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Renaissance Set — Design Phase
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@TezzeretofCarmot, remember that this is a fairly high-costed card. Most games will not end with your Muse of Joy and your Muse of Whatever on the battlefield. So that late in the game, +4/+4 and two abilities isn't actually that overpowered.
Not to say it isn't powerful; on the contrary it's probably better than any God out there (in my opinion). They'd be borderline overpowered in Standard, since there aren't really any good enchantment sweepers (except for Hour of Revelation (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430704), which isn't used much).
Also, why is blue fear?
I'm not sure that Grand is really necessary, since it's already a legendary, which conveys said grandness. Also, it's not like they all would give +2/+2. This is probably the only one that would, since anthem effects is what white does.
@ningyounk Also, should the enchantment leave if the creature dies, since it's the influence of the muse?
I called it Muse of Joy instead of Grand Muse of Joy because in my head the only muses with such a name would be the grand muses. But your point stands true, if the set has some little muses everywhere it would probably be good to call them "Grand Muse of EMOTION", for clarification.
I don't see the "Grand" subtype as really necessary, that's just not how Magic usually do things since the Grand Creature Type update ten years ago, but there is a similar precedent in Dragons of Tarkir. They brought back the subtype "Elder" for nostalgia purpose, so maybe we could consider them being typed "Elder Muse"?
I was unsure how powerful that would be, maybe +2/+2 is too much yes (it's just that granting lifelink to your creatures is really not worth 5-mana so I tried to compensate) ^^ My idea though was not to have each muse give +2/+2 but rather have their own specific influence on stats. For instance:
White: +1/+1 to your creatures
Blue: -2/-0 to the opponents' creatures
Black: -1/-1 to the opponents' creatures
Red: +2/+0 to your creatures
Green: +3/+3 to your creatures (with no keyword)
@MagicChess
Sure, the little muses should probably appear in each colour. But for Joyful Incarnation I really used the 1/1 muses like another set would have used a 1/1 Soldier. Creating plenty of 1/1s is just what White do as a staple effect, so I'm not sure that's an ability we want to have a cycle of in other colours.
I see Blue incarnating Fear not as in "spooky, hallooween stuff" but as in "anxiety / affraid to lose control / withdrawing from the world" because Blue is a reactive colour that seeks a board stale. It's about not getting touched, or avoiding to get blocked. To me, it can be interpretated as being affraid of everything.
@Lujikul
Well, I know it's kind of a flavour miss, but the whole point of making the indestructible enchantment is that it stays on the battlefield when the Muse is gone. You lose the synergy with the second ability, but at least you didn't waste your mana completely.
@everyone
Starting to talk a bit about the design skeleton, I think we should use the basic structure of the Amonkhet set because it's the most recent set that doesn't heavily mess up with its set skeleton:
- Kaladesh has an over-representation of artifacts in its skeleton
- Innistrad II has an additional sheet for double-faced cards that change the as-fan of everything
- Zendikar has an over-representation of lands and colorless cards
- Tarkir has an over-representation of multicoloured cards
- Etc.
Is everyone on board with this plan?
Also, that creature isn't weak in the right deck.
Although "other creatures" technically can't work since the ability is on the enchantment, not the creature itself. But "nonmuse creatures" work just fine. That could be an argument for giving them the Elder subtype actually, so we can say "nonelder" and avoid the nonbo with little muses.
@everyone Uuugh I tried to create a table counting how many cards there are by colour, type, and rarity in the Amonkhet set. I made sure to avoid the cards that are exclusive to the planeswalker decks and toolbuilder's kit, but I forgot about Aftermath. Now it's counting every aftermath card twice in the Gatherer, make aftermath cards appear in the wrong colours etc. Anyone has an idea on how where to get that table without having to deal with the Gatherer?
Note that Nissa is considered both the Green and Blue Mythic which is why there's one additional multicoloured card and a missing card in blue and green. Other than that, here's the little things I think we should twitch before it's good to use for Rezatta:
1) We redistribute the 10 bicoloured aftermath cards (counted as multicoloured here) into 2 instants/sorcery per colour.
2) We put a planeswalker per colour.
3) Red has an overrepresentation of creatures in this set, and Black is weirdly lacking in this department. We probably should switch their numbers.
@everyone
Meanwhile, here's a first try at completing the 0-powered muse cycle:
- I tried what TezzeretofCarmot21 said about the name, though I used the already existing subtype Elder.
- They are probably overpowered xD But I'd like your opinion first about whether you like the concept.
Fear and Anxiety are really too close to each other
Also, no colour is without emotion! I'm actually surprised you brought up Black since Blue is traditionally the least emotional colour ^^
I personally think this repartition has multiple advantages
- It depicts a very wide range of emotions. Except maybe surprise (which could still fit in the widest interpretation of fear maybe) all the seven primary emotions can be tied to those five Muses I believe.
- It's reasonably easy to give them a life-matters mechanic that makes sense (the 15-cards cycle above.)
- In my eyes, they all are super good fits for their respective emotion, with both original and secure choices but, to me, none of them is out of tone. That said, I don't know if other people find Sadness to be an odd choice for Black?
I understand you find sadness to be different from the other emotions, but would you be able to explain why you think sadness doesn't belong in the cycle? Can you pinpoint why it makes you feel this way? This may be interesting to improve the cards
I don't really insist on using the Joy/Fear/Sadness/Hate/Love cycle, we're still pretty early in the design of these very important cards, it's entirely possible that we choose different emotions ^^ Feel free to propose anything, and do some tests yourself, if we can surprise the players, it woud be really cool!
No emotion or valor is entirely confined in the realm of one colour, it's definitely a matter of interpretation. In Amonkhet for instance, fervor fits all five colours in a different way, pride goes just as well with White, and Red could have been about strength for instance. Here, I put Love in green because it is the colour of symbiosis, but I think White and Green are very interchangeable in this cycle for instance ^^
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/164410071703/hi-mark-if-you-try-to-link-different-emotions-to
Anyway, here is some feedback:
- I think we should drop the "Grand" in the name. It doesn't serve a purpose, and I think 'grand' is portrayed pretty effectively, since they're legends and they buff or nerf creatures to your advantage.
- I like that we're bringing back the Elder subtype. That, too, conveys the 'grandness' of the Muses, now that I think of it.
- I think we should change the image on the black Muse; I really don't like it. The one you used for Hate would work in my opinion, if we use the image for our original Muse of Ire, or @TezzeretofCarmot21's Muse of Love and Hate, for red instead.
- I think 'Ire' instead of Hate and 'Despair' instead of Sadness are cooler names XD. Ire combines both anger and hate, so that's a plus, not to mention it sounds better.
- I understand your reasoning for blue being fear, but fear doesn't come to mind immediately as an iconic emotion for the color [blue]. We considered Solitude at the beginning, and while that isn't really an emotion, it is a good fit for what you were envisioning, with the plus of being very blue.
- Also, I want us to quickly consider the wisdom of affixing a single emotion to each color. Every one, as well as all the combinations, is multifaceted and complex.
Red, for example, is rage and hate and determination and passion and creativity and emotion and freedom and chaos and independence... I could go on and on. If we constrain [a color] red to 'hate' or 'ire,' the other elements, the passion and the freedom and the chaos and everything else becomes secondary.
I understand the mechanical necessity to make a Muse for each color and thus define them, but I feel that we would be lowering the importance of the other emotions that make up the color in question.
Every set has a different philosophical range that each color possesses; for example red was more chaos and hate and rage in EMN, while in KLD it was more passion and inspiration and determination.
Our set is an optimistic one, more like Kaladesh than Eldritch Moon, so our color emotions should be skewed towards the positive side, with the more negative emotions playing a secondary role. By choosing one of those emotions, whether positive or negative, we further the rift and imbalance the emotion scheme further out of its natural alignment.
If we do want to define our emotions, the Muse cycle of an optimistic set should be something long the lines of Joy (Pride would work too), Solitude, Desire, Passion, and Love, rather than Fear, Hate, and Despair taking the roles of the ones I switched.
Remember that we need a Muse if Desire for Vicine (or another character; that one is tentative) to be seduced by and give the main characters an opportunity to become the new Muses. Desire is the more optimistic Greed, which fits Black best.
Note that we don't lose any emotions with the change. Solitude incorporates elements of fear, sadness, pride (well, more like stubbornness in this situation), and even a little anger (again, more similar to resentment in this case).
On the names and illustrations:
- The "Grand" may be useful to proclaim loudly that those are different from the little muses, depending on the number of other muses in the set. Players pay much more attention to a name than to creature type. I think we should wait and see how different the little muses look on cards before deciding how to name the big ones.
- The elder subtype creates a weird nonbo with the elder dragons though XD It doesn't really matter, but we could also consider giving them their own "Grand" subtype as suggested initially to avoid this weird interaction, or sticking to just "Muse". The "Elder" subtype does have a nostalgia factor though, and I kinda like it now.
- Sure, any ilustration works as long as the general colour code is respected and it makes sense ^^ As I already mentioned Mohrbacher's portfolio is quite expensive, and we don't even have to take them from him (though having all five illustrations from the same artist really reinforce the cycle.) I encourage everyone to propose their favourite artworks, and not just from the few we already shared on this discussion, really, go check his Angelarium
On Blue and Fear:
I want to make two different but connected points on this:
1) Fear is not a wrong match for Blue. We're building our own world, which means we get to decide what is iconic on Rezatta as long as it's within the boundaries of the colour pie ^^ If you look at cards which contains the words pride, proud our glory, you'll see before Amonkhet it's a notion overwhelmingly associated with White. But it feels right in Black because it's a good twist on the usual selfishness trope. The same is true with Love and Green. You'll see it's mostly a white notion in existing Magic but I believe it makes sense in Green because of its symbiotic subtheme. Well the same is true with Blue and Fear. Fear is mostly a Black notion but I believe it's a good and original twist on its reactive nature.
2) Fear is better than solitude. I believe it's best if we hit the broadest emotions, so we can then hit a lot of different topics. Choosing hate means we get to talk about anger, contempt, digust, resent, etc. in red. There are multiple scientific theories about emotions, but if we follow Ekman's works the seven universal ones are joy, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, and contempt. I think fear is better than solitude because of its "primary" nature, and also because it's close to surprise, another primary emotion. I think loneliness/solitude is a much more narrow theme and depends more on sadness than fear.
On the multifaceted aspect of emotions:
I'm sure you realize it but we can't be exhaustive about the emotions we're linking to each colour. We already tried two per colour and it was much messier. Every Magic set chooses where to put the spotlight and interpretates the colour pie in different ways, that's what makes Magic interesting in the first place. Making the Muse of Hate doesn't mean Red is not the colour of passion, freedom and chaos anymore. But we can't make a Muse of Hate, a Muse of Passion, a Muse of Freedom, a Muse of Chaos, a Muse of Fervour, a Muse of the Forge, a Muse of Volcanoes, a Muse of Blood, etc. It's not only ok to have primary and secondary themes, it's actualy good for the readability of the set
On the 100% positive emotions:
- It's definitely an interesting idea. But if we look at the most important emotions, you'll notice there's an overwhelming number of different negative emotions. So I think it would make a very redundant cycle. Here you have Passion, Love and Desire which are very close to each other. Remember that the most important thing above all this is that it must translates in good gameplay, and having five flavours of Joy would probaby push all colours in the same gameplay direction.
- The only negative emotion you left in your cycle was solitude. I really don't believe it has the shouders to replace all negative emotions, and it really doesn't compensate for the absence of anger, sadness, fear and pride because they really are on a different level of importance. If I could only choose one negative emotion, I'd probably go with sadness, but it really feels like there's a void left by all the super important emotions that aren't in the cycle. We're doing a set about emotions but we don't have sadness or anger cards? That feels like a miss in my opinion.
On the Muse of Desire:
- I actually think we can do better than desire since we can have the Muse of Love in that department which is broader. We still have that corrupted muse idea if we want to add something though.
- The story is to be bent by the design choices, we should not make bad design decisions based on the story, especially considering the story is still mostly in its first phase. Let's make the cleanest cycle of Muses possible, and then we'll see how the story adapts to that ^^