Choose your counters

I wanted to get back on the counters for the Maze, either -1/-1 or +1/+1, before doing a wrap-up of my brainstorming and continue with common design.

One thing that I’m really annoyed with is the current feeding mechanism. The double negative is just ugly, doesn’t read well and is extremely parasitic, in the worst way possible. It cares not for many instance of itself in a deck, like infect, but multiple instances of another ability: putting -1/-1 counters on your creatures. A deck playing this version will need to play things like Scarscale ritual or -1/-1 counters as cost like:

Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on target creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)

So I’m going to see if I can replace the -1/-1 counters for +1/+1 counters, if it is better or if I need a different type of counter entirely. First, let’s see the most basic form of feeding in both ways:

• Simple creature
• 2G
• Creature- Beast
• Feeding (whenever a creature dealt damage by CARDNAME dies this turns, remove a -1/-1 counter from CARDNAME)
• 2/3

This creature can only receive a single -1/-1 counter before its feeding ability is rendered useless. When it will be smaller, all he we be feeding on will be 1/1’s, which won’t be common. Now consider this:

• Simple creature
• 2G
• Creature- Beast
• Feeding (whenever a creature dealt damage by CARDNAME dies this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME)
• 1/2

First, this card can stands on its own without caring about Vitality drain at all. It still eats 1/1, but since it’s smaller, 1/1 may be more common. Creatures don’t need as much toughness to survive the counter, so they can be smaller. Even if we upgrade the double negative feeding, it won’t be enough to compete with the +1/+1 counters:

• Simple creature
• 2G
• Creature- Beast
• Feeding (whenever CARDNAME deals damage to a creature, remove all -1/-1 counter from CARDNAME)
• 2/3

This is a better version, clearer and stronger than the first one. It even has fewer words in the reminder text (13 compared to 16). But again, it is so dependent on Vitality drain that it is practically a vanilla creature and it is hard to make its ability relevant.

But then, what about Vitality drain? One of the themes of the set is exhaustion, the very life force being drained out of you by the Maze. An example of card with Vitality drain:

• Lifeforce Golem
• 4
• Artifact creature- Golem
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)
• 4/4

Actually, this card works really well. The power and toughness are a total of collected power among your creature, assemble into one bigger monster. This works, but not all card with Vitality drain will be like this one. Spells will be harder to convey:

• Mad with exhaustion
• 3R
• Sorcery
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)
• Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gain haste until end of turn.
• Sleepless researches
• 3UU
• Instant
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)
• Look at the top five cards of your library. Put one or two of them in your hand and the rest at the bottom of your library.

• Turn to mush
• 1BB
• Sorcery
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)
• Target creature’s controller sacrifices it.

Like convoke and other cost reduction abilities, the generic mana needs to be high. The last card, Turn to mush, don’t work as well as the others because of the single generic mana, although I must say that those turned out better then I though. Can we make the same cards with +1/+1 counters?

• Lifeforce Golem
• 4
• Artifact creature- Golem
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may remove any number of +1/+1 counters from creatures you control. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter removed this way.)
• 4/4
• Mad with exhaustion
• 3R
• Sorcery
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may remove any number of +1/+1 counters from creatures you control. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter removed this way.)
• Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gain haste until end of turn.
• Sleepless researches
• 3UU
• Instant
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may remove any number of +1/+1 counters from creatures you control. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter removed this way.)
• Look at the top five cards of your library. Put one or two of them in your hand and the rest at the bottom of your library.
• Turn to mush
• 1BB
• Sorcery
• Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may remove any number of +1/+1 counters from creatures you control. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter removed this way.)
• Target creature’s controller sacrifices it.

This version is worse than the one with -1/-1 counters. From a flavor point of view, I can’t kill my own creatures by stealing all of their vitality? Now it is this ability that’s super parasitic. Those two, feeding and Vitality drain, would do very well in separate sets, one that counts +1/+1 counter and another that counts -1/-1 counter, like Lorwyn/Shadowmoor for example. Well, maybe we can… A block has three sets. The first, the introduction, could be about +1/+1 counters and in then the second set a big change in the world makes it turn to -1/-1 counters. Ok this is against the rules of designing magic (one type of counter per block) and I would really like to arrange that, but both seem appropriate for something.

Lastly for this post, let’s review new vanishing.

• Starving baloth
• 2G
• Creature- Beast
• Exhaustion (At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on CARDNAME)
• Trample
• 5/5
• Viashino survivor
•  3R
• Creature- Viashino warrior
• First strike
• Exhaustion (At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on CARDNAME)
• Feeding (whenever CARDNAME deals damage to a creature, remove all -1/-1 counter from CARDNAME)
• 4/2

or with +1/+1 counter…

• Starving baloth
• 2G
• Creature- Beast
• CARDNAME entres the battlefield with 5 +1/+1 counters on it.
• Exhaustion (At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a +1/+1 counter from CARDNAME)
• Trample
• 0/0
• Viashino survivor
•  3R
• Creature- Viashino warrior
• First strike
• CARDNAME enters the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters on it
• Exhaustion (At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a +1/+1 counter from CARDNAME)
• Feeding (whenever a creature dealt damage by CARDNAME dies this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME)
• 2/0

The win for new vanishing is clearly -1/-1 counters. Less words and without the ridiculous 0/0 thing.

Recap:

+1/+1 wins for:

Feeding (whenever a creature dealt damage by CARDNAME dies this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME)

-1/-1 wins for:

Vitality drain (As you cast this spell, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters on creatures you control no greater than their toughness. CARDNAME cost 1 less for each counter placed this way.)

Exhaustion (At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on CARDNAME)

So, if I’m going with the -1/-1 counters, I’ll need something else to deal with them; maybe not directly removing as we have seen that the word “remove” is extremely parasitic, but something that interacts with ever smaller creatures. I’ll ponder on this for some time.

Brainstorming the Maze part 3

Last part of my first brainstorm.

 

Now we need to look at the actors of our set. I have talked about timeshift cards (well actually it would be more like planewarped cards…) and one of the consequence of taking creatures from different planes is different creature types. Creatures from Alara would be leonines, rhinos and veldalkens; Kors, vampires and merfolfks from Zendicar; kamis from Kamigawa; kithkin, treefolks and changeling from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor… well you get the idea. Ravnica, Mirrodin, Phyrexia, Dominaria and other more exotic planes like Segovia, Mercadia, Equilor, Pyrulea… the Maze gather specimens regardless of where they came from. This will be a challenge to create a sample of many different planes, many of them never yet explored with cards.

 

Returning to the main plane, there is a faction of survivor that is our protagonist. Even though their creature types will be widely spread, they need to share something in common. They need to have a survivor feel, death being a reality they can manage. Maybe even a resource, although I don’t want recursion. Future sight introduced Delve as a cost-reduction ability. I don’t know if it is what I want, but if I’m to use it I need to be able to use it on activation ability too. Something like:

• Remove two cards from your graveyard: return target nonland permanent to its owner’s hand.

or

• Connoisseur (You may exile any number of cards from your graveyard to reduce any costs of CARDNAME by 1 per cards exiled this way.)                                                                                   2W, T: Creatures you control gain +2/+2 until end of turn.

If not, they do work together so a sense or tribe should be there. Not about creature types or colors, but generic tribe bonus, ones that can be useful even out of context. Counting creatures would do the trick. This can be done in many ways:

• Survivors- As long as you control 3 or less creatures…
• Faction- As long as you control 3 or more creatures…
• Recruiting- If you played a creature spell this turn…

or

• Recruiting- If a creature entered the battlefield under your control this turn…

 

For the last theme (everyone for itself) the previous survivor ability would be perfect. It would engage players to have fewer creatures, but that becomes stronger than a big pack if alone. The problem is that it is in conflict with the many walls of the set. With fewer creatures, it is easier to be controlled by dedicated decks. The boosts and benefits should be high to compensate the number of creatures. A single monster should be deadly and be able to crash pass the walls.

-In survivor ability. Be sure to put big benefits (like fateful hour).

Brainstorming the Maze part 2

We were at Exhaustion in our theme list.

All in all, there are two cards with “exhaustion” in their name: Curse of exhaustion from Dark ascension and the very Exhaustion from 9^th edition. Extending the research to “sleep” we find Sleeping potion from Planeshift, Sleep from M11 and Pillory of the sleepless from Guildpact. We should also count Lethargy trap in the lot. Overall, the effects are quite the same: limiting actions of creatures and players; either tap doesn’t untap, can’t attack or block, -X/-0 or one spell per turn limit.

Another way of doing this is with -1/-1 counters. Shadowmoor and Scars of Mirrodin blocks were strong on that, but there are still some things we can do that they didn’t. Wither and Infect were the trademark of both, damage dealt from creatures to creatures. The counters weren’t really a penalty since most creatures died too fast for them to have a significant effect. This took place in the combat phase, which is the phase where there is the most creature death. Let’s see what we can come up with outside of combat:

• At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter of CARDNAME (The new vanish)
• Whenever a creature comes into play, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature
• Target creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn. Put a -1/-1 counter on that creature.
• Whenever X, remove a counter from CARDNAME.

The last could replace the use of +1/+1 counters on the Sengir Vampire’s ability. The creatures are struggling to keep their vitality by feeding on others. I like this.

– In -1/-1 counters.

– In Feeding (Whenever a creature dealt damage by CARDNAME dies this turn, remove a counter from CARDNAME.)

– In an uncommon cycle of new vanishing. No keyword.

– Out +1/+1 counters

Plane warp creatures may be harder. Or not. Time spiral did this with timeshift cards. We could use some staples from previous editions and some exotic creatures with weird abilities that will represent future sets. I’m still debating if the exact timeshift card frame would be appropriate or if it would be better to do something new. If we focus more on the sudden apparition of creatures in the Maze, in other word the battlefield, flash on weird triggers would do the job. I’m thinking about Qasali ambusher. Venser, Shaper savant is also fun but would do better as a planewalker.

– In Timeshift cards.

– In weird Flash.

– In Venser planewalker.

Walls are pretty straightforward. It means wall tribal. Some problems that could come up are that too much walls will stop action and combat phase. To counter that, the walls need to be aggressive in their own ways, encouraging attacking, not blocking. Anyway, the Maze eats you alive; it makes sense that the walls are dangerous. A limit on the number of walls will also help.

– In no more than 2 walls per color at common. They need to encourage action in some way.

– In at least 1 wall caring card per color at common.

I also wanted to come back on yesterday’s Fight+eat theme. “Fight” is a keyword that represents combat outside the combat phase. “Must block” is less complicated and word just as much as fighting. Also, in the Maze, even if you run from danger sometimes you can walk in a dead end, forcing you to face danger. “Must block” should make the vast majority of common fight ability, leaving the true fight keyword for uncommon and rare. It also helps dealing with those pesky walls and engages combat.

– In “must block” mainly in green commons.

– In fight mainly in green uncommon and up.

The Maze part 1: Brainstorm

I decided to do a complete set design on The Maze. This will include history flavor and card design of a big set, 230 cards and up. Doing some researches, I found that Inistrad set had 275 cards; Magic 2012 had 234 and Scars of Mirrodin 222. So, looking at the rarity, it was like so:

Inistrad

• Common-118
• Uncommon-75
• Rare-65
• Mythic-17

M2012

• Common-110
• Uncommon-63
• Rare-57
• Mythic-15

Scars of Mirrodin

• Common-107
• Uncommon-61
• Rare-54
• Mythic-15

That’s a good average. Now let’s get down brainstorming. When brainstorming it is always better to do more than less, don’t forget that.

The mood

The first step in brainstorming is defining what feeling you want to convince. Keeping close to this feeling will help consistency for the final result

For me, the mood is dark and creepy with death at every corner. Simply sanding is an effort as the Maze drains your vitality. This makes it clear that I want a little more tougher creatures than other sets, maybe even some bigger creatures. Maybe the starting token is not 1/1 but 1/2 or 2/2 which is balanced by an abundance of -1/-1 and damage dealing spells.

The Themes

After finding the mood, get the biggest list of themes that link to your subject or story. Don’t worry that you have too much or that they seem not really important; because we will discard a lot of ideas, the more you start with the more chice you’ll have of finding good ones and better the remaining ideas are. I originally had a pretty clear idea of what The Maze was about and so here are the main themes of the set:

• Low resources
• Survival of the fittest
• Life drain
• Exhaustion
• Plane warped creatures
• Walls
• Faction
• Beasts
• Devils/Merfolks/Shadows
• Each for itself

Low resources could be represented by different resource managing cards and alternative costs. The resources are: mana, permanents, hand, library and graveyard. I don’t want recursion to be common, so out is the grave. Is there some other ways to use library as a resource other than milling myself? Dredge did that and it became a powerhouse. Maybe exile mill? Or maybe search engine? The hand is attractive: you can draw and discard as cost and it has a direct impact on the game, as opposed to self milling. Cycling was used this way but there is no more to be done here. Reinforce use different effect than drawing card and it could probably be something to dig out. Sacrificing permanents feels cruel and nobody will want to play with that, at least not in this context.

– So, taking reinforce we will tweak it later. Keyword X –CC (CC, discard this card: reminder text).

Survival of the fittest has been the theme of Jund in Alara. The devourer mechanism felt flavorful but didn’t play all that well. As I said before, sacrificing our own permanents is not enjoyable and for that we need lots of tokens, which our world won’t have. Survivors are rare. A preying mechanism should kill a creature and increase the strength of the predator. Fighting has been introduced in Inistrad and could be a good starting point. Sengir Vampire’s ability is also flavorful and would be good with fighting.

– In Fight + eat.

Life drain is pretty common in black in all sets, but now I want to color bleed it to give it the spot light. In white it could be gaining life after destroying an enchantment or  getting a temporary bonus to your creatures while dealing temporarily with a threat. Blue: -X/-0 trades with card advantage and untaps. Red: deal damage and a creature gain haste or +X/+0 or both. Green: destroy a noncreature permanent and return a card at random from the grave (scavenging) or create tokens. In each color, the effects should be clearly opposed. It will probably be a good starting point for a cycle.

– I’m keeping a cycle of any rarity opposing threat control/benefit on the theme of draining forces.

…

Wow, that took longer than I thought it would. I’ll continue this tomorrow and maybe another day after that. There is so much going on while brainstorming. It is after all the most important part of a creative design.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! Here, I will post all my ideas about fantasy creation and mostly Magic the gathering, the card trading game. I will try to edit once per day, so keep the pace! Most of my ideas go all over the place, from new game creation, to short stories to whole fantasy world or setting to real life applications and reflections about anything and everything. I came to create this blog because for now I have lot of spare time and because my living space starts to suffer all those loose sheets of paper lying around. I needed a way to keep track of every thought I put on paper, and also to get some comments back on those ideas. I needed an outside look to keep me going forward and in the right direction.

I’m a fan of Magic and I started playing it when Lorwyn came out, although my first few cards were from Ravnica and Time Spiral. I played regularly since, mostly as a casual player going to Friday night magic. I have a good grasp of the rules, and am a good deck builder. I also played Dungeons and Dragons 4^th edition, mostly as a dungeon master, and follow right now a role-playing french forum. I’m a fan of fantasy literature as I’ve read the Forgotten Realms number 1 through 27 and many classics of the gender, like Let the right one in and the likes. That’s all about me for now.

Let’s get going, and leave comments!