M13 Designing Lair (3)

What I've found is that there are justifications for different choices in each category but they're all interdependent on one another. Today I'm going to try to list the different groups of choices so that we can examine the pros and cons of each group rather than the individual choices.

You may catch me using 'lair' interchangeably with 'bond.' If you don't know why, check out part two (which is a misnomer, it wasn't so much a continuation as a tangent). I haven't transitioned over fully because (a) I'd like more feedback, (b) replacing 'lair' with 'bond' will impact other things, like the set's name and (c) this conversation could affect that choice.

The Straight Plan is the current/default.

0 Flavor	1 Consistency	2 Types	3 Colors	4 Quantity	5 Abilities
any	at common	creature only	even across all colors at common	10 cmn 3-6 other	vigilance flying +2/+0 first strike +1/+2

Because this is a fairly generic set-up, it can work with any flavor we settle on for bond. The abilities-per-land-type will be consistent among the commons of which there will be one complete CW cycle and another complete CCW cycle. We'll sprinkle in just a few really sweet uncommon and/or rare cards for filler. As for which abilities to use at common, I think if we have one P/T ability, we need 2, 3 or 5 of them for proper cycle, uh, -ness.

It make sense to put that second P/T ability in black, to mirror green's +1/+2, but not in blue for fairly obvious reasons. That also solves the deathtouch/intimidate/lifelink conundrum with black. Should the bonus be +2/+1 to perfectly mirror green's bonus, or should it be +2/+0 to better balance them? If it were white/black I'd go with the classic mirror that already has so much precedence thanks to Holy Strength and Unholy Strength. We could balance the cards the abilities go on rather than the abilities themselves. But since it's not, I'd like to steer clear of that precious duality more. I've also swapped lifelink in white for vigilance because it's a more evergreen ability, and feels less 'cheaty' on blue on green creatures.

This is not the only ability combination for this plan, in fact this plan can handle any good combination. This is also far from final. Another combination gives black lifelink and red +2/+0. Red and green are more into P/T boosts than red, philosophically, and since we're not going for the duality contrast it's okay to put them next to each other. The non-common cards would not be tied to this mold at all, although if they can build off of it, bonus points.

Next up is The Naya Plan. (Asymmetrical #1)

0 Flavor	1 Consistency	2 Types	3 Colors	4 Quantity	5 Abilities
lair	unnecessary	creature only	red, green and white only	6 common 3-6 other	+1/+2, any

By putting lair in the Zoo colors, we're making a nod to Kird Ape's favorite deck and shifting out of the exact colors Bloodthirst got. We're also focusing on the most creature-iffic shard and that's why I lean toward 'lair' over 'bond' here. If we really want to make it insular, we would put plains lair and mountain lair on a green card each and forest lair on a red card and a white card, but I think that's too far and it's much more interesting (and opens up more archetypes) to add the white island lair and the red swamp lair cards to the mix. Forest lair is the only ability repeated at common. We probably keep Roaming Unicorn, Mastodon Calf, Saberclaw Cougar, Kird Ape, Bloodblind Cyclops and Crested Dodo. Maybe then we focus down on the core four cards at uncommon. Note that we do not get a Champion of Depravity in this set-up.

We now have to do something for blue and black that isn't lair but spreads the same allied colored pairs message. Activated costs is easily the best suggestion I've heard to do it. Assuming the set-up above, we'd have white:U, blue:W, blue:B, black:U, black:R and red:B at common and maybe just another blue:B and black:U at uncommon. If you want to brainstorm some of these, do so in the comments of Chah's very solid start here.

Next up is The Simic Plan. (Asymmetrical #2)

0 Flavor	1 Consistency	2 Types	3 Colors	4 Quantity	5 Abilities
bond	unnecessary	permanents	green and blue only	4 common 4-8 other	any

By putting lair in the Simic colors, we're giving it to the colors best equipped to enable it. Rampant Growth and Convincing Mirage help these colors to splash anything as needed so it could be a really fun archetype to snatch up all the good bond cards and fixing relatively late. We could open it up to all color combinations (adding a swamp bond and island bond to green as well as forest bond and mountain bond to blue) to really make these archetypes versatile/unique, but that muddies the message far too much and isn't what we want to communicate in a core set. That means we'll have two blue and two green lair cards at common (one swamp lair, one mountain lair and two plains lair among them) and maybe four more at uncommon and/or rare.

Right now, that would look like Sunbask Drake, Merfolk Deathbrokers, Roaming Unicorn and Saberclaw Cougar. It would also be entirely reasonable to add these cards' mirrors in Crested Dodo, Vapertrail Imp, Kird Ape and Mastodon Calf, perhaps in the uncommon slot*. This is also the scenario in which I'm most comfortable with the idea of bond aura cards since auras are one thing blue and green share in common more than anyone else.

Do we add colored activations to the other colors the same way we did for auras? The same rationale applies, so let's take a look. Note this is exclusive to * above. We would have white:G, white:U, black:U, black:R, red:B and red:G. Without even seeing concrete examples, this feels off to me. I don't know why. Maybe we can brainstorm some really solid ideas that'll make it work.

Next up is The Uncommon Plan.

0 Flavor	1 Consistency	2 Types	3 Colors	4 Quantity	5 Abilities
bond	at uncommon	creatures	even across all colors at common & uncommon	(10 cmn) 10+ other	vigilance flying +2/+0 first strike +1/+2

I'm not worried about lair at common for complexity's sake because I know first-hand how simply it plays. There is a legitimate concern around power level: Kird Ape hasn't been common since Revised and it's not hard to see why. I've been willing to push that for the same reason Wizards brought Lightning Bolt back for a while and also because creature power level has risen to the point where I'm not Kird Ape is that far above curve anymore. Another concern though, is weirdness: While this ability does a great job of demonstrating color alliances, it does it through a muted form of color bleed (at least with the current set of abilities). Green creatures don't get lifelink or first strike as part of their color pie. Green-white and green-red creatures do (respectively), and while that's what we're going for in spirit, it's not what's printed on the cards.

One way to solve these issues is to move the common cycle to uncommon. That will even allow us to push some of the tamer cards to be more excited. The cost of this move is that our theme is no longer at common. The good news is: this is a core set, so "it isn't our theme" doesn't follow 100% since we want the theme to be relatively muted. If we're not satisfied with that, we can hit the theme in a different way at common, as Trevor suggested. Once again, I'm talking about off-color activated abilities. If we introduce those in this scenario, it'll also be a pair of five-card cycles which means we'll have 10 of these commons plus 10 of the uncommon bond cards hitting the theme home. That's a lot, but the fact that they do it in such different ways mutes the overall effect.

Finally, I want to share The Mixed Plan.

0 Flavor	1 Consistency	2 Types	3 Colors	4 Quantity	5 Abilities
bond	at common & uncommon	creatures	all colors, uneven by rarity	(10 cmn) (10 unc)	vigilance flying +2/+0 first strike +1/+2

One last possibility combines some of the ideas from all of the above. Suppose we have a CW and CCW cycle of bond cards and a CW and CCW cycle of off-color activations, but we mix up the rarities. Here's one way to do it:

	white	blue	black	red	green
cmn	: ability forest bond	: ability : ability	: ability : ability	: ability forest bond	plains bond mtn bond
unc	: ability island bond	swamp bond plains bond	island bond mtn bond	: ability swamp bond	:ability :ability

We see the naya bias toward bond here, but it affects rarity rather than existence. There are only four common bond cards, but all cycles are complete at some level.

Those are all the major plan groups I can see. If I missed one, let me know. What I really want to know is, who hates what (and why) and who loves what (and why). See you in the comments section!