Yeah, it does. Which is why I was trying to make a low cost tempo creature with the following ability. But trying to change it to limit it to twice.
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As long as [Creature Name] is reborn, reborn creatures trigger triggered abilities of nonland permanents you control an additional time.
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Would that mechanic be ok for the Renaissance mechanic for everyone? I personally think it checks all the boxes: it's flavourful, it has a huge and exciting design space, it's midrange, it's a mana sink for your psy life mana, and it screams 'RENAISSAAAAAANCE' to your face xD
As long as CARDNAME is reborn, if a creature with reborn causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.
Yeah, you mean the following. (For prior comment!)
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When [Creature Name] enters the battlefield, if it's reborn, [Effect].
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Reference: Tribute Mechanic
Four Suture Mages...
I'm thinking of something more similar to the following. But I want to prevent it from stacking with other abilities of this nature. (Eg. Panharmonicon or another of itself)
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If a reborn creature would cause a triggered ability of a nonland permanent you control to trigger once while [Creature Name] is reborn, that ability triggers an additional time.
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Edit: Would the highlighted part fix that issue?
I got another idea for a Rebirth-centric card, this one for the WU/UR control strategy. If there's a problem with the reminder text and its phrasing, please tell me @Everyone. Also, I may bump it up to four mana for balancing sake.
Without the exiling being conditional. It feels more suited as a white card.
Comparing it to other cards, I'm not sure if it needs to be at higher cost. Mainly since effects of this nature are generally cheap and common at instant speed. In addition, they usually effect multiple creatures.
Edit: It's mostly a matter of comparing it with the card, Acrobatic Maneuver.
Okay, so it seems that we like the idea of sparking when you "touch" a Muse. Now we have a more concrete storyline, and also a couple cycles: The five new accidental 'walkers (one per color), and their corresponding Inspirations. Maybe also each one's Masterpiece/Masterwork?
An idea for story spotlights:
Ascendent Inspiration -- the five artists "touch" the Muses and ignite.
Maelstrom Pact -- the new, accidental 'walkers all planeswalk to The Maelstrom and discover their nature, as well as that of the evil threatening the plane, and agree to defend against it.
Crippling Betrayal -- (you have no idea how tempted I was to substitute "depression" for betrayal XD) one 'walker (the black one?) chickens out and planeswalks away
Now, after this, I'm not sure where we want to go. At first I though of the remaining four pursuing the fifth all over the planes, but we want the set to be pretty much restricted to its home plane, which is why WotC makes sure that nobody but the 'walkers on a plane know about the Multiverse (except, I think, Dominaria. Can any original players clarify? That's before my time XD).
And also, how should the set end? If we want to make it a complete block and add a new set to it, it should end on a hopeful note, but they haven't won yet. If not, they should defeat the evil.
Speaking of which, what is the evil anyway? A foreign 'walker who is corrupting the Muses, maybe?
Anyways, a once native planeswalker coming back to lay siege to the Muses' could be cool in multiple ways.
As for what the battles/story-points against the evil-force would be like, I would say the four planeswalkers' greatest goal is to just keep this much more powerful force away from the Muses. At the same time, the Muses could be reacting to such a potent malicious force by having their own havoc raise itself across the plane. Maybe the mana/cosmic power of two of the other Muses' naturally confluxes away from the evil-force, bringing waves out of the oceans and into the archipelago cities. You know, unnatural natural disasters xD.
For a twist, we could have our 4 planeswalkers realize they could use the Muses' powers to their advantage, perhaps luring them into causing a magical disaster and trapping/injuring our antagonist. From there, we could have the evil force leave, but the damage around the heroes making them realize that they have to rebuild over the destruction wrought by at least six great cosmic entities.
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+So, the stages of our story could be:
A peaceful festival catalyzes the adventurous spirit of 5 mana-aligned artists.
They find and touch a certain Muse that had been lying dormant in [Insert Magical Place Here].
They go into the Maelstrom, and see a very powerful force approaching. They understand they have been blessed with power, and agree to defend [Insert Planar Name Here]
Black-aligned member of the group runs away/teams up with evil force in fear for his/her life.
Hero team, now put on the back-foot by the betrayal of their ally, goes on the defensive to stop the evil force from damaging or having contact with the Greater Muses.
Heroes finally use riled up Muses to entrap/damage antagonist, sending them away from the plane.
Slightly melancholic rebuilding ensues.
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Of course, this is just my idea of how the core action of the story could unfold. I'm excited to hear what people can add-on to make the plot really interesting.
@modnation675 Considering how Panharmonicon turned out to be a fun casual card just by putting it at 4 mana, I personnally don't see the point in playing the fun police and adding words just to prevent the Reborn abilities to trigger more than once.
@NokiSkaur Sorry what? XD Four Suture Mages? XD
@Terramorphic Don't worry about details like reminder text for now, unless we lock the card in the set skeleton
"Exile target nonreborn creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield reborn under it's owner's control with two +1/+1 counters on it."
@Lujikul Having five planeswalkers in a set is something core sets did all the time, the limit of five per block is in place to avoid breaking standard, but for a custom set we should really consider it as a supplemental product outside Standard, because we haven't take Standard into consideration for any of our decisions anyways. So I think it's completely fine to have five walkers ^^
Oh God no flip-planeswalkers, please XD I know they were a huge flavour hit in Origins and everyone wants to have flip-planeswalkers now but they had a *reason* to be in Origins. We have no reason whatsoever to put them here. Putting a cycle of Flipwalkers won't feel original since it has already been done, it means you never get to open a (virtual) pack and be excited to see the planeswalker card frame, and it forces us to put five random double-faced cards in a set without them. We don't need them, really, I swear xD We can just do a cycle of planeswakers and find a better twist that has never been done before instead of using double-faced cards, and it will feel more exciting. Besides, they likely all sparked for the same reason (touching a Muse), didn't they? Which means we don't even get to design them with different funny triggers. (Then again, if everyone else is for doing them, so be it xD)
On story:
@MagicChess @Terramorphic @Lujikul
Okay, if everyone is on board with that, the "Muse Touching" (we're going to have to find a less creepy name for that) becomes the element that starts the plot instead of the element that resolves it?
I'm still dubious about the idea of having five people touching a Muse at the same time, that sounds like something that would happen on exception, doesn't it? How about we follow *one* character touching a Muse, then he/she makes contact with four other people who did the same thing in the past?
I like the idea of a cycle of their masterworks a lot, but what do you have in mind when you say a cycle of inspiration?
For the evil, there doesn't necessarily have to be one, the plot can be more character-driven. For instance, they want to accomplish something that sounds impossible, but by uniting and surpassing their differences they still manage to do it. Maybe they want to combine all their art to create a new Grand Muse?
Otherwise, for an antagonist-driven plot, I like the idea of them having to protect the Muses. How about someone trying to steal the Grand Muses? I liked that idea at the beginning. The problem is we really can't do an additional planeswalker. So we could either do a team of four teaming against one planeswalking villain, or a team of five against a non-planeswalking villain?
I think they have great flavour but, in my opinion, they just don't fit in any environment.
1) When you show a planeswalker in the game, by default you use a planeswalker card. If you do a flipwalker, it means you want to pull the focus of the set on them. It's huge! They're suddendly the stars of your set! The problem is that this is not a set we thought with the characters as a starting point, the starting point is Renaissance and the flipwalkers will send the wrong message about what the set is about, in my opinion, simply because we said very loudly "Hey, these are not regular planeswalkers!" for no specific reason. (I mean at this stage we don't even know who they are yet, so they *are* regular planeswalkers.)
2) If you use a technology like flipwalkers, it should always be because you need it. They have a huge attention cost on your set, they're a cycle of five double-faced cards which is extremely messy in a set, it's not something you drop like that in the middle of a set because it's fun. And I feel that's what we're about to do. Using them for the wrong reasons. We didn't say "Hey, we have these five planeswalkers that we spent a lot of time describing in the cards and are central in the set. Their sparking is super original and important to the plot and we need to find a way to show that on cards. I know, what if we did flipwalkers, it's such a perfect match mechanically for what we want to show?" No, we went "Hey, the planeswalkers spark, let's do flipwalkers?"
3) The flipwalkers are a mechanic by themselves. It's like saying "Hey I want to do a cycle with Suspend because it has a cyclic flavour." Yes, we can do it, but is it really worth the blow to the complexity and cohesion of the overall set?
Then again, I'm not the one to decide. If after reading this a majority of people still think they are a good idea, let's try and make some concept flipwalkers, maybe I'm dead wrong and the flipwalkers are the thing that will make this set feel perfect.
I meant Suture Priest. One creature is reborn, and they immediately give you right life.
The thing is that these walkers sparked for a unique reason. They were artists, then they gained ultimate inspiration and consequently became Planeswalkers. As for your second reason, I think that's exactly what we did do XD We have five planeswalkers that are central to the set and we've proposed three cycle ideas for them already. Their sparking is super original and important to the plot, and we need a way to show it on cards: thus, flipwalkers.
However, I do concede your point on them taking away from the story. They made sense in Origins because the set was about how those five 'walkers sparked, while our set is about the Renaissance. So yes, flipwalkers would distract from the story, and it might be a little too random to throw in only five double-faced cards in a set without double-faced cards. Origins was an exception because, again, the focus was on the 'walkers, not on a different theme.
I think we really could go either way. If we want to do flipwalkers, we would have to make the set more about those characters. If we decide not to, the set won't suffer for it.
Now, on to story:
Since we want to stay away from a contest so as not to be too similar to Amonkhet and Kaladesh, it makes sense (in my opinion) for there to be several people who become inspired at once. And they don't all touch one Muse; each touches their own; I think they probably should be the Grand Muses, and each soon-to-be-walker should touch the Muse of their respective color.
When I said Inspirations, I basically meant a cycle of Chandra's Ignitions; that is, each one sparking. The difference would be that it has to do with art. Perhaps each would get you some psylian life, and then another effect? Or they would all have Virtuoso?
Here's a different proposal to flipwalkers:
The abilities of the planeswalkers in the cycle get better if you paid the card's mana cost, or part of its mana cost, with psylian life. For example:
+1: Scry 3, then if you paid 4 or more psylian life while casting CARDNAME, draw a card.
This would represent their unique flipping: that is, due to art and inspiration.
@MagicChess
On story:
I don't know if you saw the previous post, but isn't five characters all sparking that way at the same time a bit much? We still have the option to follow one character doing it then he/she gets into the club of people who sparked while touching a Muse. (Which lets us do an interesting reveal about the true nature of geniuses across the lands.) If we do the five sparks at once, at least let's establish they know each other and were working together from the start for this, not five person who randomly got the same crazy idea at the same time x)
Yeah I agree it's more fun if they all touch a different Muse and make an horizontal cycle
Ah ok by inspiration cards you meant the spark cycle of Magic: Origins showing the moment when they get their spark and first planeswalk. Well we get to a similar problem to what I was describing above with the flipwalkers, they all spark the same way so it will be difficult to make a cycle as interesting as the Origins 5. From what I understand, it would mostly differ in the type of art magic that outflows from them at that moment? I personally think such a cycle could be very redundant with both the Masterwork cycle and the Planeswalker cards themselves but you may prove me wrong if you have something in mind to make it feel original! ^^ As far as I'm concerned, a spotlight card showing the sparking of either the one character we follow or all characters at once (depending on the story) can be enough.
On the psylian life planeswalkers:
There's a couple of things I'm uncomfortable with in this idea:
- Let's do a parallel with Energy instead of psy life. Would a planeswalker saying "Scry 3; then you may pay EE. If you do, draw a card" feel too parasitic? I think the only way this could maybe work if it was a dedicated Energy planeswalker that created its own energy but it would still be slightly cringy to me. Now having all five planeswalkers of the set asking you to play Energy sounds way too parasitic in my opinion.
- You don't pay psylian life to cast a card, you pay psylian life to get mana and you pay that mana to cst the card. Maybe there's a way to track the source of that mana but it's likely going to be terribly wordy, I'm unsure it would be worth it.
- There's a memory issue, the game wouldn't ask you to remember if you paid psylian life to cast a permanent afor several turns without using some trick like counters to mark if you did or not.
@everyone
Speaking of trimming down the mechanics a little, maybe psylian life should only give a colorless mana instead of a mana of any colour? That should probably prevent some headaches with psylian life decks having access to all the best cards of all colours for instance?
Also we're heading hastily towards the end of the creative phase, congratulations everyone! If you have ideas for the name of the plane, don't hesitate to share them. If you have ideas for specific races in the creature grid as well, it could also be a good thing to share them before the design phase starts ^^
For instance, I'd see Sirens in Blue Medium Nonflying because their singing can be considered an art form ^^
I'm gonna pretend that you didn't imply making an effect have more redundancy and be even lower costed isn't an issue.