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Rezatta — VISION DESIGN PHASE
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There are some interesting things happening on these ones when they go at card scale:
I think they both look better at Rare than commons because the heart looks very thin at common, I don't know if you get that impression too? I think it's due to the tiny details that are cut behind the brush's outline.
P.S: I like your new alligator avatar x)
Brush Tavern enters the battlefield tapped unless you gained 2 or more life this turn.
T: Add r or w
I'm guessing it enters the battlefield *tapped* unless you meet the condition
How about some cards like this, it fiddles with gain and loss of life pretty well.
Some discovery
Lifeless Cave enters the battlefield tapped unless you lost 2 or more life this turn.
t: Add b or g to your mana pool.
Here are some thoughts about the designs above:
Adheri: The concept works but it usually feels bad to have effects depending on your opponent's deck because you can't control it during deck building.
Mastery Seeker: That's a fine example of why we potentially have a problem of wordiness. We can't have a set mecanic show up on a common or an uncommon without its reminder text. Rebirth and Discover being both pretty wordy, this shows us they simply don't fit on the same card.
Ceremonial Acceptance: A very fine card, though I would avoid mixing regular life gain and psylian life gain in the same set (barring lifelink.)
Mad Illusionist: It's doing something wrong that is actually very good to remember here! What is the point of Compose? Compose is not "the aggro mechanic because we needed to make hasty tokens in the set", Compose is the "Art becomes alive" mechanic because we needed to convey flavour. This is why it cannot be repurposed to depict illusions, it goes against the main role of the mechanic in the set.
I'm starting to add the non-removal staples to the design skeleton.
First, I took the list of common staples from the Quite the Rarity article. Then, I compared it to how it was actually distributed in the main sets in Standard. Note that I added some categories like "ramp" and removed the category "creature unblockability" that I found confusing (Do all evasive creatures go in this category? Is this only effects that specifically say "can't be blocked" or does granting flying or menace count?)
Based on how many sets they appeared in the current standard main sets, I made three categories of staples:
I—STAPLES THAT ARE ALWAYS IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in red in the table)
II—STAPLES THAT ARE USUALLY IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in blue in the table)
III—STAPLES THAT ARE SOMETIMES IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in black in the table)
I'm simply going to focus on the staples that we have NOT yet planned on the set (basically the non-removal ones). So this is what we should add to the design skeleton, or consider adding:
I—STAPLES THAT ARE ALWAYS IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in red in the table)
WHITE:
- Targeted pump spell
- Team pump spell
- Token making
BLUE:
- Card drawing (besides cantrip, a.k.a. more than one card)
- Card filtering (scry, etc.)
BLACK:
- Card drawing for a price (life or sacrifice)
- Creature regrowing (Raise Dead)
- Discard
- Targeted pump spell
RED:
- Direct damage to opponent
- Rummaging (discard then draw)
- Targeted pump spell
GREEN:
- Life gain
-Targeted pump spell
- +1/+1 counters
- Ramp (put land on battlefield, tap for mana, tap to untap land,...)
II—STAPLES THAT ARE USUALLY IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in blue in the table)
WHITE:
- Life gain (outside lifelink)
BLACK:
- Direct damage to opponent
- Draining life from opponent, sometimes from a creature
- Token making
GREEN:
- Damage prevention (Fog)
- Land tutoring (put land from library to your hand)
- Creature tutoring (put creature from library to your hand)
III—STAPLES THAT ARE SOMETIMES IN THE MAIN SET: (appear in black in the table)
WHITE:
- Bouncing (your own creature)
- Flickering (exile then return to the battlefield)
- Untapping creatures
- Noncreature recuperation (artifact, enchantment)
BLUE:
- Flickering (exile then return to the battlefield)
- Looting (draw then discard)
- Milling (putting card from the top of the library into the graveyard)
- Targeted pump spell (usually +0/+N and/or hexproof)
- Untapping nonland permanents
- Noncreature recuperation (artifact, instant, sorcery)
BLACK:
- Forced sacrifice
- Life gain
- Milling (putting card from the top of the library into the graveyard)
- Inquisition (look at opponent's hand and choose a card to discard)
RED:
- Impulsive draw (exile top card of library, you can play it until end of turn)
- Team pump spell
- Token making
- Noncreature recuperation (instant, sorcery)
- Firebreathing (1R: Gets +1/+0 until end of turn)
GREEN:
- Token making
- Untapping creatures
This is a lot of work you have put in!
Sure, I put it on the shared Google File of Rezatta. If anyone wants to use it for their own set, don't hesitate
I widened some key areas, wanna test?
We kind of have the same ouput at card scale:
I do think it's an issue that's more inherent to the concept itself now. I believe there are two explanations for why the icon lacks some readability:
1) Because of the surimposing elements that cut each other. Simply put, I think it's hard to obtain a heart that is easy to read because of the brush that goes over it. Ideally, I'd like to show this at card scale to someone that haven't seen it at full resolution and see what they think it represents. I'm not sure they would immediatly guess "a brush painting a heart" because of how complex the form is. Eventually, a stylized heart may be more recognizable than a stylized heart behind a big brush that hides it?
2) Because of the complexity issue, the elements are thinner than regular MTG set icon. It's especially clear when you compare them side by side:
I think we're lacking that thick stroke (the bottom of Kaladesh's heart and the ark of Rivals' compass) that guides the eye and define what the shape is. Now, there are different kind of set icons and I'm sure we can find examples of thinner symbols. I need to do some research, understand what makes them work and then I'll try to come with a solution to obtain a set symbol that is easy to read.
P.S: Sorry, I know it's frustrating when I always have something to criticize and it's the tenth version ^^" I really appreciate what you're doing and I definitely think it's important whatever the set icon ends up being because it makes us ask the right questions: How to make the symbol easy to read? How many elements can be in there? How thick should it be? Etc.
It says “art” - but not only art, but art of a certain time and place: Europe in the renaissance.
Yes it excludes a direct reference to hearts but painting is romantic and elicits emotions across the spectrum.
The heart is not necessary to the set symbol by any means, it's just the shape we've explored the most, but it would actually be beneficial if we explored other shapes as well ^^
Flowers, butterflies and wings for instance have recognizable shapes that could represent Renaissance metaphorically, just like hearts. Tools used for art like music instruments and colour palettes are fair game too (I'm just a bit scared that the set ends up being an Art set instead of a Renaissance set, which is something that has been done before by someone else). And we haven't yet explored the idea of using the greek letter psy, to integrate the name "psylian" into the world itself. I'm trying to make concepts out of those but I'm not very good at it unfortunately and they're very ugly so far xD
About the colour palette itself, it has two qualities that I really dislike in set symbols: it's very bulky, and it represents an existing object. It's very subjective though. I'd be interested in knowing what set symbols everyone likes and dislikes, out of pure curiosity.
@Everyone
What the best and worst set symbols for you?
Personally I like:
- Dynamism: They have a direction, have bold and thin parts, play with black and white,...
- Elegance: They look good both at small and large scales. They're simple but recognizable.
- Balance: They're not made only of huge flat shapes, or very thin lines. They're not very long or very wide but are mostly square.
Those are my personal favourites:
And here are some set symbols I really dislike because they are too bulky, or too thin, or look like cliparts to me:
I totally agree, and really appreciate your input! I'm also glad that three of your favorites aren't symmetrical.
Also, we could pretty easily turn a heart or butterfly into a stylized palette...
This one's pretty. 0_0