Things are coming together (Ikoria cube progress update *#2*)!

24

Comments

  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    @Ral1000 This one is great! I really like it!

    I just finished reading your set design, I've got some ideas for mechanics - both new ones and old ones to bring back, as well as some other feedback.
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    (Psst! If you're reading this, a new progress update (#3) will be coming this afternoon...)
  • Ral1000Ral1000
    edited June 2020
    @Alextorrez6 I just wanted to start off by saying, thanks so much for all the help with the music set! I owe you one for sure.

    Here is the newest Apex: 
    Simone Apex of Distraction

  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    After having spent a good amount of time looking over this cube (and having remade 75 of the cards thus far), I honestly think a good deal of the designs could use some cleaning up. A lot of the designs, particularly early on in the set, just feel crammed and have too much going on in them.
  • shadow123shadow123
    @Alextorrez6 I will post a common land from mtg.design tonight or tomorrow. If I’m aver able to get premium, I’ll remake it on cardsmith right away. I really wish I had premium to make it on cardsmith, so I’m really sorry if making it on mtg.design causes any inconvenience.

    @Ral1000 Loving your mutate designs!
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    Oh, also, just as a demonstration, I present a companion with the proper reminder text!


  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    And, I'll submit this for addition to the cube.


  • The-DMThe-DM
    Epic!
  • Ral1000Ral1000
    Here's another @Alextorrez6!

    Seljarm Apex of Horror
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    @Arceus8523 First and foremost... wow! Thank you for all this help! You have a lot of skill at this... and I'm really grateful and appreciative of what you've done for me, thank you!

    One thing to note, I intentionally made the subtheme for Jegantha (and also some red/green) "play an additional land this turn". It's a recurring theme, and I even reprinted cards like Escape to the Wilds, and I'm thinking about reprinting Explore. As such, unless you think I should ditch that subtheme entirely (which is also a totally reasonable option!), I think we should keep Jegantha's ability as "play an additional" rather than "put onto the battlefield". However, I definitely was considering ditching some of the play an additional land stuff, as well as some of the reprints like Flying Crane Technique and the "Thousand-Year" stuff (all of which doesn't seem very playable in the cube), so maybe your way is just better in the long run... I don't know, what do you think?

    Adding the companion text is great by the way, and I only didn't put it myself because it wouldn't fit on some of them (which was a good thing I guess, because I would have to have redone it anyway when they changed the rule.)

    I also just recently printed a bunch of the cards so I could test them out early on, and I agree that there's a lot of clutter and cramped stuff. I feel like I'm getting more experienced as I go, but especially early on, my designs were pretty messy, both mechanically, and design-wise. I'm happy to test, playtest, redo, test again, redo again, etc, etc, until we get it right. Better to do it again and again than have it not be fun and playable, right? In short, I'm willing to learn from my mistakes, and really happy to have you helping me out! Thanks!

    Also, I really love your card (The Grand Nightskitter). I have one question, is it supposed to also give the mutated creature "all abilities from under it"? I'm assuming yes, and you just couldn't fit that, right?


    Also, I'm happy for any of you guys to help me answer this question... but how do you think I should approach making the rest of the cards? Like for example, how much more mutate and cycling do you think I should add? I want mutate to be somewhat more frequent in the cube than in Ikoria (proportionally, since the cube will be bigger than Ikoria to begin with). And I want cycling to be still very much playable, but slightly less frequent than Ikoria, and more something to be integrated into other archetypes, instead of having it's own draft deck archetype.

    Also, lastly, Arceus8523, I'm not sure if you're already doing this, but feel free to completely change the design on any of the cards you remake in order to simplify them as you see fit. And if you think a card should just be removed entirely, just let me know. You seem really experienced at this, so I'm willing to let you take the lead here, and I trust your judgement.


    @Ral1000 Another good one! Thanks!


    @shadow123 No rush! Also, mtg.design is literally no inconvenience to me whatsoever! You can make all your cards on there if you want, just post them here so I can download the image. It really doesn't matter what you use as long as I can download it as a png or jpeg. And just so you know, I got premium mostly so that I could edit my cards, not really for the custom set symbol; the symbol was just an added benefit. I'd still be using the Lorwyn symbol if I didn't have premium, and it would be totally fine, so don't worry about it!
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    Oh, also @Arceus8523 when you post the remakes of the cards, can you start a new thread and ping me on it, instead of posting them here... I don't want to fill this thread up with 75+ cards at once lol.
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    By the way, this is how the cards look in the 3x3 print sheets. You can see I added the designer tags in the bottom righthand corner of the art box. The ones that were remade by Arceus8523 but originally designed by me say Alextorrez6 x Arceus8523. When the cards are updated, changed, remade, etc, I will go back and update the images and designer names in my Google spreadsheet and Adobe will automatically update them in the file using an InDesign feature called "Data Merge". In other words, I've automated the hardest part of the process, so it's easy to edit the cube quickly and efficiently.


  • shadow123shadow123
    edited June 2020
    @Alextorrez6

    Here’s a common land:
    https://mtg.design/i/vvau87

    I will try to make another land soon, probably of a different rarity unless you want another common land. I could make this into a cycle if you want! FINISHED!
  • MTG_SappyMTG_Sappy
    Nethroi is too strong
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    @shadow123 Yes, please do make a cycle of these! They are awesome! Thank you so much :)
  • shadow123shadow123
    Ok. I’m right on it!
  • Alextorrez6Alextorrez6
    @MTG_Sappy Are you saying my version of Nethroi is too strong. I actually thought it was pretty weak lol. Could you maybe post a comment on that card telling me what I should improve about it?
  • shadow123shadow123
    @Alextorrez6 I will edit my original post with the first land as I make the land cycle. Don’t add them to the cube until I’m done with all of them because I may change their names at the end if they feel out of place.
  • shadow123shadow123
    @Alextorrez6 The lands are finished!
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    @Alextorrez6
    Right, Jeganatha has been duly updated. I only made the change to try to simplify the card text (or at least make it more clear so players don't get confused over whether or not extra land drops stack—e.g. I've played Jeganatha and another power 4 creature, but no lands, how many lands can I play?)

    As for the cube, here are many main concerns over complexity and clarity.
    1. The companion rules update. This retroactively effects all your companions, and you might need to rebalance them for this limited environment.
    2. At this rate, there's going to be way too many multicolor cards in the cube and not nearly enough fixing. I can DM you my idea for an updated list once I have it done. The first step is to finish remaking everything already there.
    3. I'm not sure if the colors are balanced(?). It seems like there are a lot of multicolor "cycles" that aren't complete. (e.g. The companions) and a lot of cards that encourage non-Shard three-color combos.
    4. I'm having a lot of trouble deriving limited themes from the cards I've seen. It seems like Bant wants to be mutate, Naya wants to be Human Tribal, and Jund wants to be Sacrifice/Devour, but I haven't seen a Devour card since around the time I made Snapdax. Also cascade showed up in the first few cards, then just vanished from the set entirely.
    5. Mentor counters are going to get a bit hard to track, since they're a counter that allows creatures to put more counters on other creatures, and haste counters become useless the moment they're on a creature without summoning sickness. It's why haste counters were excluded from IKO.
    6. The power level on cards seems to vary wildly, all the way from decent limited commons (e.g. Artful Takedown) to absolute bomb drops (e.g. the Apexes). The point of a cube is to ensure there are no useless/dirt/underwhelming cards.

    I'll DM you my ideas for smoothed out/updated designs, but I felt this was worth putting into this post so people could generally discuss it.
  • shadow123shadow123
    @Arceus8523 @Alextorrez6 I am currently going through the cube (while commenting on some cards) and noticing similar things. I also have two things I want to point out:

    1. Many of the commons seem to complex for commons.
    2. Some of hybrid cards break the color pie. I commented on one of the hybrid, but I’m not sure if there are any more yet.
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    @shadow123

    Hey, hybrids breaking the color pie is the norm for Ikoria =P
  • shadow123shadow123
    @Arceus8523 :smiley:. I’m talking about just normal hybrid cards in the set. Not the hybrid-mutate cards.
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    @shadow123

    I know, but like half the companions break the rule anyway.

    Like, going through them
    Yorion: ✔
    Gyruda: Reanimation doesn't fit in U unless it hits artifacts only
    Obosh: Black can't double damage, it also cares more about life loss in general than damage
    Jeganatha: R can't tap to add mana
    Kaheera: ✔ 
    Lurrus: ✔ 
    Lutri: ✔  
    Umoria: Black doesn't get cost reduction without also adding downside to it
    Zirda: Neither W nor R gets AA cost reduction, that's largely been a U thing
    Leruga: ✔ 
  • shadow123shadow123
    edited June 2020
    @Arceus8523 Unfortunately, that’s true. But @Alextorrez6’s cube can be better than that!!
  • The-DMThe-DM
    I'm just going to leave this here...
    nothing to do with anything...

    https://www.youtube/watch?v=aW5qaHWvJUE
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    @shadow123

    We're trying to emulate Ikoria not improve on it. shm
  • shadow123shadow123
    I guess, but I think we could improve where Wizards made their mistakes.
  • Arceus8523Arceus8523
    I know, I was being sarcastic
  • shadow123shadow123
    Oh ok. I have no sense of humor :pensive:
This discussion has been closed.