Creating an entire set

[Maraxus of Keld]

I've been thinking about this some, and it would be really cool to design an entire expansion set all by ourselves. It would be around 165 cards (the same size as Fifth Dawn), and like a real set would be divided evenly between commons, uncommons, and rares.
Instead of just designing the text of the cards, we would go all out, and actually create full images of the cards (like Shadow Dweller did; follow the link in this post so see what I mean). We'd have art for each card, as well as a set symbol and everything.

Would anybody else be interested in doing this? Respond here if you want to get in on it. I will go into more detail in the next post.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Unless we go for some special concept with this set (like how Torment was a black set), all 5 colors should be pretty well balanced as far as total number of cards, as well as common/uncommon/rare division.

To make things interesting, we also would have to invent 2-3 new game mechanics, such as the Infuse mechanic I came up with a while back, although it doesn't necessarily have to be a creature ability. It could also be something that affect spells, similar to Buyback, Flashback, or Cycling. If we only come up with two new mechanics, we could also choose to reintroduce an older mechanic, provided that we can come up with a new spin on it. When Cycling was brought back in Onslaught, they had cards that did something when you cycled them, as well as cards you could cycle for a specific land. If we were to bring back, say, Buyback, we would want cards that maybe had an additional or different effect depending on whether or not you bought it back, as well as some different buyback costs. It would be fun to make a card where the buyback cost itself was the benefit of the card, like how Psychic Vortex was with Cumulative Upkeep. Imagine a blue spell with "Buyback - Return target creature to owner's hand," but as for the spell itself did something that was harmful to you, like put the top five cards of your library into your graveyard or some such.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

i'm all for it

[chainer]

ditto for me, it sounds fun.

[Maraxus of Keld]

I talked to Arcades about this also, and he seems interested in it. I also thought of something else: do we want to try and include a storyline?

[Volrath, the Fallen]

we'll have to make some Legends then.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Well, supposing that we do decide to recycle an old mechanic, what would it be? I'll write up a list of some possibilities, and you guys let me know what interests you most:

Affinity
Banding
Buyback
Cumulative Upkeep
Cycling
Flanking
Flashback
Imprint
Indestructible
Kicker
Landhome
Landwalk
Modular
Morph
Phasing
Scry
Sunburst
Threshold

There's also Infuse, the one I created.

If you think of others that aren't on this list, feel free to suggest those as well.

[Maraxus of Keld]

One other thing to consider: do we want to reprint any existing cards in this set? Like how Sengir Vampre was reprinted in Torment, or Yotian Soldier and Icy Manipulator got reprinted in Mirrodin?

[thekadar81]

I like this idea. Im up for helping. Maybe the theme could be something a little opposite of the trend thats been going on lately in magic card design. Lately they have been trying to balance the color wheel and clearly define what each color does. This makes a bunch of old cards obsolete though they still have great flavor such as Mind Bomb and Witch Hunter . Maybe our set could reprint a few cards like this and maybe make a few new cards that make sense thematically but not necessarily by color definition.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

we should make a bunch of coin flip cards......

[Maraxus of Keld]

thekadar81 said:

I like this idea. Im up for helping. Maybe the theme could be something a little opposite of the trend thats been going on lately in magic card design. Lately they have been trying to balance the color wheel and clearly define what each color does. This makes a bunch of old cards obsolete though they still have great flavor such as Mind Bomb and Witch Hunter . Maybe our set could reprint a few cards like this and maybe make a few new cards that make sense thematically but not necessarily by color definition.

Yeah, Witch Hunter is great flavor-wise, but it has two abilities that are generally blue (creature bounce and Tim ability). Preacher is another card like that.

I'm all for a set full of off-color abilities (for example, effective card drawing and possibly counterspelling outside blue, direct damage that doesn't suck outside red, creature killing outside black, etc.) if others working on this project like the idea.

[Maraxus of Keld]

If we're going to do this, I'd like to get going on it. Those of you who expressed interest in joining this project, please provide some feedback?

[chainer]

OK... I think we should make up new ability’s instead of changing old ones, and reprint some old cards that haven’t been used since, like, alpha and beta, and I don’t really like the idea of having cards do things that are usually in another color but it would be cool to have some cards like that, and that we should have one card of each color that is similar to the others (like the avatars, warchiefs, and the ones, ya know, soulless one, doubtless one, ect).

and coin fliping cards rule!!!!

[Maraxus of Keld]

I think there's room to squeeze a coin-flip card or two. In keeping with the color wheel, it should probably be either red or an artifact.

So we have votes both for and against out-of-the-color-wheel cards. What does everyone else think?
It makes me think of Apocalypse, where everything was getting weird, and so many cards represented the "enemy colors" working together. I think it would be a cool concept to have a set that totally breaks the color wheel, but if we decide to do a storyline, then we will need to work it in there somehow.

[Volrath, the Fallen]

As far as old abilities go, i think we should bring back Landhome. I always that it was an interesting ability. Seeing some old cards would be nice. We'd just have to find something that hasn't been done yet. I really like the idea of off-color abilities too.