We've built up a lot of momentum in the last couple of months, and we've only been accelerating. I'm hoping that when we come back at the beginning of August, everyone will still have the same excitement and enthusiasm.
I'll still be here commenting on and off, and I'm going to try to finish up the remaining guild profile pages. I also figured this would be a good opportunity to get some specific feedback about some ideas and concerns that have popped up here and there in various Suvnica post comments. I think I'll also try to have a question-of-the-week type deal until I can start up the weekly challenges again.
For this week, I wanted to know what everyone was thinking about block structure. My original intent was to maintain Ravnica 1.0's block structure, featuring 4 guilds in the first set, and three each in the second and third. A number of people have said they preferred Return to Ravnica's 5/5 two-big set split.
What's your opinion on it? Is one of those structures a clearly better option? Do you have an idea for an alternative structure Does it make a difference if we're basing set size on the way it was eight years ago, when both large and small sets were significantly larger than they are now? Also, does it make a difference if we say that instead of a core set over the summer, we will just have a fourth Suvnica set?
Let me know in the comments. In the meantime, we'll tentatively pick up with the Week 10 challenge on August 5th.
Thanks,
-zeff
I prefer the 5-5-10 split. It gives each guild the same amount of space, minimizes color-balance weirdness, makes it easy to print 5-card cycles, and allows the block as a whole to have more cards. But this probably won't become important for a while yet (even after the hiatus).
ReplyDeleteIt would be a lot of work, but 4-3-3-10 seems to be the smartest option.
ReplyDeleteI just want to point out that the space in small sets are so cramped!
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of the Black common creature cards in Dark Ascension.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&name=|[%22Reap%20the%20Seagraf%22]|[%22Black%20Cat%22]|[%22Chosen%20of%20Markov%22]|[%22Highborn%20Ghoul%22]|[%22Sightless%20Ghoul%22]|[%22Falkenrath%20Torturer%22]
It's a tribal themed set, but there's only room for 6 Common creatures! There's not even room to have a creature in each cmc.
In this small space, not only do they have to represent Zombies and Vampires, they have to give Zombies extra numbers to allow them to play out their intended "horde" strategy. Dark Ascension also has a theme of Humans defecting to other colors and a BW "Vampires feeding on Humans" archetype, so Humans must be represented too.
For this seemingly impossible task, they used space-saving tricks like making a Human/Vampire transform card, making Zombie cards that count for two cards, or making a card that isn't necessarily a Zombie into a Zombie (Black Cat).
If we want to grapple with tricks like that, it's a worthy challenge. But the core of this exercise is to come up with alternate Guild identities and flesh them out as cards. A large set will give us the room to tackle that main objective head-on.
We'll also be able to set up the contrast of the Guilds better if the Guilds in the first set and the Guilds in the second set have parallel ratios.
Finally, I like the idea of first setting up the Guilds in the first two sets, then revisiting each Guild with some kind of theme advancement in the third set.
yikes. And that is with the extra commons from the double sided sheet. That itself is a pretty compelling argument.
Delete5/5/10 seems vastly superior. The original Ravnica was very successful in a lot of ways, but block structure was not among them. It left players who only identified with one guild only wanting 1/3 of the sets (as opposed to 2/3s); it never gave players any follow-up cards for their favorite guild; it gave the guild uneven exposure; and it undermined players' ability to draft their guild of choice. There may be a better model than 5/5/10, but 4/3/3 certainly isn't it.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree with 5/5/10. I don't think the 4/3/3 is better at anything except being a more acccurate re-enactment of Ravnica 1.0. If that's the most important to us, we can do that, but if our goal is to design a good block, let's go with 5/5/10. Also prevents the weird draft-awkwardness that was RAV block.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I loved how interesting the draft format was for old Ravnica. It was much more skillful and interesting than the recent block which was the first time I felt that the new draft order (most recent set first) was detrimental to the draft format.
DeleteI'm in favor of the 5-5-10 split, but keep the draft order that way. There is much more decision making to be had than the most recent set.
The old Ravnica required you to know what Guild combinations allowed you to get a guild out of each pack. To me that's too knowledge-intensive. New players don't stand a chance, and even good drafters can't just jump into it.
DeleteDoes the analysis change if all three sets in the block are big and can be drafted on their own?
DeleteIf all three sets are big and are drafted solo, we get around the problem that cards from the first set are printed at least 6 times as much as those from the last.
DeleteWe lose the XXX-YXX-ZYX draft experience, but we get XXX-YYY-ZZZ. I'd call that a net loss but a significant minority might call it a net gain. It definitely has pros and cons. I would be disappointed not to get mix packs. I loved Dragon's Maze pulling RtR back into the equation and shining new light on cards from both earlier sets.
If each set is a big set and is drafted as a standalone, it won't have the problem of being knowledge-intensive, and there would be space to flesh out the Guilds without compromise.
DeleteBut I'm not sure what the Guild breakdown would be. For example, if it's 4-3-3, a big standalone set with only 3 Guilds sounds monotonous to draft because there would only be 3 main strategies. If it's 5-5-10, drafting the block together rather than making the third set a standalone sounds more fun for reasons Jay stated.
Otherwise, there might be some other out-of-the-box Guild breakdown I'm not thinking of. I wonder what other possible breakdowns are possible.
I like many of the Guild identities, but the Ghrom don't seem to stand out.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that the description we have for Ghrom is mostly about their freedom-loving personality, not about what they do. They need to be seen doing something characteristic (preferably using some characteristic tools or means) to be as characteristic as the other guilds.
One idea is to have them all be beastmasters (such as dinomasters?). Or, since they seem to be nomads, they might live in hamlets of 2-3 huts on the back of giant Mastadons or land turtles. If they don't like something, they can just move elsewhere, Maybe they occasionally have great seasonal congregations and the rest of the time they live in small groups. Whatever it is, we should try to figure out what means they use, something that can be visually communicated on cards.
Their goal could be a little more focused too. In Ravnica, Gruul's goal of living a natural, wild life felt like a real goal because of how much they had to go up against in a city plane. Although cards don't have much room for background explanation, they felt like eco-anarchists just by wearing those feathers and paints when everyone else had a civilized, self-important look. But here, the Ghrom just wanting to do whatever they feel like feels similar to not having a particular goal. Maybe they're gladiators who want to become strong through combat experience. Maybe they're explorers who want to map out this new world?
Beastmaster is a promising angle. Maybe the Ghrom are the ranchers of Suvnica? Travelling across the land with their large herds of pack animals, setting up camp for a few days or weeks at a time. Whereas the Golgari were a primary food supplier of Ravnica, the Ghrom could be the meat and cheese food supplier of Suvnica. It gives them a focused identity that plays up the Nomadic lifestyle that's been established.
DeleteI agree that Grohm do feel a little more unfocused than some of the others. I like this idea, and I may revisit some of the visions to tighten them up.
DeleteI was blown away by how cool the idea of mind-drinking vampires were for Rimid, but then I thought that unless the mind-drinking part was made visually clear somehow, Vampire cards that want you to draw cards feels exactly Dimir.
ReplyDeleteMaybe nightmares could be a subtheme of these Vampires. They use nightmares to extract information. Maybe that's what the victims of mind-drinking experience while their mind is being consumed - they see a nightmarish landscape, tormented by the drinker who appears in a scary form.
I want to see what the mechanics we come up with during Rimid week will be first. If it ends up feeling just a little too Dimir, we may revisit the guild vision.
DeleteMind-Reader {1}{U}
DeleteSorcery
Name a card. Target player puts the top 4 cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If the named card is moved this way, you may play it.
Mind-Writer 1B
Sorcery
Target player puts the top 4 cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Put a card from the player's graveyard on top of his or her library.