Making a set, part 5

Since the last update a lot has changed. I ran the set through a few times and concluded that I was trying to do too much. Good design is about taking away. Day9 once said that a great strategy is one that you can't take anything away from, not something you can't add to. There was a lot that I took out. I thought of what I actually wanted and what the most interesting facet of my design. I realized that multicolor Phyrexians are without a doubt the most enthralling aspect of the block and want them to take center stage. Being on Alara is no longer a certainty. The setting is now undecided except for the fact that Phyrexians are there. I developed these goals:

Design Goals:
Take the wind out of player's sails
Us multicolor phyrexian mana
Make a Guild-like structure for the 10 pairings of phyrexians
Make each sect of phyrexians feel distinct

The phyrexians in the first set will be allied pairs. The second set will be enemy pairs. When doing factions, as MaRo has said, its important to give each faction a mechanic to make it feel distinct. As of right now phyrexian mana is in the set. Its therefore important not to give any faction mechanic to a phyrexian mana card. That would deflate the division between the factions. I imagine that each faction will have its own hierarchy, but for all of them to be topped with a Praetor. People would expect more Praetors given how popular the original cycle was. I dug through the planeswalkers guide to New Phyrexia looking for likely candidates.

W/U: ?
U/B: A Sphinx of some kind
B/R: Azax-Azog, the Demon Thane
R/G: Benzir, Archdruid of Temple Might
G/W: Izathael of the Flesh Singularity

These definitely want to be creatures, so I don't think Tezzeret will be a Praetor, but he will be in the set in some capacity.

Since the focus is going to be on the color pairing, the idea was to create a direction for each pairing.
I liked Maro's short description of each color, so I made one for each of my phyrexian guilds.

W/U: Perfection through conformity

U/B: Power through knowledge

B/R: Control through fear

R/G:  Strength through action

G/W: Unity through flesh

W/U:
I'm unsure of the leader for this sect. I like the idea of them being an Angel. While thinking about the phyrexian way, I was somewhat at a loss for what to do with them mechanically. What is W/U about fundamentally? Its about creating systems of rules to perfect society. W/U is the color combination of socialism. What scary ideas are linked to socialistic agendas? Well, the Thought Police is a scary concept, and one that the Phyrexians are capable of if Phyrexian Revoker is to be believed. Some mechanics I ran through while narrowing it down,

1 - When you play this card, target opponent reveals a card at random from his or her hand.

This is a literal reading of the Though Police. I liked it since it feels invasive, but it has the problem of taking a lot of time to resolve the ability, and its only worthwhile if the card is random. It would be an ok mechanic but its not going to be fun for someone that isn't a tournament player.

2 - When you cast this spell, target opponent can't play spells that cost less than its mana cost until your next turn.

I liked this more. Eliminating options feels very phyrexian and it still felt like its limiting your thoughts. However it is massively overpowered. The reverse is potentially more so, with one mana cards locking out slews of plays.

3 - When you cast this spell, target opponent can't play spells equal to its mana cost until your next turn.

This feels about right, but its still limiting to pair it to its cost.

4 - When you cast this card, target opponent can't cast spells with mana cost N until your next turn.
This lets cards have N independently of their cost, which frees development to have a spread of N without creating perfect curves. N might wind up all being the same number in the end.

Interdict - N (When you cast this spell, target opponent can't cast cards with converted mana cost N until your next turn.)

This forces people to "lose " thoughts to the W/U phyrexians. I intend for this to mostly be on permanents so you can just point to the permanent if your opponent attempts to cast a locked out card. Its nice that it can go on nonpermanents though, and is just a fire and forget so as not to increase board complexity.

U/B:
I have a whole post on how I came up with this one - http://lefowens.blogspot.com/2015/04/subvert.html

Subvert  - N (Whenever an opponent draws a card you may pay N.)
Whenever ~ Subverts a card, you may do EFFECT.

I really like this mechanic and it co-opts your opponents draw step, which is an excellent way of dampening some of the joy of the draw step.

B/R:
This was originally Compleat, but with the shift to focus on the Phyrexians, Compleat made less sense. Also, it was cutting out Devour. So, I combined them into,

Consume (When you cast this spell you may sacrifice a creature or artifact)

The card then gets an enhancement if you Consume a creature. This inspires fear in both your followers(your creatures) and your enemies(oh crap he got a super spell!). Its essentially kicker - sac a creature or artifact, but everything is kicker. This feels very phyrexian and also very black/red. Its also a mechanic that can go on instants and sorceries, and is a mechanic that does its thing and is over. I'm open to the idea of Consume doing something unified, but I like that for the most independent color combination should have a spread of effects.

R/G:
I made a mechanic previously that I think lines up with the phyrexian ideal of strength through combat and proving you are the best. It was originally G/U but it works just as well for G/R, which I suppose means its mostly a green mechanic, but I digress.

Brutal (At end of turn, if this creature dealt or received combat damage, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

Simple and straightforward, this mechanic is going to lead to problems becoming incrementally larger for your opponent to deal with. It also takes some of the wind out of blocking. Having creatures that don't immediately trade in combat is going to be much more of a problem, and red/green should have no problem making the most out of this mechanic.

G/W:
This is where a lot of the complexity of the set is going to come from. The G/W phyrexians come from the sect of the Flesh Singularity, which believes that all organisms should be sutured together to break down the bonds between individuals. What better way to do that then attach creatures to each other?
Well, unfortunately, its not that simple. Creatures can't attach to things, only be attached to. As such, the mechanic has to go through some contortions.

Flesh Bond - 3 (This creature loses the creature type and becomes attached to target creature. That creature gets +N/+N. When that creature leaves the battlefield, this regains the creature type.)

Essentially an equipment version of bestow. I don't know if this is going to be too much but I feel strongly that its the best option to portray the G/W philosophy.

The updated design skeleton:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KKbhhgreewQ_ap6qMUWLUrVr42nUMWPxWT9cPe_JLBs/edit#gid=0

The largest potential problem is that the Phyrexians only feel alive when they are subjugating another force, when they are clearly the malevolent baddies. By depicting them on a plane they have already compleated, you are losing some of that. Its probably going to be wise to budget 10 or so cards to see the natives that are left over. Maybe they could have some minor mechanic to help smooth out draws? Multicolor sets generally have cycling or morph to help limited in case colors are wonky. As a two color set, AvP is probably fine, but with the introduction of the next set most drafts would probably wind up three colors, so enough tools have to be provided for them. Maybe cycling from play could make a return so as to capture the being eaten by the phyrexians feel? Either way, that's enough for one post.

Cheers!