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Renaissance Set — Design Phase
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I'm unsure it's the right slot for this card though:
- It has some memory issues that are difficult to fix.
- It requires to have strong understanding of the rules and the different card types that exist, a lot of new players would probably try to name "Vampire" or things like this.
- Nothing really requires this to be multicoloured, I believe it can be monoblue.
This points towards a monocoloured Rare rather than a gold uncommon I'd say.
It could be interesting to squeeze a small reward for using Discover on the signpost card as well. Maybe we can come up with a way of saying "when you Discover and actually find what you were looking for", for instance: "Whenever you make a successful discovery, EFFECT"
After winter, there always must come spring...
It's a bit broken... if you have two of these on the battlefield, you're getting three free mana every turn.
Add "Cumulative upkeep {g}" to make it slightly less OP. Maybe...
That's also why I would typically not make any psylian life producer uncounterable. Considering the mechanic's potential to make infinite combos, that would be playing with fire.
Going the other road, putting the ability on a creature could make it more interactable, and saves us a precious enchantment slot ^^
@sanjaya666 Cumulative upkeep is not an evergreen mechanic and not part of this set's mechanics, so you would have to write the whole "At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on CARDNAME. Then you may pay (cost) for each age counter on it. If you don’t, sacrifice it." It would make the cumulative upkeep ability five times longer than what the card actually does which is not ideal
Let me make this more clear: Since this is an emotion-centralized set, downplaying the importance of some emotions actively works against our theme.
That being said, there do need to be some downplayed emotions/color identities so that, as you said, the set is more "readable." However, in an optimistic set, the downplayed emotions should be the negative ones, not the positive ones.
Not to say that we want all positive emotions; to clear things up, I wasn't proposing that particular emotion cycle in earnest for this set. I was trying to give an example off the top of my head of more positive versions.
That was pretty stupid of me to say that solitude covers the rest XD I don't know what the heck I was thinking... :::self-deprecatory laugh:::
My point was, in general, that since this is an emotion set, my opinion is that we should want to represent all emotions more equally than in other sets.
@Everybody, we REALLY need to get the story cleaned up before we can move on with the design of the set. So far, we have........
The world of Rezztta (Resoria? Estoria? What the heck did we choose anyway? XD) is an archipelago locked in an everlasting cycle. Every few decades, mysterious extraplanar entities known as the Muses appear and emotions run wild, soaring to the heights of joy, love, passion, and ambition; but also despair, rage, grief, anger, and greed. The Arrival heralds years of plenty, rejoicing, and artistry. The greatest creations of the greatest artists Awaken and come to life during this time. Strolling down the cobbled streets of a town overlooking the sea dotted with countless islands, one might pass a swirl of colors gamboling through the air: a poem come to life. Or ephemeral music wafting down the avenue with twinkling lights throughout, a song Awakened. Or a sculpture lumbering down, animated by this magic of emotions. Or a multicolored puddle seeping into the cracks in the street, with abstract figures rising up from it and twining around each other, the manifestation of a dance.
Salendi Kortha, a gregarious painter; Maren Farsight, a wise and introspective poet; Ekoma Rai, a musician whose voice has been silenced, Jennel of Matereth, a stoic and determined sculptor; and Kedrah Selme, a roguishly charming and unabashed plagiarist. These five, three humans, an elf, and an aven, are destined for a fate greater than their wildest imaginings.
...cut to the chase...
Bad people tryin' to harness the power of the Muses, led by a 'walker who is probably an inventor named Vicine and a Da Vinci - inspired character. The characters meet and find out about the plot. Kedrah joins the baddies. Vicine gains power over the Muse of Greed with a Zendikari hedron, but is corrupted by the power and the unadulterated greed coursing through his veins and kills his followers before moving on to try and get the rest of the Grand Muses. Kedrah stabs him in the back (literally and metaphorically) and takes his place, but joins up with the others. Plot twist: the Muses that the guy captured join with the characters and they become the new Muses.
There are several things we need to clear up. Input?
I don't think it's overpowered, actually I don't think you need to let the opponent the choice to ignore the effect, it would probably still be fine. I really like this kind of effects, and they happen to fit super well with the Rogue subtheme of Rezatta!
If you're doing a curse, you should have the name be "Curse of NAME" though. Another solution would be to make a regular enchantment and have you choose the player at the beginning of each of your end step for instance ^^
Stealing cards from the top of an opponent's library is less powerful than drawing from your own library because those cards aren't supposed to synergize with yours. Admittedly it's much funnier though x) What I really like is that this curse lets you target yourself like some kind of weird Phyrexian Arena. That would probably be a good twist for this iconic card, by the way!
Here's a try:
Kedrah's Arena
2BB
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant player
At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, that player exiles the top card of his or her library face down and loses 1 life. For as long as that card remains exiled, you may look at it, you may cast it, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast it.
@MagicChess
On Emotions:
Sorry, I'm really confused by what you said on the emotions, I'm receiving mixed signals and can't really understand in which direction you're trying to push. I think I misunderstand something (sorry), so I'm going to explain the two contradictions I'm receiving, would you mind re-explaining your stance about them for me?
1) About how we represent one specific colour: There is both a paragraph about representing the emotions in each colour without downplaying some, and a paragraph about which emotion to choose to represent each colour.
==> I'm not sure I really understand what you're saying, do you mean you'd like to do some sort of "Muse of X, Y and Z" for each colour to be as exhaustive as possible? Through the Muse cycle, I think the best way is to make some hard choices and stick to one emotion per Muse for readability, but choosing the most "primary" emotions so they are linked to a very broad spectrum of other emotions. For the rest of the set, we're free to depict as many different emotions as we'd like independantly of the five emotions we choose for the Muses, though those five emotions will get the most focus.
2) About how we represent the balance of emotions in the set: There is both a paragraph about how we should focus on the positive emotions (giving exclusively positive emotions to the Grand Muses notably) to match the optimistic mood we're trying to set, and a paragraph about how all emotions should be represented more equally in an emotion set than in any other set.
==> Once again I'm a bit lost ^^" I believe what you're trying to push is for a cycle of Muses like "Joy/Curiosity/Pride/Desire/Love"? I believe positive emotions are very redundant (basically, they're all different flavours of Joy) which would make it very difficult to design interesting and diversified gameplay. More importantly, I believe that letting very important emotions like sadness and anger (or a flavour of them) out of the Muse cycle really undermines the emotion theme of the entire set. We probably can make an optimistic set even with some cards depicting things like sadness. Kaladesh had some really moving cards, they just had a way of presenting nonoptimistic things in a certain elegant way (see below), but if we have to choose between doing the emotions properly or doing only a part of them to keep the set optimistic, I personally think we should always prioritize having good and compelling emotions.
On the Story:
You can call the plane how you prefer for now ^^ Actually, it would be interesting to get used to different names and see if we grow fond of one more than the others.
I'm noticing Vicine is too close to Da Vinci, we might call the Da Vinci character that but we shouldn't give that name to another character, it's going to be confusing otherwise. But Vicine is a real italian word (it's an adjective for close or neighbouring) so it's probably not a very good name option in a vaccum anyway.
For the plot resolution, I think it would be interesting to make random story cards and see what fits well. For instance, the hedron story is fun, but I don't think there's a way of showing that on the cards (it's fine if we don't show eveything on the cards, but maybe we have better options.)
We should be careful of being too restrictive with defined emotions for each color, and of downplaying positive emotions too much.
I think was being a little (a little?) tactless. I have no wish to disrupt the set-building process, or put down your Muses, which are actually really great. I also was being very blunt in my recent comments, so I really ended up overstating some things. I apologize again; sometimes I think part of me is still back 6 months ago when the set was color-matters with an enchantment subtheme XD
On a happier note, how many languages do you speak??? You've found real French, Portuguese, and Italian words in my names XD You're a linguist or you have an obsessive habit of translating everything you see... one or the other.
Either way, you've saved us several times from awkward questions far in the future. "We finished a set called Estoria with a character named Vicine!" "The set is called 'cartoon character' or 'mystery' with a guy named 'adjacent'?"
EDIT: @ningyounk Your Grand Muse of Love has a typo. It says "Hate".
Ah I get what you're were saying, we should try to be careful not to have the negative emotions make the greater portion of this set, and make sure to diversify our range of emotions in each colour, independantly of the emotion represented by the grand Muse of that colour ^^ I completely agree, it's good to foresee this kind of problems at the beginning.
Don't worry, I haven't found your comments blunt or tactless at all personally ^^ And it's okay to get heated up a bit while arguing I completely get that
Haha I only speak french and english, I studied italian and latin which can come especially handy for this set I and understand a bit of japanese (which is absolutely useless for this set XD) For the portuguese, well all latin languages kinda use the same radicals so all our words look alike x)
Giovanni as a common italian name, I think it's fine to use as long as we make sure the character doesn't physically get too close to the leader of Team Rocket x)
Oops, good catch on the typo! I'll try to think to correct it on the next iteration ^^
Maybe something with "reveal a card from your hand" to depict her talking through music (= the card)?
Our black walker leads the Omega Society, the society that wants to steal the Grand Muse of Greed!
(Does this work for flavor? Is it too OP?)
Maybe...
Ekoma Rai {1}{u}
Legendary Creature - Human Bard (or Artist, if we want it for tribal)
Defender
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, exile a card from your hand and Compose X, where X is the converted mana cost of the exiled card.
Reveal a card from your hand: Ekoma Rai can attack this turn as though it didn't have defender.
2/4
Balanced?
@TezzeretofCarmot21, that image though...
That face is the epitome of
Heeeerrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm.............
@TezzeretofCarmot21 By the Grand Muse of Ugliness, what on earth is this thing? XD
More serisouly, planeswalker design is one of the most complex. You have to make sure the abilities are telling a story, are linked together, and a couple of details like usually having an ability so the planeswalker can protect itself. I don't really see the story behing this one, I think it needs at least one signature ability. Powerwise, the focus on life for both the main abilities makes it quite weak and unable to defend itself even a little.
Also, what and where are you searching to get these images??
@ningyounk, yes, I agree that we shouldn't use Compose for all five; but they should be art-focused, so Compose and psylian life are good things for them to interact with. I have an idea for Maren Farsight, where he lets you use psylian life to get green mana instead of just colorless.
Maren Farsight {2}{g}
Legendary Creature - Elf Poet/Artist (?)
Pay 2 psylian life: add {g} to your mana pool. This mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.
Tap three untapped Art creatures you control: Add {g}{g}{g} to your mana pool. This mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.
2/3
A combination of Omnath and Heritage Druid. Maybe the second ability doesn't make sense... Thoughts?