MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
Renaissance Set — Design Phase
This discussion has been closed.
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
P.S: Also, formatting is hard because of the lack of examples, I'm pretty sure there are things that are wrong, namely I just realized the ultimate should probably reveal the name before you get the effect ^^
This may just be me being a know-nothing about the set, but Rosamilla seems really complex. Secretly choosing something makes to have to write it down, and that then requires a pen and paper. Also, I don't think we should have the morph ability on her unless that's a set theme, for it is similar to putting a keyword on her. But wow! You guys make such cool cards! It's awesome.
P.S I just realized that I might be better in development, for I am nitpicking at almost everything. Sorry! : (
@Tigersol, don't worry about it.. we're all nitpickers here
Don't worry it's fine to be nitpicky, especially when I'm throwing stuff that are a bit crazy like this, the point is to start a path for a discussion and all feedback is helpful =D
Yes she's indeed very complex, my goal here was more to show what I mean by "secrets" mechanically so I went with a sample of a bit of everything, but the real version would have to be more focused ^^
On secretly choosing, I agree it's bothersome, but that's why I tried it as an ultimate ability. Having to secretly choose something every turn or even every game would definitely be too much, but if it only happened at the rate of a planeswalker ultimating (which is pretty infrequent) could it be worth it, just as a signature move in an otherwise tamer kit of abilities?
Yeah, I initially didn't want to touch face-down cards either since it's not a Morph set. But then I realized face-down cards could technically be used as a one-of without bothering with mechanics like Morph. On a mythic rare it's not that much crazier than coin flipping ^^ It's just food for thoughts, I mostly wanted to see your reactions, I know we ALL (and I include myself) will think it breaks some kind of rules at first impression, but once we really think about it, what are your second thoughts? I do believe if face-down becomes her signature, her whole kit should probably become more synergystic with it though. Maybe she could be some kind of nameless creatures lord for instance.
@Lujikul
Also I think it could be interesting to see a black character that's not technically evil. "Secrets" is a theme that could allow for a black character that won't necessarily be a Bad Guy? (Yes I know the ultimate I gave her is pretty mean, but that's just an example, she could be focused and doing her things in the shadow without really hurting anyone for all we know.)
By saying "discover any", you can decide (up to the fifth revealed) whether or not you've "discovered" the card you want. I think you'd merely be allowed to stop whenever you want (as with your original).
Current Mechanics
Archetypes (Less than a sentence works)
A short description of characters
This way it could be a refresher for everyone and a way for me to be introduced to the basics (I will still try to read as much background as I can).
MECHANICS
This is the latest version of the mechanics, but they're still being discussed, we need to playtest at a bigger scale before settling on anything.
1) Compose hasn't changed since the beginning:
Compose N (Create a colorless N/N Art creature token with haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.)
2) Rebirth has not changed since the introduction. Actually, I wanted to talk about it too, I'd like to consider changing the Reborn type to the Legendary supertype for flavour? xD Anyway, right now it's still:
Rebirth {cost} ({cost}, Exile this nonreborn creature: Return it to the battlefield reborn with two +1/+1 counters on it. Rebirth only as a sorcery.)
3) The latest version of psylian life we considered was a 2 psylian life for one mana of any colour ratio. The rules are still the same:
- Psylian life is part of your life total.
- You always lose psylian life first.
- Pay 2 psylian life: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool.
4) Discover, as you may have noticed, is under discussion right now. The latest proposition is:
Discover an OBJECT. (Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile the fifth or an OBJECT card. Put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.)
5) We're also considering a different type of ability word that would signal the life-swings-matter themes of each colour, though it's technically not how ability word usually works. We don't have a name for it yet, as a place holder I've just been using "Emotion" since it's probably the flavour it would get if it happened, since it would most likely be tied to the emotion each Grand Muse represents, which have still been the subject of discussion recently. Here's the concept:
White, currently about joy, has:
"Emotion — If you gained life this turn, EFFECT."
Blue, currently about fear, has:
"Emotion — If you didn't lose life since your last turn, EFFECT."
Black, currently about sadness, has:
"Emotion — If you lost life this turn, EFFECT."
Red, currently about anger or hate, has:
"Emotion — If an opponent lost life this turn, EFFECT."
Green, currently about love, has:
"Emotion — If at least two players gained and/or lost life this turn, EFFECT."
ARCHETYPES
Here's the latest archetype grid that is also likely going to change after the first bigger scale playtesting:
The only changes to this grid are:
1) We're considering removing the tribal aspect of the UB Rogue Tribal archetype to focus on a combo-y "Play the opponent's cards" archetype.
2) The UR Compose archetype accepts itself as an Art tribal archetype to compensate, though the spirit stays the same.
CHARACTERS
This is especially blurry. We still don't know. This is the characters we are the most likely to have:
1) Da Vinci as a character. So far, we've called him Avinzi. He's a genius in both science and art. We believe he likes to take ideas from other planes to get his most out-of-the-box creations. Notably, he could help resolve a conflict by bringing to this plane artefacts from other planes like hedrons of Zendikar or moon shards from Innistrad that are known to seal problematic entities if we put one in the story (a Corrupted Muse storyline is one of many under discussion.)
2) Ekoma Rai. She's the character among the five original characters that made the strongest impression. She's a blue-aligned musician that is mute, causing her to be uncomfortable in most situations. She can express her feelings and thoughts through music though.
These are the other characters we talked about:
1) Salendi Kortha is the red-aligned original main hero. She's a female painter that's gregarous and unabashed. We've talked about making her a dude to avoid the Chandra comparison.
2) Maren Faresight is the green-aligned original main hero. He's an elf and a poet. He's introspective but wise.
3) Jennel of Matereth is the white-aligned original main hero. He's an aven that's outspoken and a natural leader. (You'll notice most of them are a little too close to their Gatewatch counterpart.)
4) Kedrah Selme is the black-aligned original main hero. He's the only one who is not an artist as he steals the creations of others to combine them. He's cynical, arrogant, and devilishly charming.
5) Vicine is a black-aligned character that was mentioned for a "Cult" storyline. His main role is to betray the heroes, then switch to the bad guys side and betray them too.
6) As I mentioned above, a Mona Lisa planeswalker would help reinforce the Renaissance theme. I pictured her as black-aligned and secretive though not necessarily evil.
Well I don't know if the mechanic as it is worded right now is letting you choose to discover something or not but that wasn't really the intention. It's more like a Cascade card draw. With Cascade, once you hit a spell with a lesser converted mana cost, you don't get to say "I don't like it, I'll just wait for the next", that's more the spirit of this version of Discover: you draw the first OBJECT card you have in your deck, whatever it is, you don't get to wait for the next one.
I do believe it's worded in order to do that?
Discover an OBJECT. (Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile the fifth or an OBJECT card. Put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.)
For me it's clear that you have to stop exiling as soon as you have exiled an OBJECT card or the fifth card and then draw it. Do you think it can be interpretated differently and should be clarified?
For the twist were you get to say "no" to the cards and just stop when you feel like it, maybe "Discover a card of your choice" is the correct templating? I'm just affraid people would think you have to name the card you want before trying to discover it
Hmmm. Discover seems correct as is.
As for choice, it seems difficult to word it clearly. I think given the card design you previewed, "...card of your choice" should be clear enough.
The nitpicking section:
I think we should change emotion in order to save complexity. I refer back to the Great Designer Search II, in which Iforgothisname created evolve. Originally it said
Whenever a creature with power 4 or greater enters the battlefield, [effect].
It never really worked too well as all these different triggers would happen and you would have to pay attention to what they all did. The simple +1/+1 version was a whole lot more successful. I referenced this because emotion is like five different mechanics. Most players play two colors, so that's two different events each player has to watch for in their deck alone. It also does a different thing every time, making it even more complex. Beginners would probably just read one emotion card, and think emotion did the same thing every time. Maybe we should have it either all have the same trigger, or the same effect.
The not nitpicking section:
I love the character ideas that have been generated. I still believe we should make them ally colored instead on mono, since there isn't as much creative or design space left in mono-colored walkers. I totally love the Da Vinci character.
Returning Mechanic???
I just realized we don't have a returning mechanic
-I was thinking mechanic like converge (color matters/painting)
-Maybe artifacts... mayber
-Cycling would fit, as it is similar to waves of inspiration.
Another issue with emotion is that red is the color of emotion and encompasses joy, sadness, love fear, hate, and the others listed. Sorry for all the nitpicking, I just have lots of ideas that are spilling out.
But, wow. That was ten times the amount I was expecting. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! : )
1) Emotion mechanic
To reframe what's happening, the main mechanical theme of the set is a bit daring. It's not something that has been done before like graveyard, a card type, tribal, multicolour, factions, etc... It's a life-matters set ^^ So, when trying to figure out what does it mean to be a "life-matters set" since we have no example, I proposed to look at how Kaladesh was an artifact set. There was a colour pie of how each colour interacted wih artifacts in a different way. So I designed a way for each colour to care about life in its own way, which gave those triggers.
This means those triggers were basically happening in the set as a mechanical backbone without any word associated with them. When I started filling the common design skeleton, I realized we could try a new kind of ability word that doesn't notify you for a trigger, but just for a larger theme (life swings matter). It's not really a mechanic by itself, it's more like the little tombstone icon you have in the Odyssey cards that have graveyard-related abilities. Now the big question is "Does it actually help players understand the connection, or does it confuse them because it doesn't work like an actual ability word?" Clearly it confuses you more than it helped x) Maybe the little tombstone icon is closer to how it should be like? We don't have access to this kind of technology on MTGCardsmith BUT we could add a special frame inside the art, like a little icon to notify life-matters cards instead of using the ability word? I'll try to propose something in the graphic department, I need to think about it for a while ^^
2) Returning mechanics
I'm personally not in favour of using returning mechanics in a custom set unless we find a really novel way of using them, because custom sets have to be much more daring than actual sets to catch your attention ^^ That said, it wasn't out of the question, but we designed the mechanics we needed and didn't really feel like there was an especially good fit. Now we don't really have room for a returning mechanic, the set is quite full ^^
Also, a mechanic about colours or artifacts would feel very out of place since neither was chosen as a set theme unfortunately ^^ Cycling is interesting because for once the flavour would match with the world x) But mechanically it doesn't bring anything useful, since it's better in graveyard sets
3) Red being the only colour that have emotions
While Red has the most ties to emotions in general, all colours actually have emotions
Also I'm not the one saying it, that's Mark Rosewater's precision ^^ http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/74888444948/red-is-the-colour-of-emotions-right-but-obviously
Cycling is my favorite mechanic ever made, and I could start basic ideas if you want.
Also...
What if we had the emotion mechanic and just didn't keyword it?
Yeah, I guess.
Well, I'm personally lukewarm about cycling but I'm not the only one deciding ^^ If you can come up with a really exciting twist on cycling, you may convince people to include it in the set
@Faiths_Guide
I was interested to see that Cycling was first on the list of already-existing keywords to become evergreen for MaRo ^^ It is a good mechanic with a surprising amount of design space, though a little flavourless yes
Totally agree, just commenting on how its intrinsic blandness makes it an odd fave in my mind.
It is very simple, broad, and useful (so a good evergreen IMO).
1) The simplest way is to just make Joy/Joyful, Sadness/Sad, etc. appear in the title of each of those cards without any other change.
2) Use five different ability words the regular way:
3) Use a keyword/ability word which only role is to notify you that the card cares about life, a bit like Devoid in Battle for Zendikar.
4) Make the link through a subtype rather than an ability word.
5) Use a visual aid that goes directly on the illustration, a bit like the tombstone icon in Odyssey except we can't put it in the title bar on MTGCardsmith:
(This is how it looks in Odyssey, that little tombstone next to the name indicates
cards that care about the graveyard or have effects from the graveyard.)
EDIT: This just gave me another version I wanted to try: the semi-consistent ability word. It's between having an ability word that means five different things and having five different ability words. Basically, it has a recognizable basis but it needs to be completed with one emotion. So it's a true abitliy word but it becomes something like "Feel the [Emotion]", "[Emotion] Outburst", "Rush of [Emotion]", etc.