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Rezatta — VISION DESIGN PHASE
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4G
{2}{g}, {t}: Discover a nonbasic land card. (Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile the fifth or a nonbasic land card. Put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.)
Sacrifice a nonbasic land: Shape target land. (Target land gains all other abilities Woodshaper has.)
I made an ability called shape.
Shape target/each (type). (Target/each (type) gains all abilities (name of card) has.)
Why did you add the "you may reveal a creature card from your hand", did you have a specific flavour in mind?
@shadow123
In the context of the set, we already have four mechanics which may already be too much considering they're pretty wordy and complex. If we had to add a new mechanic we would likely have to remove one in compensation, so it really has to fix a specific problem of the set. There are two things we could really use right now as a mechanic: a mechanic to convey the emotion theme and a mechanic that cares about life. Shape doesn't really fit the bigger picture I'm afraid.
In a vaccum, it's also a problematic mechanic in itself because it creates impossible memory issues. How can you know which permanent has which ability after a few turns of spreading all the abilities around?
@DoctorFro
Real names are just for concept cards yes x) It's just so we know what the card conveys, here's an excerpt from the Nuts & Bolts #10 article that gives advice on how to design top-down sets like we do:
"The key here is to use the flavor as the guiding force to figure out your vision for the set. Most of your cards should have playtest names that are evocative and resonant. My technique is to label cards after the trope you're trying to hit. I called the Vampire lord "Count Dracula," not because I thought the final execution would be similar, but because I wanted my fellow designers to understand the purpose the card was serving in the set."
— Mark Rosewater
@everyone
A couple random designs I think would be cool to try:
And the idea behind those next two is to show progress in various area during Renaissance while testing Discover as a cycling mechanic. For the purpose of playtesting we can have each member of the cycle test a different kind of discovery to see what feels best. This is just two examples, I'll try to get the rest of the cycle tomorrow. The idea flavourwise is that you make a discovery that immediatly impacts the life of the citizens, which is why they are pump spells:
Flavor text hints at her mechanic synergy.
Will the set include vanillas ? I find them quite useful as a mean to expand the set's lore through big flavor text.
Carve From Wood
1G
Instant
Compose 4
2B
Creature
Whenever you sacrifice an art creature you control, gain 1 psylian life
2/2
Passionate Artist
2RR
Whenever passionate artist attacks, compose 2 twice.
2/2
Sculpt
R
Instant
Compose 2
Street Painter
RB
At the beginning of your upkeep, compose 2.
1/1
Goldharbour Docker (Green common, slot n°7)
Human citizen
3GG
Vanilla
5/5
Cityhall Militiaman (white common, slot n°4)
Human soldier
WW
Vanilla
2/3
Museum Watchman (Red common, slot n°6)
Human citizen
3R
Vanilla
4/3
I really like the concept and would like to try it at common, but she does look too complex for common. Maybe we can make here more straight-forward for playtests purpose? Something like "G: Look at the bottom card of your library. You may put it on top of your library" maybe?
@DoctorFro
I may have used the wrong word, I was really thinking of weaponry like crossbows because I saw this cool Da Vinci sketch:
But yeah we could skip the weaponry altogether if we find other things we want to highlight.
@ASubtleGhost
We want to be like a real set so we'll definitely have a cycle of vanillas!
@LittleDemon
I think it's an interesting moment to talk about the colours some compose effects should show up according to the colour pie.
1) What colours should have access to Compose at instant speed?
I actually found example of instant-speed token-making in all colours, I was thinking it made more sense in Blue and Green because of Flash, Red also often play the "unpredictable" card.
2) What colours should have access to Art sacrificing synergies?
Obviously Black, then green and Red are usually the most common sacrifice archetypes you find in combination with Black. But you make an intersting proposition by using White, do you have a specific flavour in mind?
3) Should we make effects that specifically compose after the declare attacker phase like Passionate Artist at common?
I personally believe it could confuse players unless we make it VERY clear they are for sacrifice purpose or other kind of nonattacking roles. In the specific 'When CARDNAME attacks" trigger, I'm also scared that some players might try to attack with the tokens.
_____
For the Advancement cycle, I'm having a REALLY hard time finding any good illustration T_T I'll post it once I find something worth it ^^
Common Red enchantement aura (slot n°11)
1R
When Burning Passion enters the battlefield, compose 2.
Enchanted creature gains +1/+1 and haste.
1) I agree that Green, Blue and Red (Red for an unpredictable and aggressive strategy with art tokens.) should be the ones with access to instant speed.
2) I was confused at your comment at first, but then realized that it was because my comment says 2W for the casting cost. I changed my idea for the card, after reading it over, making it to when you sacrifice an art token, but i guess i forgot to change to mana cost. It's supposed to be 2B. I will change the comment so it doesn't confuse anyone else. :P
3) I made the passionate artist concept for creating tokens to sacrifice, and looking back on it, it might be confusing to players. We can change to trigger to something else or just scrap the idea entirely.
If you wanna write some lore, we are currently kicking back the Creative Team thread as well which would be the perfect place for that: Click me! =D
@shadow123
What do you mean by "cycle of emotions"? ^^ Right now we have defined a main emotion for each colour, each Grand Muse of that colour will represent that emotion and they have a mechanical identity that comes with it:
But I'm not sure that's what you meant?
______
We've had a lot of very good designs for Compose, I think we definitely hit most of the mechanic's design space at common. Here's a summary of what we have so far:
CARDS THAT COMPOSE:
Horizontal cycle : ETB—Compose 1 to 5
COST: Compose N
At the beginning of your upkeep, compose N
Compose N two times
Sacrifice CARDNAME: Compose N. Only as a sorcery.
(Instant) Compose N
(Sorcery) Compose N
T: Compose N. Only as a sorcery.
Whenever you cast a sorcery spell, compose N.
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, compose N.
AGGRO/TRIBAL PLAN:
R: Target Art gains menace until end of turn. (Works with other abilities: flying, trample, can't be blocked, must be blocked, deathtouch, lifelink, double strike)
CARDNAME has flying as long as you control an Art. (Works with any other ability.)
Whenever an Art creature enters the battlefield under your control, CARDNAME gets +1/+1.
Target creature gets +N/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn. If it's an Art, it gains double strike.
This spell costs N less to cast if you control an Art.
Target Art creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
GO WIDE PLAN:
Compose N. Deals damage to target creature equal to number of creatures you control.
Target creature cannot attack or block. Compose N (multiple times?).
Hasty creature with ETB: Compose N (multiple times?)
SACRIFICE PLAN:
Compose N. Each player sacrifices a creature.
Sacrifice a creature: CARDNAME gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Whenever you sacrifice a creature, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME.
You can follow the advancement of the concept cards on the Google Sheet: HERE!
Other mechanics still have a lot of unexplored design space we could use at common I think ^^ I'll try to do a little work on those on the week-end.
You may have noticed that I have a heart-shaped set symbol on some of my concept cards from MSE. It's because I tried a bunch of logos from internet as set icons and that just happen to be the last of the bunch. We'll do a proper poll for the set icon and everything when it's time (a.k.a in a while). In the meantime, don't hesitate to test random set icons you like on your concept cards when you can, it's always cool to get random information about what works or not, even with set symbols x)
For example:
Bliss
2W
Creature- Elemental Incarnation
If you gained life this turn, (effect)
Oooh yeah right we definitely need one!
Something clean and simple could be "If EMOTION, CARDNAME enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it"?
For instance:
P.S: Yes, I am aware the illustrations look really bad. Which also kind of works against the idea of having little Muses because it's very hard to depict them.
https://kikicianjur.deviantart.com/art/Varden-184190404
Bliss:
Luqman Reza Mulyono
Remember the point of those cycles is to help us explore the mechanics in their simplest form. So far we have:
- The Compose cycle can Compose whenever the permanent ETB and try Compose 1 through 5.
- The Discover cycle could be the Advancement pump spells and explore different cards to discover for? By type, by colour, by converted mana cost, etc.
- The Emotion cycle was just discussed above.
- The Rebirth cycle needs to be defined. It could be a cycle of french vanillas pairing Rebirth with an evergreen keyword to see how well it synergizes with different things? So we know how strong it is with things that scale with power like first strike or lifelink for instance.
- The Psylian life needs to be defined. We coud consider something like the common Kaladesh cycle for Energy or maybe something that brings a psylian life to players a bit consistently like "Whenever this creature attacks, you gain a psylian life for instance. This way we get to see how useful psylian life is to each colour in general.
_________
@Faiths_Guide
That illustration for Bliss is really beautiful! But the concept is already starting to show its limits at five cards: the wolf for instance is already quite different from MTG modern art style and would blend weirdly in a cycle.
Ya, just threw them out there. Agreed.
Sorcery 2b
You lose 2 life and gain 2 psylian life.
Concept card for the black c or unco in a psylian life cycle (based on Kaladesh energy cycle)
also, I didn't feel like reading through the entire thread at 10PM so I don't know if you already have this, but the gothic period overlapped almost perfectly with the Renaissance, so some cathedral lands might be nice. Maybe for the muses?
I think it's definitely a good idea to test at least a card that transforms life into psylian life. Especially because this iteration actually plays as an antilinear mechanic. This means that it gets worse when you have more psylian life producer since if you already have two psylian life you lose 2 psylian life then regain two psylian life and nothing really happens. It could be a good idea to explore different ways of doing this effect to see how the play out: "You lose 2 nonpsylian life and gain 2 psylian life", maybe even "2 life of your life total become psylian life" for instance.
That said, 3-mana sorcery seems *reaaally* overcosted. I probably would only play that effect on a one-mana cantrip in a very specific deck as-is.
I'm also unsure how you want to make it a cycle? Making different number of life "psylianization"? Also, I can't find the link with the Kaladesh cycle a priori.
@SpiritDragon
Sure, we accept any help we can get! ^^
If you're especially interested in world building, we also have a creative thread by the way: Click here!
Gothic cathedrals seem definitely on theme!