My magic set -- themes
Jul. 10th, 2010 02:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThree-quarter art and full-art cards
Normally the bottom half of the card has a text box with rules, but for cards with few rules, having bigger art makes sense. So far, wizards have saved this for special occasions, but since I have so much trouble finding simple card ideas (like, "no rule text") exciting, and tend to make horribly overcomplicated cards, I wanted a way to make vanilla creatures exciting.
I really, really love the full art cards. Watchwolf is an alternate version of an existing card, but I think the whole-frame picture makes it look so much more awesome.
Squirrels
Squirrels were an early idea. They all have a theme of "bury something at the bottom of your library". I also put in a couple of the rare, quirky squirrel cards that had been printed before, as a homage to Mark Rosewater, who writes weekly articles on magic design on the Wizards website, and loves squirrel cards.
Rabbits
There are a few other rabbits but the breeding warren was what really amused me. It's exactly Fibbonaci breeding (maybe with one offspring per pair instead of two): each pair of non-Baby rabbits can tap (use their action for the turn) to produce a baby rabbit, which NEXT turn grows up. And the rabbits grow up into a copy of an existing adult rabbit, which is a little complicated, but means that normally they grow up into a 2/2 rabbit, but they MIGHT grow up into a Vizzerdrix.
Wolves
The wolves all have a theme of "pay 2 mana, target wolf gains [good thing]. And they're mostly 3/4 art.
Equipment
There's a lot of defence in the set -- a lot of high-toughness creatures or cheap zero-power creatures. The offence is supposed to be provided by a large amount of comparatively strong equipment, some of which has the "you may destroy this instead of the creature carrying it" clause, so the opponent isn't stuck with the permanently.
Originally these had the loyalty counter theme, but that ended up solely on:
Loyalty Lands
This is the only new card type -- I figured I knew I could always break the rules and come up with something weird, the question was, could I stay focussed? They're like plansewalkers, but cheaper, and less splashy. And in the rules, count exactly as lands (although they don't tap, but generally produce mana) that also have loyalty counters on (so creatures can attack them in addition to the opponent, until all the counters are gone).
Amusing to me
And finally, some were just amusing to me.
Pointless rats is a reference to relentless rats and other similar cards which remove the limit-per-deck for a card which is interesting but not overwhelmingly strong in multiples. But pointless rats DOESN'T have that limitation, so it's just randomly restrictive. You can have 3 copies in your reserve and one in your deck, and then the one in your deck is above-average -- but you can only have one of it. (Of course, in limit, you can have any number.)
Arcane was a keyword famous for only being useful with other cards with arcane. Well, here's one for free. Probably the only vanilla instant ever likely to be made. I don't think it still has any use, although there MIGHT be times when it's worth having a free card to use with a "whenever you play an arcane spell" or splice trigger.
Crackling inspiration I made before, but thought I might as well add. I added a "choose one" so it DOES have a use in normal decks, which would otherwise lose to running out of cards. I think that makes it funnier.
Normally the bottom half of the card has a text box with rules, but for cards with few rules, having bigger art makes sense. So far, wizards have saved this for special occasions, but since I have so much trouble finding simple card ideas (like, "no rule text") exciting, and tend to make horribly overcomplicated cards, I wanted a way to make vanilla creatures exciting.
I really, really love the full art cards. Watchwolf is an alternate version of an existing card, but I think the whole-frame picture makes it look so much more awesome.
Squirrels
Squirrels were an early idea. They all have a theme of "bury something at the bottom of your library". I also put in a couple of the rare, quirky squirrel cards that had been printed before, as a homage to Mark Rosewater, who writes weekly articles on magic design on the Wizards website, and loves squirrel cards.
Rabbits
There are a few other rabbits but the breeding warren was what really amused me. It's exactly Fibbonaci breeding (maybe with one offspring per pair instead of two): each pair of non-Baby rabbits can tap (use their action for the turn) to produce a baby rabbit, which NEXT turn grows up. And the rabbits grow up into a copy of an existing adult rabbit, which is a little complicated, but means that normally they grow up into a 2/2 rabbit, but they MIGHT grow up into a Vizzerdrix.
Wolves
The wolves all have a theme of "pay 2 mana, target wolf gains [good thing]. And they're mostly 3/4 art.
Equipment
There's a lot of defence in the set -- a lot of high-toughness creatures or cheap zero-power creatures. The offence is supposed to be provided by a large amount of comparatively strong equipment, some of which has the "you may destroy this instead of the creature carrying it" clause, so the opponent isn't stuck with the permanently.
Originally these had the loyalty counter theme, but that ended up solely on:
Loyalty Lands
This is the only new card type -- I figured I knew I could always break the rules and come up with something weird, the question was, could I stay focussed? They're like plansewalkers, but cheaper, and less splashy. And in the rules, count exactly as lands (although they don't tap, but generally produce mana) that also have loyalty counters on (so creatures can attack them in addition to the opponent, until all the counters are gone).
Amusing to me
And finally, some were just amusing to me.
Pointless rats is a reference to relentless rats and other similar cards which remove the limit-per-deck for a card which is interesting but not overwhelmingly strong in multiples. But pointless rats DOESN'T have that limitation, so it's just randomly restrictive. You can have 3 copies in your reserve and one in your deck, and then the one in your deck is above-average -- but you can only have one of it. (Of course, in limit, you can have any number.)
Arcane was a keyword famous for only being useful with other cards with arcane. Well, here's one for free. Probably the only vanilla instant ever likely to be made. I don't think it still has any use, although there MIGHT be times when it's worth having a free card to use with a "whenever you play an arcane spell" or splice trigger.
Crackling inspiration I made before, but thought I might as well add. I added a "choose one" so it DOES have a use in normal decks, which would otherwise lose to running out of cards. I think that makes it funnier.