Set Design: The Decision

Faithful readers, we've been pondering the question of which of our three set pitches to design. We looked at your feedback on the previous thread. We considered your answers to the many unanswered questions that these sets posed. Most of all, we looked at the proposed cards and mechanics. We even had an online playtesting session to determine whether our intuition for how various mechanics would play were correct.

Guided by this information, the Goblin Artisans authors have made a decision on which set we'll lead as a design project. And that set is...

Uses of Gold Counters Part 2/2 — Color Pie Issues, Gold for Balancing an Effect, "Cash In" Mechanic, Mana Outlets

This is my second part of my discussion on how Devon Rule's Gold counters from the Great Designer Search 2 can be used. The first part mostly established that while it is a mana producing mechanic, they can be used to a different purpose than Eldrazi Spawn tokens. With this part, I would like to expand on some more topics related to Gold counters including color pie issues, the use of gold as a balancing effect, a mechanic for cashing in unwanted cards, and mana outlets for excess mana.

CCDD 040813—Colorless Frontier

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/8/2013 - What if we use the colorless-matters idea from Ekkremes for Frontier? Most Westerns are set in desert areas where life is hard not just for the people, but for everything. What if that were because there's not as much rich mana around? Explore with me.

Uses of Gold Counters Part 1/2—Goldgrab, Mini-quests, and Bounties

The Gold counter mechanic was created by Devon Rule and his team in the Great Designer Search 2. In Devon's set, various cards would grant players Gold counters, which could be spent to pay for mana or life payments.

I believe Gold counters is a mechanic that has many uses that lead to exciting game play. Here are some ideas for using Gold in our Western-themed set, Frontier.

Frontier: Fall of the Eldrazi

HV: This pitch is by Antny. Here are the pitches from rounds one, two, and three.

What are the major mechanical themes in the set according to your vision?

Large creatures (not just Eldrazi), supported by dig, gold counters and hideaways.
Bounty, wither, annihilator, protection from colorless/all colors.

Set Design: Unanswered Question #7

We're back in the wild Frontier for this question. Although the original pitch was for "Cowboys vs. Eldrazi", we've also discussed using Sandwurms as the iconic fatties. To me, this seems like an excellent move. Sandwurms lend our world some supernatural excitement, but they also fit easily into the desert settings thanks to the cultural cachet of Dune. Because of our old friend Craw Wurm, they're very much at home in Magic as well.

But what are these Sandwurms actually like? How do they work differently from other fatties? (For example, do cowboys ride them?) What are some mechanical themes that will paint these monstrous creatures? Readers, help us out: what makes an awesome Sandwurm?

Set Design: Unanswered Question #4

Today's question is back in Frontier, our wild west world. Many of our pitches for Frontier have suggested the gameplay theme of Battlecruiser Magic. However, we don't yet know which sorts of mechanics will make this work best. We also need to avoid designing Rise of the Eldrazi 2, which makes the resemblance of gold counters to Eldrazi spawn undesirable. So tell us, readers: how can we find a fresh new take on Battlecruiser Magic for Frontier?

Weekend Art Challenge Review 030113—Raven Mimura

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Here's the challenge we're reviewing today.

Set Design: Unanswered Question #1

First, I'd like to apologize to our readers for the fact that our set design project has slowed to a snail's pace. The unexpected windfall of free time to which I alluded in this post has vanished. To make a long story short, I was unable to sing for a few months, but am now healthy again and hard at work. That's an excellent outcome for me personally, but not quite so good for having time to blog.

Nevertheless, I intend to keep this ball rolling, and hope that you're still excited about it too! We've narrowed the field to three worlds: Ankh-Theb, Ekkremes, and Frontier. While the original plan was to select one of the three based on the final round of pitches, there are some major unanswered questions that need to be addressed before we move forward. And so, since we have a big crowd of people who love nothing more than solving design problems, we're going to crowd-source those answers before making the final decision.

The first question is about Frontier, our Wild West candidate. We almost certainly want a mechanic to represent gunslinging. Of course, it won't be with actual guns- perhaps some sort of wandslinging? It might take the form of a keyword ability, a keyword action, or neither of the above. It probably goes on creatures.

Tell us, faithful readers: What kind of mechanic can we use to represent gunslinging?

Frontier: Land of the Lawless

HV: This pitch is by Jules Robins. Here are the pitches from rounds one, two, and three.

Which set are you pitching?

Frontier

What is the name of your pitch? 

Land of the Lawless

What are the major mechanical themes in the set according to your vision?

Duels at high noon: duel (Each duelist draws a card, then discards a card. You win if the discarded cards share a card type.)

Gold rush: Prospect--Whenever ~ attacks, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card, then put all cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order. DO SOMETHING for each card revealed this way.

Slaughtered natives: Bloodline (When ~ dies, exile any number of creature cards from your graveyard and put that many 1/1 colorless Spirit creature tokens onto the battlefield.)

Banditry: "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player" triggers.

Present a booster pack (10 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare or mythic rare) that shows off the set as well as possible.  These cards need not be original designs; previous challenges and other people's ideas are fair game.

Frontier: Some find gold here, but most find hungry wurms.

HV: This pitch is by James Bartolotti. Here are the pitches from rounds one, two, and three.

The Frontier settlers have travelled too far and dug too deep. Giant buried sandwurms sense the disturbances, and emerge to find a world of tasty morsels. Knowing that the wurms could strike at any time, the settlers hope to strike it rich and leave as quickly as they came. Mechanics include Wurmfood: the high-end monster mechanic, Gold and Dig: to build up your mana for Wurmfood, and Bounty: to highlight those who work outside the law in a dangerous world.

Frontier: Disquiet on the Western Front

HV: This pitch is by Pasteur.  Here are the pitches from rounds one, two, and three.

Which set are you pitching?
Frontier

What is the name of your pitch?
Disquiet on the Western Front

What are the major mechanical themes in the set according to your vision?
Top-down Western (Desperado), Land-matters (Dig and Hideaway), Battlecruiser Magic

Frontier: "This town ain't big enough."

HV: This pitch is by Pasteur.  My comments are in blue.  Here are the pitches from rounds one and two.

What set are you pitching?
Frontier

What is the name of your pitch?
"This town ain't big enough."

What are the major mechanical themes in the set according to your vision?
Madness, Duel, and powering out huge fatties.

Please present six common cards of a color different from the color in the second round pitch.  These cards should clearly demonstrate at least one major mechanical theme of the set.

Set Design: Frontier 2

HV: This pitch is by Prophylaxis.  My comments are in blue.  The pitch from round one is here.  The wiki page for this set is here.  

Set Design Pitch: Frontier

HV: This set pitch is by cfnlc.  My comments are in blue.

Set name: Frontier

Set theme: Top down western with hints towards an eldrazi invasion

Card designs: