CCDD 062520 - Adaptation

Here's a design inspired by Hostility, which turns Lava Spike-style direct damage into creature tokens. I wanted to capture the same feeling of rewarding a type of effect that isn't normally a great investment. Ikoria gave me exactly the tools I needed to do that in green.

Weekend Design Challenge 021519 - Out-of-Guild Ravnica Keywords II

Hey Artisans. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to some of your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and, time permitting, I'll review the most recent submission from each designer.

Weekend Design Challenge 091418 - Out-of-Guild Ravnica Keywords

Hey Artisans. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to some of your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and I'll review the most recent submission from each designer.

Big Picture Mechanics

What kinds of mechanics does a set need to click? If we were designing a new set, what sorts of mechanics would we want to be sure to include?

First, let's review the marketed mechanics from the last few years of sets and try to categorize them.

Suvnica Week 14 Review, Part 2: Peacemaker (Sorba Keywords)

Our last set of reviews covers the vigilante guild. There were a number of really cool keywords thrown out there for this one. Here's some of the ways we can protect those that can't protect themselves.

Suvnica Week 14 Review, Part 1: Living in the Future (Kismi Keywords)

Kismi proved to be one of the more challenging guilds to design keywords for. Because so much of their identity is tied up in predicting the future, and because translating that into game mechanics leads to either very cumbersome rules text or unfun methods of playing, it was tricky to find a keyword that hit that sweet spot of fun, grokable, flavorful, NWO-friendly rules. Still, we came up with a number of really strong efforts here. Let's see what everyone had to say about our fortune-tellers.

Suvnica Week 13 Review, Part 1: Thug Story (Radkar Keyword)

Terrorists, grifters, and thugs, the Radkar thrive at the intersection of Power and Chaos. Let's see what kind of keywords everyone came up with for them.

Suvnica Week 12 Review, Part 2: The Last Horizons I Can See Are Now Resigned to Memory (Rimid Keywords)

The Rimid are vampires that feed off of memories instead of blood. You all came up with some cool ways of representing that through keyword mechanics. Here are some potential guild keywords for the Rimid.

Designing Suvnica, Week 14: Present Tense

Here we are -- the last week of keyword design challenges. I'll probably be taking a week or two off after this to figure out where we're going next with Suvnica (and to catch up on card reviews -- I know I'm a few weeks behind). Let's wrap up this stage and dive into Kismi and Sorba.

Designing Suvnica, Week 13: Gangster's Paradise

Theros previews are right around the corner. I'm hoping to wrap up this stage of Suvnica design right around the time that the RtR block starts fading into the background. With that in mind, this week we're rolling right along with another guild keyword, as well as another cycle challenge.

Designing Suvnica, Week 12: Bottom Feeders and the Ascended

Alright guys. We're halfway done with our first round of mechanics solicitations. This week we'll be throwing two more guilds into the ring. In the meantime, because last week's challenge went up late, I'll leave it open a few more days before reviewing the non-guild cycles.

Designing Suvnica, Week 10: Back in Black

And we're back! I've been itching to dive back into this. I didn't have the time to finish out the remaining guild profiles while I was studying, and that's hopefully something I'll be able to do over the course of this week. In the meantime, for this week's challenge, we'll be coming up with keywords for two more guilds this week, plus a bonus design challenge.

Designing Suvnica, Week 9: The Same Thing Different

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm running a little late with this. It has become pretty clear that two keywords a week is going to be impossible to keep up with. In the interests of keeping this project moving along at a reasonable pace without drowning under it, I'll be doing the keyword challenges alongside other challenges, which should keep the workload bearable.

I'll discuss the non-keyword challenge first, then we'll talk about which guild is getting keyword suggestions this week.

Suvnica Week 8 Review, Part 2: Zhavi Guild Keywords

The Zhavi keywords spawned an interesting debate on counter types, but a lot of people played in other mechanical space. Let's see what everyone came up with:

Suvnica Week 8 Review, Part 1: Tezzi Guild Keywords

Alright alright alright alright. Lesson learned. No more than one guild keyword challenge per week. 75 new cards are sitting in the Suvnica file. Let's check out the mechanics we came up with this week, starting with Suvnica's class clowns.

On Counter Types and NWO

I'm writing this to develop some design discussion that has been going on in the comments of my Suvnica Design Challenge from Yesterday, when we started taking a shot at the first guild keywords. In my introduction to the keyword design challenge, I offered this mechanic for one of the guilds:

Designing Suvnica, Week 8: Curses and Tricks

Hey everybody. This week, we're starting Stage 3 of Suvnica design. We have working creative identities for each of the guilds, now it's time to really start pinning down the mechanical. I know a lot of you have been eager to start coming up with guild keywords, and this week we're doing that for the Zhavi and the Tezzi guilds.