Design the commons first. These will be the basis of a set, establishing themes and an enjoyable limited environment. Work your way up the rarities instead of designing rarity by rarity.
Use and download Magic Set Editor - MSE. While Mtgcardsmith has a fine community, it can't transfer its cards to Planesculptors . net, the primary hub of custom sets, and the templating is very off compared to MSE while also preventing you from editing cards and other such issues with designing sets with it.
And, my comments on the cards and mechanics:
Cosmic is a flawed mechanic. It achieves pretty much the same effect as "~ enters the battlefield tapped", except more confusing because of how phasing works, and it has anti-synergy with both the vehicle and phasing out an opponent's creatures archetype. I feel as if just using phasing out and in as a mechanic, instead of Cosmic, would allow for more interesting design and design space.
The wormhole mechanic seems unpolished - you always open a wormhole with the intention of paying the {1}, with the rare exception for the infrequent and inconsistent exile synergy, and even then playing the card is generally better than getting the exile effect off of it. I believe the mechanic would be better off if the cost to put the wormhole'd card into your hand was discarding a card, opening up more synergy and strategy as to what you want to keep or discard, if you even want to get the wormholed card.
Forgotten is, and I apologize for being blunt about this, a bad mechanic. The way to enable it isn't broad enough for a set, and all cards with the mechanic would have to be severely crippled because of the Force cycle in modern, legacy and vintage, and even formats such as pioneer and historic would have to watch the power level because of Kroxa, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Escape to the Wilds, Scrapheap Scrounger, eta. and eta.
Manaweave cards are just multicolored cards. You never cast a manaweave card without the intent to manaweave it, and it is unfortunately an uninteresting mechanic for that reason.
All four of the mechanics are very bant-focused: W/G/U being the prime colors of mutlicolored support and cards, Phasing being most common in W/G/U, Card advantage and thusly Wormholes being most common in G/U, and Forgotten presumably being most common in W/G/U due to them having the most interaction with exile. Most sets tend to spread out the mechanics among colors, rather than putting them all in similar color combinations.
Finally, as a general note that I hope doesn't come off as too condescending, I feel as if designing this set requires a greater grasp and expertise on MTG's formats and its deck archetypes than what is currently going on - the talk about Devolve and Scornful Egotist being an actual deck makes me feel that people don't know how truly degenerate formats like modern and pioneer are, with the former already having a better version of that combo that can win on turn 1 or turn 2 pretty consistently called Neobrand, and it doesn't even see play in modern anymore.
@Potato13 I see that the start to this is not that great... I probably should have done as you said, and created the skeleton first before diving headfirst into this. I think that I will probably restart, which is unfortunate, but I think that it should happen. I still want to keep the space-theme, all of the planets, and maybe some of the cards that don't revolve around any of the mechanics (Such as a reworked version of devolve that I just fixed), but I will be open to new mechanics.
On the mechanics, I can see how, as you say, that all of the mechanics are all bant-focused. And I definitely didn't have many existing cards in mind when creating them, especially forgotten. However, I disagree that manaweave is just a multicolor mechanic. While yes, it can be boring on some cards, manaweave can be used for any form of paying mana. For example, Kozilek cares about what color of mana your opponent may pay:
It's sad to say that you're right and that I will need to rework a lot of this, but I would rather have a final product that could seem like an actual magic set rather than just a random mashup of cards that I like.
Thank you
In that case...
Everyone!! let's start brainstorming some new mechanics:
I hope to keep manaweave and some version close to opening wormholes (but they can change or be replaced entirely, as long as we come up with some better ones). Any ideas?
I'll remind everyone what the theme of the set and worlds are:
Yungdrotha
A space-themed set with infinite planets, and is like a mini multiverse
However, we will be focusing on the ten dual-colored worlds for this set.
The one difference between Yungdrotha and the multiverse is that non-planeswalkers on Yungdrotha can move between each planet.
Since Yungdrotha is so large, space and time are warped. This allows other planes to bleed into it for short periods of time.
Yungdrotha is a very flexible plane, and its mana allows for some spells to be cast easier. However, if the correct mana isn't used, the spell will be cast with a weaker result.
There isn't just life on these planets. There are also beings that live among the stars, and can sometimes be as large as planets themselves.
I still would like this set to have returning mechanics on a singular card, so don't worry this set will still have a slight bit of a modern-horizons feel.
The Base Planets of this set: WU - WU's planet is Tarluria, a peaceful planet where people go for peace and quiet. WB - WB's planet is Xantria, a planet of plagues and apocalypse. Humans are trying to fight back and survive against the festering horde. WR - WR's planet is Polina, a planet where an ancient race has gone extinct, leaving only their high-tech robotics, which is now called the Rust-Ruin mechs. WG - WG's planet is Wintrea, a planet of dreams. UB - UB's planet is Bellania, a planet of evil and mystery. UR - UR's planet is Gornixia, a planet of storms. UG - UG's planet is Lumoria, a planet covered in oceans, and filled with beautiful underwater lights. BR - BR's planet is Yartok, a plane that's atmosphere gives everyone the feeling of wanting to hit something. BG - BG's planet is Grimloch, a rotting planet of death and decay. Most of its inhabitants are sentient plants and fungus. RG - RG's planet is Vanira, a planet where everything is on fire, and even touching something can light it on fire.
Alright, I've got some ideas to offer on re-working manaweave and wormholes.
"Yungdrotha is a very flexible plane, and its mana allows for some spells to be cast easier. However, if the correct mana isn't used, the spell will be cast with a weaker result."
Spells can have an alternate casting cost that does not include any coloured mana symbols used in the full cost of the spell and is maybe cheaper, but then it's effects are correspondingly less. This would also help in the limited environment of the set, as you could more easily "splash" colours across the ten two-coloured worlds, without as strong a concern for mana fixing. Think of it as reverse Kicker, or opposite Adamant. You get the rewards for paying the mana cost properly, but can still force casting it with a weaker result.
The definition of twilight is "the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon", or "a period or state of obscurity, ambiguity, or gradual decline.", both of which I feel reflect the mechanic and is suitable for the sci-fi nature of the set.
Alternatively, knowing the risk of making these spells completely colour free could be pretty dangerous (in a constructed environment, giving decks the opportunity to completely ditch their colour restrictions means balancing the card is going to be so much harder) you could limit this effect to dual-coloured spells only. Then, the alternate cost is cheaper, but uses hybrid mana symbols instead. In the example above, the twilight cost would be U/R U/R. Still best to be played in a UR deck, but splashable in decks with only one of the colours. Then you're a bit safer designing for the constructed environment.
Opening wormholes is your card advantage mechanic for the set, so we want it to be useable by all colours. Here's my pitch:
Rift counters - "As long as you own one or more cards in exile with a rift counter on it, at the beginning of your upkeep, put one of those cards in your hand."
For example:
Open the Path Instant 2U Rift - Exile the top three cards of your library and put a rift counter on each one. As long as you own one or more cards in exile with a rift counter on it, at the beginning of your upkeep, put one of those cards in your hand.
As well as cards that put things into exile with rift counters, you can then have cards refer to things while they're there, or help speed up getting them out of the rift. I'm not sold on the name myself, but opening a wurmhole is very wordy, and "warp" didn't feel right. Rifts have already been used as a concept for gateways through space and time in Magic, so I'm sticking to that for now.
Here's the different applications I can think of for this ability:
As inter-planetary/long-distance travel. This is your card advantage, but it takes some time to travel those long distances, so you'll get it next turn. Because Yungdrotha is so in flux for space/time, some cards that leave earlier may not necessarily get here until after cards that entered the rift later (you added more cards to exile with rift counters, and chose the more relevant one sooner).
As an offensive capability. Exile permanents an opponent controls with a rift counter on it. It may just be a temporary respite, it may actually help them more having it there, but it's a way to make removal unique to your plane (similar to phasing out opponents creatures like we talked about previously). Something I would use very rarely as it isn't applicable outside your set, but you could have some card effects remove rift counters from opponent's cards in exile. They're lost to the rift now!
As a defensive capability. Want to dodge a kill spell or wrath? Your devious creature can escape to the rift! Or maybe when the undying Gods or mysterious immortals of your plane die, they are instead exiled with rift counters on them. They'll be back!
Bellania is mysterious, it exiles cards with rift counters face down. That way your opponent doesn't know what's coming from beyond the dark reaches of space. Think a card that lets you search your library for any card, and exile it face-down with a rift counter on it. Either next turn you'll draw it, or you're playing some other effect which cares about that card in the rift.
Gornixia is full of storms, and things can happen at random. It could feature cards that let you draw or cast cards from the rift at random, so you don't have to wait to draw one per turn. The coming storm - deals damage to a creature at random, where that damage is equal to a creature you own in exile with a rift counter.
Yartok specialised in sacrificing permanents or life to summon creatures from the rift directly. Maybe it can also steal away your opponent's creatures from the rift.
Grimloch likes to recur things from the graveyard, and does that by sending the cards into the rift first. It's a transformative process, where a single spore of deadly toxin can enter the rift upon a creature and the strangeness of fluxing time and space can help it grow into a fearsome rot-zombie before it emerges.
Tarluria is for peace and quiet, and with their mediations can help guide rift-travellers much more securely to avoid the flux. They specialise in straight up drawing cards from your rift, so you don't have to wait as long to get them. It could also have a scry-like mechanic, look at the top X cards of your library, exile one with a rift counter on it, put the others on the bottom of your library. Helps set up your draw, or other rift shenanigans.
What if you took Forgotten and simply made it a keyword for cards that have abilities that exile themselves from the graveyard? You could still use a lot of the same ideas you’ve already used, and there’s way more enabling for cards getting into your graveyard than exile, even outside of this set alone. Think of it like Scavenge, except it wouldn’t be exclusive to creatures and +1/+1 counters. That opens the way to also utilise the cards again later in a very set specific manner (really wouldn’t put the effect on many cards), those forgotten cards then could gain a rift counter in exile from another effect. Imagine, your rusted golem finally dies after being sent into battle. We break it down for parts, exiling it from the graveyard and gaining some benefit. Later in exile it gains a rift counter, and another long forgotten relic of the “race from before” emerges from the rift.
Alright @TheRacingTurtle I've got some feedback on your mechanic suggestions. First, the alternate version of your Twilight mechanic is not a bad idea. iirc there was a cycle of cards in lorywyn/shadowmoor block that had a hybrid cost that had ab effect for each color you used, or you got both effects if you spent both. Going back even further there was a cycle of wedge focused cards (can't recall what set, maybe onslaught) that had something like "kicker {1}{u} and/or {b}" that also cared about how you did it, so there is some precedent for it.
I gotta be honest, I'm not a fan of rift counters, at least not in the current state of them. I feel an oversaturation of them would be pretty unhealthy for the overall set/limited format.
As a more general note, Potato13's suggested tweak to wormhole is not bad, and I think something like it in general could work in several colors with many different triggers. The biggest concern I have in general with a lot of the old "exile matters" theme mechanic you had before is that when WotC tried it with battle for Zendikar and oath of the gatewatch, they found it took up too much space while still not being impactful enough. I'd recommend giving the storm scale article for that block a read.
@TheRacingTurtle I really like Twilight. I can already think of a few ways to use it. We will just need to remember to keep all of these cards in a place where if the twilight cost is paid, the spell isn't doing something that breaks the color pie (we shouldn't give a color like green access to black kill spells without needing black mana). Cards like this where it can keep their color identity when cast normally, but loses that color identity as a "colorless" spell:
I'm also thinking that twilight effects would just turn the spell into a colorless spell, so for my example, the _________ Cleric could be cast as a {1}{w} white creature with lifelink, or could be cast as a {2} base colorless creature. One other example I have of this right now is ________ Ritual, which could be cast as a small red ramp spell, or just some spell to help change mana into the right color you need:
(I just noticed that one of these images changed, I couldn't tell you what happened.)
For rifts, as RedTower said, we don't want to overuse any mechanics, and while I like the rift idea, I agree that maybe not every color can use it. I also think that we can keep the name "rift" in order to keep the wording shorter. However, I'm still a little unsure of how they might work. I like the idea of adding a card to your hand every turn, but I think that the person who has more cards with rift counters on them will just win since they have much more card advantage over time. I like the idea of discarding cards to get new ones, and I think that there could be a few cards that play with how you get some of those cards. This mechanic definitely needs to be polished up for it to become final.
I think that forgotten could definitely work as that type of mechanic. It would probably be a WG effect, with maybe a few black cards using it. I think that if any, only one forgotten card could enter the rift when being exiled. A card that this makes me think of is Eternal Scourge, which can be cast from exile. I don't think that there should be more than one card that can move into the rift from being forgotten:
So I think that Twilight is a definite mechanic. I really like it and I think it has some potential. Here's Twilight's description:
Twilight - You may cast this spell as if its mana cost was all generic mana. If you pay this cost, this spell becomes colorless and has its twilight effect.
Would have cards from all colors, but UG's archetype might focus on colorless cards.
For opening rifts, I have come up with a prototype idea for it:
Open a Rift - Exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may discard a card to add it to your hand; or if you have no cards in hand you may pay {2} to add it to your hand. At the beginning of your end step, put all cards opened in rifts into the graveyard.
It would make sense that the UR archetype uses this mechanic. BR or UB could also use this mechanic in other ways, focusing on the discard or sending to the graveyard aspect.
Forgotten could look something like this:
Forgotten [Cost] - Exile this card from your graveyard: [effect]. Activate forgotten abilities only at anytime you could cast a sorcery.
While it would make sense mechanically for this to be BG, I'd say that this could be a WG archetype, with BG using this mechanic a little bit (WG's archetype would focus on forgotten while BG could be focusing on cards leaving the graveyard).
For some of the other archetypes:
WU could be Astral-tribal, focusing on phasing out opponent's creatures and sealing them in meditation.
As stated earlier, BG could be focused on when cards leave your graveyard, through forgotten or other forms of recursion.
I still want WB to be Zombies vs. Humans, WR to be Vehicle and Artifact matters, and RG to be having your creatures survive damage.
Brainstormed mechanics: I've come up with a handful of possible mechanics. Obviously, some are much better than others, and some will make more sense in this set than others, but I'm just spitballing here.
Erasure - If a creature has left the battlefield this turn, [effect].
Similar to morbid, but would care about any form of leaving the battlefield (returning to hand, exile, sacrifice, etc.). This would probably be a blue/black control-type mechanic.
Astralize - This creature becomes an Astral in addition to its other creature types (until end of turn?).
I don't really know here, I was just trying to think of some mechanic.
Funeral - If a card has entered your graveyard this turn, [effect]
Another mechanic similar to morbid, but if the prototype idea for opening rifts stays the same, this mechanic could use the discard aspect to fuel their plans. This would probably be a BR aggro-style mechanic.
Bloodfury - If you have lost life this turn, [effect].
Another BR aggro-style ability. On Yartok, people are kinda always looking for a battle, so this would possibly work for that.
Weapons - This isn't a mechanic, but rather an artifact subtype. Similar to weapons in a game like Hearthstone, each has power, durability (each weapon enters the battlefield with a number of durability counters equal to its base durability), and each weapon has the effect "{t}: This deals damage equal to its power to any target. If a creature is dealt damage this way, it deals damage to you equal to its power. Then, remove a durability counter from this and sacrifice this if it has none left."
I really doubt that this one should be used. It could work mechanically, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it works flavor-wise. It would probably be a BR control-style subtype, with possibly some WR use. I'd say that they could work if Bloodfury also is a used mechanic, but I would say no otherwise.
I'm definitely leaning towards Erasure as one of the mechanics, as UB and BR are really the only two color pairs that doesn't have an idea for an archetype yet, and UB and BR could definitely use it in different ways (UB returning creatures to hand and payoff for other kinds of removal, BR could use it as a payoff for a sacrifice-based aggro strategy). It can also play into the "Space and time being warped" aspect of the plane, where we have rifts bringing things into Yungdrotha, and Erasure taking things out.
@WarriorCatInAhat Twilight allows you to play cards as if the entire mana cost was generic mana. Paying these costs counts as paying twilight costs. The drawback to paying a twilight cost is that you get a weaker effect.
I think this should be a ruling on Twilight, just to prevent storm combos from abusing 0 mana Twilight cards:
If an effect would reduce the cost of generic mana on a card with twilight, it will only reduce mana that is actually generic. For example, If you have a card with twilight that costs {1}{g}{g}, and there is an effect that reduces the mana cost of cards you cast by {3}, you will need to pay {2} mana for the twilight cost because the {g}{g} in the cost is still green, and as a result won't be reduced from your other effects.
Although I don't want to rush this process, I think that these could be the four primary mechanics (and what colors they are in):
Twilight (WUBRG) Open a Rift (UR) (Maybe some other color as well) Forgotten (WBG) Erasure (UBR)
If these are the locked in mechanics, then the archetypes will be:
WU - Astral tribal (Using astral creatures that phase out opponent's creatures). Control/Midrange
WB - Humans vs. Zombies (Humans buff your side, zombies wear down opponents creatures). Aggro/Midrange
WR - Vehicle and Artifacts (Getting large mechs out fairly early). Aggro
WG - Forgotten (Gaining benefits from activating forgotten effects). Control/Midrange
UB - Erasure (Removing opponent's creatures and gaining benefits while doing so). Control/Midrange
UR - Opening Rifts (Keeping a large hand to always have options for spells). Control
UG - Twilight and Colorless spells matters (Gaining bonuses for casting colorless spells). Midrange/Control
BR - Sacrifice Aggro (Sacrificing creatures, having some erasure effects).
BG - Cards leaving your graveyard (Gaining bonuses for removing cards from your graveyard). Midrange
RG - Damaging your own creatures (Psudeo enrage effects). Midrange/Aggro
Overall, I think that there is a good mix of aggro, midrange, and control strategies, and while Blue and Red seem to have the majority of mechanics, I think that there is still a good distribution of mechanics that I think this may work.
Current opinions so far on the mechanics and themes:
Twilight should be a no-go. People absolutely hated Phyrexian Mana, not only for the reason that it was too powerful, but that it laid waste to the color pie. We're going down the exact same path with that, which I find scary. In addition, it's hard to understand on paper and doesn't actually work as-is; when a keyword is in italics and followed by "--", it means that the keyword has no rules implications (Delirium has no rulings behind it, Battalion has no rulings behind it, eta.) and the entire effect is just what's after it. Even then, the "--" should only be used to describe or give a characteristic name to an ability, and not for keywords with rules implications.
Opening a rift could do a bit of cleaning up because of how long its effect is; removing the paying {2} clause from it and the "end of turn, put into graveyard" effect would help with complexity.
Erasure seems like a really needless mix of morbid and revolt - I'd suggest choosing one of those two instead.
I can see how twilight could be compared to phyrexian mana, but I think that its different in multiple ways (At least I think), that make it less broken. Phyrexian mana allowed you to pay life rather than colored mana which not only allowed you to basically get free mana, but it also allowed decks free access to some effects in other colors that they wouldn't normally be able to use. For twilight cards, you must pay mana, which means that you don't get free mana, and when you pay the fully colorless cost, the card's effects are reduced to something that a colorless spell could probably have.
As an example with twilight, we could see something like this, where you could technically use it in a red-white aggro deck, but without green mana, it acts as a colorless spell with a worse effect for the same mana value.
(Hopefully Twilight would work now, I know the wording still needs to be fixed.)
In my eyes, I'd say that twilight is more comparable to a better version of the split-mana cards, where instead of ramping up the cost for a colorless cost, the cost stays the same but the effect is reduced:
Twilight has the potential to be as broken as phyrexian mana, but I will make sure that all twilight effects won't break the color pie, at least to the point that it is as good as phyrexian mana. (I will make sure that there isn't anything like counterspells with twilight. And I'm starting to think that black doesn't need Twilight spells because I don't think that there are many colorless effects that can be compared to black effects.)
For rifts, it makes sense that the effect should be reduced to a minimum. If I want to have alternate ways to get cards from the rift, I'll keep them for effects on cards. After cutting it down, it looks like:
Open a Rift - Exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may discard a card to add it to your hand.
Erasure is just an idea mechanic, I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to be one of the mechanics. I know that it looked like I decided on the mechanics, but I said that was what the four main mechanics of the set could be, rather than declaring that those were the final mechanics. I'm just trying to brainstorm some ideas that could fit into UBR because the main two archetypes that don't have a single idea yet are UB and BR.
I wouldn't want morbid or revolt to be one of the primary mechanics of the set, because one of the main aspects of the plane is that sometimes other planes bleed into it, bringing mechanics from their plane to feature on a singular card in order to give some combination between old mechanics and Yungdrotha-exclusive mechanics. (Don't worry, op mechanics like storm and phyrexian mana aren't sneaking into the set this way.)
I think Twilight would either need to have the cost as generic mana next to the ability or maybe {X} in the reminder text instead of the {1} because right now the wording is a little confusing and also maybe not grammatically correct.
(Also, since revolt and morbid are just ability words - ie no rules meaning - you could pretty easily do something very similar with or without your own term for it, if you wanted.)
Twilight (You may cast this spell for its twilight cost by spending mana of any color to cast it. Spells cast this way are colorless.)
v2. (This wording is more based on Overload and Miracles wording. Fairly confident in this one functioning as intended.) [Cost] presumably equal to its mana cost but using generic mana.
Twilight [cost] (You may cast this spell for its twilight cost. If you do, it becomes colorless.)
v3. (This wording is based off Awakens wording, which I think would work and be shorter, but maybe "less correct" than v2.) [Cost] presumably equal to its mana cost but using generic mana.
Twilight [cost] (If you cast this card for [cost], it becomes colorless.)
Of all of these I think v2 is probably the best/most accurate, but I wanted to go through the possible permutations I thought of and researched.
I think that I've been trying to complicate it so that you can't just reduce the cost to cast them and cast a bunch of twilight spells for free all in one turn. Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about storm decks and this mechanic, seeming that I don't think that there will be very little if any, damage spells that deal damage to players. (I only really play magic casually, so I don't really know modern decklists and what types of cards are used in those types of decks.)
Unconditional generic cost reduction isn't super common that I would make it a primary concern, just avoid making anything with 2 or less cost. It's going to be tough to balance in other ways though. (Someone better with the rules would have to say if cost reduction based on the color of the card would consider the card to be the original color or colorless when paying for it, but I think it would be seen as colorless, which reduces options further)
I think the biggest concern will be making sure that the reduced effect isn't strong enough that it breaks things by being playable in any deck. I'd suggest looking at the cards with Phyrexian mana that have seen the most play/caused the most trouble so you have an idea of what level of effects you need to keep your Twilight cards under.
The other thought I just had, which I know may not be the most appealing, is to use Colorless mana symbols. I'm personally kind of fond of them, and could see it as a very solid way to limit people from just throwing it in their deck without having mana sources to back up one of the two costs.
Colorless symbols could actually work. Maybe colored mana symbols just turn into colorless symbols in the twilight cost.
I think that especially for instant and sorceries, it would be best to compare effects to some actual cards, and make weaker effects that could probably be seen on colorless spells. For instance, a new version of opt, but for one colorless you just scry, and don't draw a card.
So, the easy way to do that without having to get creative with some wording, would be to use the wording I gave you, but just make it so if a card's mana cost was {3}{G} the twilight cost would be {3}{C}. Otherwise I can help come up with wording that is more like the v1. wording I made but adding in the thing about colorless. Assuming you do end up wanting to use colorless. It does certainly help avoid (or at least reduce) some of the balancing issues.
I think that colorless mana would definitely help with the balancing, but I think that if that is how twilight is going to work, then I think that there should be some extra mechanic that helps create colorless mana.
I'm thinking something like:
Voidtouched - Mana this permanent taps for is also treated as colorless mana.
The wording is probably off, but it could be compared to how snow lands produce mana that is both a specific color and snow mana.
I'm not sure that you need a keyworded mechanic for it. You could just add like "Voidtouched" to the name of a nonbasic land cycle and maybe a mana dork and give them the ability to tap for colorless. You also have the option to copy Wastes, but since they don't have a subtype you could name them something else and it wouldn't make a difference. I've been thinking about lands and mana and colorless a lot lately so sorry if I'm over-stepping/overdoing things in this.
That's fair. I think those lands would probably look something like this:
I didn't make it enter the battlefield tapped because it's not like it's tapping for another color (other than colorless) or has any other abilities, and it's non-basic so it should fairly even out.
How didn't I realize that wastes didn't have a subtype? I just assumed that their subtype was waste.
Also, don't worry about overstepping. It's kinda nice to have at least another set of eyes to make sure I'm not making things too broken, and I'm kinda hoping that people will give card ideas, similar to Rezatta.
Yeah, I think that's probably fine as is, although it might need some playtesting to say for sure. Also could probably be common.
And yeah, Wastes don't have a subtype because there are a lot of major rule ramifications for adding another basic land type that WotC just didn't want to deal with. The like, two cards that refer to Wastes have to say something like "a land named Wastes." Technically they have no inherent ability and they have oracle text saying they tap for colorless.
I agree having extra eyes on something helps catch mistakes or problems early. I'll definitely help throw some ideas in soon, just busy with some other challenges that I'm trying to get done before I branch out into other stuff.
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And, my comments on the cards and mechanics:
Finally, as a general note that I hope doesn't come off as too condescending, I feel as if designing this set requires a greater grasp and expertise on MTG's formats and its deck archetypes than what is currently going on - the talk about Devolve and Scornful Egotist being an actual deck makes me feel that people don't know how truly degenerate formats like modern and pioneer are, with the former already having a better version of that combo that can win on turn 1 or turn 2 pretty consistently called Neobrand, and it doesn't even see play in modern anymore.
On the mechanics, I can see how, as you say, that all of the mechanics are all bant-focused. And I definitely didn't have many existing cards in mind when creating them, especially forgotten. However, I disagree that manaweave is just a multicolor mechanic. While yes, it can be boring on some cards, manaweave can be used for any form of paying mana. For example, Kozilek cares about what color of mana your opponent may pay:
It's sad to say that you're right and that I will need to rework a lot of this, but I would rather have a final product that could seem like an actual magic set rather than just a random mashup of cards that I like.
Thank you
In that case...
Everyone!! let's start brainstorming some new mechanics:
I hope to keep manaweave and some version close to opening wormholes (but they can change or be replaced entirely, as long as we come up with some better ones). Any ideas?
Yungdrotha
The Base Planets of this set:
WU - WU's planet is Tarluria, a peaceful planet where people go for peace and quiet.
WB - WB's planet is Xantria, a planet of plagues and apocalypse. Humans are trying to fight back and survive against the festering horde.
WR - WR's planet is Polina, a planet where an ancient race has gone extinct, leaving only their high-tech robotics, which is now called the Rust-Ruin mechs.
WG - WG's planet is Wintrea, a planet of dreams.
UB - UB's planet is Bellania, a planet of evil and mystery.
UR - UR's planet is Gornixia, a planet of storms.
UG - UG's planet is Lumoria, a planet covered in oceans, and filled with beautiful underwater lights.
BR - BR's planet is Yartok, a plane that's atmosphere gives everyone the feeling of wanting to hit something.
BG - BG's planet is Grimloch, a rotting planet of death and decay. Most of its inhabitants are sentient plants and fungus.
RG - RG's planet is Vanira, a planet where everything is on fire, and even touching something can light it on fire.
"Yungdrotha is a very flexible plane, and its mana allows for some spells to be cast easier. However, if the correct mana isn't used, the spell will be cast with a weaker result."
Spells can have an alternate casting cost that does not include any coloured mana symbols used in the full cost of the spell and is maybe cheaper, but then it's effects are correspondingly less. This would also help in the limited environment of the set, as you could more easily "splash" colours across the ten two-coloured worlds, without as strong a concern for mana fixing. Think of it as reverse Kicker, or opposite Adamant. You get the rewards for paying the mana cost properly, but can still force casting it with a weaker result.
The definition of twilight is "the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon", or "a period or state of obscurity, ambiguity, or gradual decline.", both of which I feel reflect the mechanic and is suitable for the sci-fi nature of the set.
Alternatively, knowing the risk of making these spells completely colour free could be pretty dangerous (in a constructed environment, giving decks the opportunity to completely ditch their colour restrictions means balancing the card is going to be so much harder) you could limit this effect to dual-coloured spells only. Then, the alternate cost is cheaper, but uses hybrid mana symbols instead. In the example above, the twilight cost would be U/R U/R. Still best to be played in a UR deck, but splashable in decks with only one of the colours. Then you're a bit safer designing for the constructed environment.
Rift counters - "As long as you own one or more cards in exile with a rift counter on it, at the beginning of your upkeep, put one of those cards in your hand."
For example:
Open the Path
Instant 2U
Rift - Exile the top three cards of your library and put a rift counter on each one. As long as you own one or more cards in exile with a rift counter on it, at the beginning of your upkeep, put one of those cards in your hand.
As well as cards that put things into exile with rift counters, you can then have cards refer to things while they're there, or help speed up getting them out of the rift. I'm not sold on the name myself, but opening a wurmhole is very wordy, and "warp" didn't feel right. Rifts have already been used as a concept for gateways through space and time in Magic, so I'm sticking to that for now.
Here's the different applications I can think of for this ability:
As inter-planetary/long-distance travel. This is your card advantage, but it takes some time to travel those long distances, so you'll get it next turn. Because Yungdrotha is so in flux for space/time, some cards that leave earlier may not necessarily get here until after cards that entered the rift later (you added more cards to exile with rift counters, and chose the more relevant one sooner).
As an offensive capability. Exile permanents an opponent controls with a rift counter on it. It may just be a temporary respite, it may actually help them more having it there, but it's a way to make removal unique to your plane (similar to phasing out opponents creatures like we talked about previously). Something I would use very rarely as it isn't applicable outside your set, but you could have some card effects remove rift counters from opponent's cards in exile. They're lost to the rift now!
As a defensive capability. Want to dodge a kill spell or wrath? Your devious creature can escape to the rift! Or maybe when the undying Gods or mysterious immortals of your plane die, they are instead exiled with rift counters on them. They'll be back!
Bellania is mysterious, it exiles cards with rift counters face down. That way your opponent doesn't know what's coming from beyond the dark reaches of space. Think a card that lets you search your library for any card, and exile it face-down with a rift counter on it. Either next turn you'll draw it, or you're playing some other effect which cares about that card in the rift.
Gornixia is full of storms, and things can happen at random. It could feature cards that let you draw or cast cards from the rift at random, so you don't have to wait to draw one per turn. The coming storm - deals damage to a creature at random, where that damage is equal to a creature you own in exile with a rift counter.
Yartok specialised in sacrificing permanents or life to summon creatures from the rift directly. Maybe it can also steal away your opponent's creatures from the rift.
Grimloch likes to recur things from the graveyard, and does that by sending the cards into the rift first. It's a transformative process, where a single spore of deadly toxin can enter the rift upon a creature and the strangeness of fluxing time and space can help it grow into a fearsome rot-zombie before it emerges.
Tarluria is for peace and quiet, and with their mediations can help guide rift-travellers much more securely to avoid the flux. They specialise in straight up drawing cards from your rift, so you don't have to wait as long to get them. It could also have a scry-like mechanic, look at the top X cards of your library, exile one with a rift counter on it, put the others on the bottom of your library. Helps set up your draw, or other rift shenanigans.
First, the alternate version of your Twilight mechanic is not a bad idea. iirc there was a cycle of cards in lorywyn/shadowmoor block that had a hybrid cost that had ab effect for each color you used, or you got both effects if you spent both. Going back even further there was a cycle of wedge focused cards (can't recall what set, maybe onslaught) that had something like "kicker {1}{u} and/or {b}" that also cared about how you did it, so there is some precedent for it.
I gotta be honest, I'm not a fan of rift counters, at least not in the current state of them. I feel an oversaturation of them would be pretty unhealthy for the overall set/limited format.
As a more general note, Potato13's suggested tweak to wormhole is not bad, and I think something like it in general could work in several colors with many different triggers. The biggest concern I have in general with a lot of the old "exile matters" theme mechanic you had before is that when WotC tried it with battle for Zendikar and oath of the gatewatch, they found it took up too much space while still not being impactful enough. I'd recommend giving the storm scale article for that block a read.
I'm also thinking that twilight effects would just turn the spell into a colorless spell, so for my example, the _________ Cleric could be cast as a {1}{w} white creature with lifelink, or could be cast as a {2} base colorless creature. One other example I have of this right now is ________ Ritual, which could be cast as a small red ramp spell, or just some spell to help change mana into the right color you need:
(I just noticed that one of these images changed, I couldn't tell you what happened.)
For rifts, as RedTower said, we don't want to overuse any mechanics, and while I like the rift idea, I agree that maybe not every color can use it. I also think that we can keep the name "rift" in order to keep the wording shorter. However, I'm still a little unsure of how they might work. I like the idea of adding a card to your hand every turn, but I think that the person who has more cards with rift counters on them will just win since they have much more card advantage over time. I like the idea of discarding cards to get new ones, and I think that there could be a few cards that play with how you get some of those cards. This mechanic definitely needs to be polished up for it to become final.
I think that forgotten could definitely work as that type of mechanic. It would probably be a WG effect, with maybe a few black cards using it. I think that if any, only one forgotten card could enter the rift when being exiled. A card that this makes me think of is Eternal Scourge, which can be cast from exile. I don't think that there should be more than one card that can move into the rift from being forgotten:
For opening rifts, I have come up with a prototype idea for it:
Forgotten could look something like this:
For some of the other archetypes:
Brainstormed mechanics:
I've come up with a handful of possible mechanics. Obviously, some are much better than others, and some will make more sense in this set than others, but I'm just spitballing here.
I'm definitely leaning towards Erasure as one of the mechanics, as UB and BR are really the only two color pairs that doesn't have an idea for an archetype yet, and UB and BR could definitely use it in different ways (UB returning creatures to hand and payoff for other kinds of removal, BR could use it as a payoff for a sacrifice-based aggro strategy). It can also play into the "Space and time being warped" aspect of the plane, where we have rifts bringing things into Yungdrotha, and Erasure taking things out.
I'll admit, it doesn't look the greatest, but it's just an idea.
Twilight (WUBRG)
Open a Rift (UR) (Maybe some other color as well)
Forgotten (WBG)
Erasure (UBR)
If these are the locked in mechanics, then the archetypes will be:
I can see how twilight could be compared to phyrexian mana, but I think that its different in multiple ways (At least I think), that make it less broken. Phyrexian mana allowed you to pay life rather than colored mana which not only allowed you to basically get free mana, but it also allowed decks free access to some effects in other colors that they wouldn't normally be able to use. For twilight cards, you must pay mana, which means that you don't get free mana, and when you pay the fully colorless cost, the card's effects are reduced to something that a colorless spell could probably have.
As an example with twilight, we could see something like this, where you could technically use it in a red-white aggro deck, but without green mana, it acts as a colorless spell with a worse effect for the same mana value.
(Hopefully Twilight would work now, I know the wording still needs to be fixed.)
In my eyes, I'd say that twilight is more comparable to a better version of the split-mana cards, where instead of ramping up the cost for a colorless cost, the cost stays the same but the effect is reduced:
Twilight has the potential to be as broken as phyrexian mana, but I will make sure that all twilight effects won't break the color pie, at least to the point that it is as good as phyrexian mana. (I will make sure that there isn't anything like counterspells with twilight. And I'm starting to think that black doesn't need Twilight spells because I don't think that there are many colorless effects that can be compared to black effects.)
For rifts, it makes sense that the effect should be reduced to a minimum. If I want to have alternate ways to get cards from the rift, I'll keep them for effects on cards. After cutting it down, it looks like:
Erasure is just an idea mechanic, I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to be one of the mechanics. I know that it looked like I decided on the mechanics, but I said that was what the four main mechanics of the set could be, rather than declaring that those were the final mechanics. I'm just trying to brainstorm some ideas that could fit into UBR because the main two archetypes that don't have a single idea yet are UB and BR.
I wouldn't want morbid or revolt to be one of the primary mechanics of the set, because one of the main aspects of the plane is that sometimes other planes bleed into it, bringing mechanics from their plane to feature on a singular card in order to give some combination between old mechanics and Yungdrotha-exclusive mechanics. (Don't worry, op mechanics like storm and phyrexian mana aren't sneaking into the set this way.)
(Also, since revolt and morbid are just ability words - ie no rules meaning - you could pretty easily do something very similar with or without your own term for it, if you wanted.)
Maybe like this?:
Twilight (You may cast this spell for its twilight cost by spending mana of any color to cast it. Spells cast this way are colorless.)
v2. (This wording is more based on Overload and Miracles wording. Fairly confident in this one functioning as intended.)
[Cost] presumably equal to its mana cost but using generic mana.
Twilight [cost] (You may cast this spell for its twilight cost. If you do, it becomes colorless.)
v3. (This wording is based off Awakens wording, which I think would work and be shorter, but maybe "less correct" than v2.)
[Cost] presumably equal to its mana cost but using generic mana.
Twilight [cost] (If you cast this card for [cost], it becomes colorless.)
Of all of these I think v2 is probably the best/most accurate, but I wanted to go through the possible permutations I thought of and researched.
I think that I've been trying to complicate it so that you can't just reduce the cost to cast them and cast a bunch of twilight spells for free all in one turn. Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about storm decks and this mechanic, seeming that I don't think that there will be very little if any, damage spells that deal damage to players. (I only really play magic casually, so I don't really know modern decklists and what types of cards are used in those types of decks.)
(Someone better with the rules would have to say if cost reduction based on the color of the card would consider the card to be the original color or colorless when paying for it, but I think it would be seen as colorless, which reduces options further)
I think the biggest concern will be making sure that the reduced effect isn't strong enough that it breaks things by being playable in any deck.
I'd suggest looking at the cards with Phyrexian mana that have seen the most play/caused the most trouble so you have an idea of what level of effects you need to keep your Twilight cards under.
The other thought I just had, which I know may not be the most appealing, is to use Colorless mana symbols. I'm personally kind of fond of them, and could see it as a very solid way to limit people from just throwing it in their deck without having mana sources to back up one of the two costs.
I think that especially for instant and sorceries, it would be best to compare effects to some actual cards, and make weaker effects that could probably be seen on colorless spells. For instance, a new version of opt, but for one colorless you just scry, and don't draw a card.
Otherwise I can help come up with wording that is more like the v1. wording I made but adding in the thing about colorless.
Assuming you do end up wanting to use colorless. It does certainly help avoid (or at least reduce) some of the balancing issues.
I'm thinking something like:
The wording is probably off, but it could be compared to how snow lands produce mana that is both a specific color and snow mana.
You also have the option to copy Wastes, but since they don't have a subtype you could name them something else and it wouldn't make a difference.
I've been thinking about lands and mana and colorless a lot lately so sorry if I'm over-stepping/overdoing things in this.
I didn't make it enter the battlefield tapped because it's not like it's tapping for another color (other than colorless) or has any other abilities, and it's non-basic so it should fairly even out.
How didn't I realize that wastes didn't have a subtype? I just assumed that their subtype was waste.
Also, don't worry about overstepping. It's kinda nice to have at least another set of eyes to make sure I'm not making things too broken, and I'm kinda hoping that people will give card ideas, similar to Rezatta.
And yeah, Wastes don't have a subtype because there are a lot of major rule ramifications for adding another basic land type that WotC just didn't want to deal with. The like, two cards that refer to Wastes have to say something like "a land named Wastes." Technically they have no inherent ability and they have oracle text saying they tap for colorless.
I agree having extra eyes on something helps catch mistakes or problems early. I'll definitely help throw some ideas in soon, just busy with some other challenges that I'm trying to get done before I branch out into other stuff.