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Atlantis-Themed Set
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- Emerge on noncreature spells is really fun, but it isn't as great when it requires you to control another creature. In addition, sacrificing a permanent creature for a one-time effect doesn't feel worth it unless the effect is powerful enough.
Fun Examples:Not-so Fun Examples:
- The balancing on emerge costs is very tricky. Sacrificing a 3-drop and paying one mana to destroy a creature feels relatively balanced (It might even be fine at sacrificing a 2 or even 1 drop), but then there's cards where it's much harder to tell what the correct cost should be.
- I think that having cards that do more when you cast them for an emerge cost sometimes is fine, like with Crushing Coils and Dreadmaw Ship above, but found them to be better when the emerge cost was higher than the normal cost.
- I also did play with an effect that made it act as a 4 drop when sacrificed for a cost, even though it was a 2 drop, and it didn't play as I hoped it would. It felt too strong. Maybe if it was a 5 drop being treated as a 7+ mana creature, it would have been ok, but the extra mana reduction early on felt too strong.
- Sacrificing more than one creature for an emerge cost didn't really come up. I think that having double X for a cost made it seem not that worth it.
Here are some of my favorite performing cards:I was looking forward to a big Looming Wave play, but it didn't happen. I think that it not only was because of the pricy BBB requirement, but also because I didn't really have any way to put a big creature into the graveyard. I am going to hold onto this effect, and see if modifying it will perform better.
I'm still having a hard time with determining whether Emerge is better in Jund or Grixis, but it might be better to wait until all the mechanics are decided on.
Here's what I came up with:
As you can see, it would definitely be a WG mechanic, but I can also see it being black (It could also be red, but I'm feeling hesitant on red merfolk).
https://discord.gg/ANbD3Esu
You could start to build your set of commons instead, if you prefer, that's probably the best way to pinpoint what are your needs in terms of themes and mechanics ^^ The important thing is to understand why combat-related mechanics are so common in MTG sets. As you make your commons, you're going to arrive to a point where you feel like one of your colours only have one valid theme and you can only make so much cards around that. Or you're going to feel like you have inspiration with the creatures but all your noncreature spells feel like they're not doing anything specifically for your set. That's usually your cue to add a new mechanic. A priori, I'd say once you've gone through the process of making the first 101 commons you're probably going to crave a mechanic that can go on creature of the colours that don't have access to Emerge ^^
Here's the bible of starting to fill your commons: NUTS & BOLTS #13: DESIGN SKELETON REVISITED
White - I've been thinking about how we can keep White in the picture while being underwater... I've had an idea for some kind of underwater city or perhaps facility? Something that houses a large population of pretty much normal beings... While you can ignore the mountains in the background of this image.. I had the question in my mind of what would be their purpose?
This image kind of gave me the idea that perhaps before this plane became flooded (if that's what happened), the humans that lived above surface created a massive wall like structure to block off sections of the ocean. Thus creating a barrier where they could monitor and control in some way what type of life enters the perimeter. Implying that this race could potentially be working out a way to isolate a plot of ocean scape that they could relatively safely work on constructing artificial land perhaps... or more simply... live out the duration of the flood until it recedes and they can return to land.
This concept would involve some traditional white mechanics of "control and detainment." As well, you could toss in a few cards for boosting defenses... preserving life... even some artificers.
If we have a peaceful or perhaps paranoid colony of people living cautiously underwater... they would need ways to get to the surface... but they couldn't live on the surface.. they would need a safe haven to return to.
A little bit of flavor to go along with this concept: "I look up at the water's surface and see waves rolling along, like clouds in the sky."
I actually did plan on having an underwater city/kingdom, but the thought was that it's where most merfolk live. I don't currently have a name for the location yet, but the motivation of the merfolk from this city is to protect it from invaders and thieves who are looking for treasure and magical artifacts.
Would it make more sense to start with making the signpost uncommons so I have a clearer picture of archetypes, and how much of each color should be devoted to that archetype?
I know WOTC said they don't do it like that, but I find it useful to test various bicoloured draft archetypes early just to get a better sense of what themes work or not. They apparently play a soup of different one-of themes and use that to identify what's fun or not, killing the not fun stuff and making more of the fun things until the set organically grows into something playable. If you do the signposts method, just keep in mind that they're meant to be changed often, not lock you this early into any theme.
About the as-fan of the directional cards:
For the as-fan (=proportion) of "directional" cards in each colour that are dedicated to each draft archetype, it really depends on the theme. The more parasitic is the theme, the more support it is going to need. Basically, you need to ask yourself how many cards with a certain attribute you wand to show up in a typical draft/sealed pool, that's your as-fan. You can get some inspiration from mechanics that are similar to what you're doing in existing sets. There's a cool web site that lets you get a sense of the as-fan of themes in existing sets: As-Fan Calculator. In general, you'll want 2 or 3 cards at both common and uncommon that do the thing you care about in each colour where it matters (outside of stuff like tribes, card types, etc. that can go much higher easily).
But the bottom line (and that's an advice from WOTC themselves, not me) is that you need to get a sense of the as-fan in playtest. Adjust the number of cards with each theme based on how it feels when drafting.
I have decided that Emerge will be in Jund colors. I am thinking that some BR cards care if you sacrificed a permanent that turn, and some RG cards have pseudo-ferocious, but I don't currently have an idea to tie BG cards into emerge or sea monsters.
Here's what I have defined for each color so far:
White - 4+ cards in your harbor, maybe some tap-related stuff? Not much else
Blue - Sink/self-mill, maybe some harbor-related shenanigans.
Black - Emerge/If you sacrificed a permanent, sink/self-mill.
Red - Emerge/If you sacrificed a permanent/pseudo-ferocious, 4+ cards in your harbor.
Green - Emerge/pseudo-ferocious. Not much else
White:
Blue:
Black:
Red:
Green:
I think that five of the archetypes could have a third supporting color, similar to Rezatta. For example, since Emerge is BRG, I think it makes sense if BG specifically cares about emerge the most, and red is a supporting color.
Since I'm gonna have treasure tokens and a few vehicles in this set, I was suggested an artifact matters archetype, which I think could be UR with maybe a little support from W (But I'm not entirely sure what the specific strategy could be).
I do think I want a tap-related archetype, so I was thinking a "If you control three or more tapped nonland permanents" archetype could be fun. I think it could be in WU or WG.
I'm going to answer your post from above but I don't want you to feel pressured to answer now. It's a good thing to take a step back regularly anyways then come back with a pair of fresh eyes, so don't answer until you have the time
1) Using a third supporting colour could be a good idea, what I like about this method of constructing a set skeleton is that it simplifies the number of themes you have, especially at common. However, it's a bit early to take that kind of decision since you don't have enough major themes yet. On Rezatta, that decision made sense to me because I wanted to emphasise different ways of caring about life, which became the major archetypes (in an earlier version, each colour had a specific way of caring about life that was tied to their own mechanic—I'm putting some earlier card designs from Rezatta in the spoiler box below just to show you the concept; This later became one mechanic, renewal).
2) An artifact subtheme could totally be a thing, but the synergy is low enough in this set that I wouldn't start with it as a basis unless you want to really commit to the artifact theme and really make it a secondary theme linked to being underwater. In general, you want to find the most important archetypes for the feel of your set, then fill in the rest based on what's synergistic with your main archetypes.
Since you've expressed that you wanted to care more about the library than usual, I'd suggest starting here. Plan out all the ways you could care about the library, what are the suggestions among them that sound like fun archetypes. We know there's a harbour archetype somewhere. A mill archetype is probably a good idea. What about an archetype that exiles cards from your library to use them later, for instance? Or maybe something that cares about the top card of your library (synergies with harbour!) to care about the library in a way that doesn't empty it. What about a graveyard archetype that uses the graveyard as a ressource but instead of exiling the cards it puts them back in your library (synergy with mill)? From my experience with Rezatta, I'd say you need three major themes around your core concept before it starts feeling like the core concept.
3) I would give the same comment than above about a "tap-matters" archetype: Why not, but I wouldn't start there. Put the foundation for the archetypes that support the feel of your set, then see if "tap-matters" synergises with at least two of them so it can fill a void between the two archetypes. A priori, I think the best shot at this theme to exist would be if you naturally end up with a keyword that's an activated ability that taps as a cost (like Outlast). In a vacuum, I'd say it could be an interesting archetype for an aggro build, like battalion but with more synergies. Maybe treasures could be synergistic with it if it cared about the moment a nonland permanent was tapped but not if it stayed on the battlefield.
I'll admit, I'm not one to completely drop something even after recognizing that I NEED to focus on something else, I probably will still think about this a lot while trying to catch back up. I might post a small little idea once or twice, but I will mostly be making a google document of any idea that gets me really exited, so I can share those ideas once I'm at a point where doing this isn't procrastination.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/user/feralitator/sets/63935?page=1
WU - Inscribe
WB - +1/+1 counters?
WR - 4+ cards in your harbor
WG - Second Spell?
UB - Self-mill
UR - Vehicles?
UG - Sink
BR - Sacrificing permanents
BG - "Creature Mastery" (Aka: Having two or more creature cards in your graveyard)
RG - Pseudo-ferocious
The main part of this would be that the card is put on the bottom of the library at the end of the turn, so it could be used as triggered abilities as well, but it would mostly be activated abilities.
Thanks to @Arceus8523, I have uploaded my current version of all commons and uncommons onto Planesculptors. I'm currently working on rares, but I will probably do more rebalancing of commons and uncommons. Also, I will probably change some humans into merfolk for flavor reasons. This shouldn't change the balance of the set at all since there isn't any tribal synergies.
Here's the list of commons and uncommons (Along with one mythic) so far:
https://www.planesculptors.net/set/nerotomea