overseer2020

[overseer2020]

Mystified and Demoralized (03/28/24)

Here we go again with Wizards of the Coast eating my lunch.

As none of you already know, I've been working on a custom Magic project since BEFORE Wizards was "encouraged" to embrace Fire Design. To be precise, this was when Ixalan (XLN) had just come out and brought Treasure tokens with it. Even then, Wizards "took" an idea I was having about playing up tokens in a big way. I soon realized the superiority of Treasure and decided to switch from using Gold tokens to the new Treasure tokens since having them enter/become tapped would facilitate the idea of "unexpected transfer of ownership" between players. My project is predicated on the world being initially overpopulated by criminal types, so being able to steal Treasure was a shoo-in as a core mechanic.

Additionally, I wanted to illustrate that there were actual bad guys inhabiting the plane, so I used the "batching" technology that the Dominaria (DOM) set brought us in the form of defining "historic" cards as artifacts, legendaries and sagas. My idea was to codify "heroes" and "villains".

Which brings me to my current gripe. You see, ever since I started this project, Wizards of the Coast has been implementing the ideas I came up with independently in "canon" Magic, effectively making my amazing, new ideas less amazing and less special.

For example, I was going to introduce a new spellcaster creature type for black mages to complement the existing white Clerics, blue Wizards, red Shamans and Green Druids. And then WotC beat me to the punch with Throne of Eldraine's (ELD) black Warlocks.

I could go on and on about how my casually produced custom project (it's actually four sets and a gaggle of Commander products/play experiences, so I can't just call it a "set") just KEEPS getting preemptively upstaged by actual, canon Magic with every set, but today, I am currently being demoralized by the batching of "outlaws" in Outlaws of Thunder Junction (OTJ).

While OTJ's titular "outlaws" are defined as Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues and Warlocks, my "villains" are Assassins, Mercenaries, Minions, Rogues and Masterminds.

I considered including Pirates, since Ixalan was promoting them so heavily at the time, but I didn't think that a) Pirates would catch on this well and b) I could do a whole heck of a lot more with them that Mercenaries wasn't already doing.

(Oh, and by the way, the return of Mercenaries was supposed to be one of my surprises, too. I always felt that lumping Mercs in with Rebels was a disservice to the relatively fair Merc mechanic that only ever fetched SMALLER creatures out of your deck, but that's a different rant.)

Masterminds are my own creature type creation for the BBEGs of the project with Minions being their charismatic right-hand... minions.

My "Heroes & Villains" project has always been thought of as an alternate timeline take on where Wizards would have taken Magic all those years ago. Before the War of the Spark, before Secret Lairs, before Commander-focused design, before Universes Beyond and before "Fire design" shook up the way Magic worked, I figured I was walking paths that Wizards wouldn't dare go, but it seems I was just several steps ahead of them.

I know that sounds boastful, and it is, but it's also increasingly true. The following concepts and many more were intrinsic parts of my custom project well before they appeared and/or became commonplace in canon Magic:

:: Letting players play their opponents' cards a la Lord Gonti.

:: Token artifacts becoming ubiquitous commodities.

:: Introducing Warlock as a creature type.

:: Batching "bad guys" together

:: Reintroducing Mercenaries

:: Creating cards based on other intellectual properties

:: [Soon] Creating cards with a superhero aesthetic (my project is heavily comics-inspired)

:: Colorless spells that aren't Eldrazi-flavored

:: Spells that can fetch a subset of other spells from outside the game (I abandoned this ides, but I came up with "Lessons" first.)

:: DFCs with identical fronts, but different backs (Also abandoned, but Unstable's variants feel a lot like this.)

:: Caring about whether a creature has a particular keyword ability (specifically, haste as made famous on Ginger Brute because usually, having haste doesn't serve any function after that first turn.)

:: Investing mana into a card now to be cast later (as seen on suspend, foretell and now plot. I couldn't work out how this was different/better than suspend and when foretell debuted, I thought better of it. Apparently Wizards wanted a do-over with plot. Seems a bit broken and unappealing at the same time, but we'll see.)

:: DFCs with differing card types on either side.

:: Equipment with alternate equip costs (I'm not sure I can take credit for this one, but my ersatz-Wonder Woman's armor had a less-streamlined version of this before Dominaria. Once the template was established, mine looked a lot more natural.)

:: A modern set entirely based around enemy color pairs. (Return to Return to Ravnica doesn't count.)

:: AFR's Rogue Class is almost exactly my "pilfer" mechanic. (Also, they named a card Pilfer out from under me. And Suit Up, and Prizefight comes close, and...)

:: Citizen becoming a supported creature type (Citizens existed before Streets of New Capenna, but only ever as tokens.)

:: A world full of "Outlaws" and/or crime families.

:: A revisit of the Brothers' War storyline complete with multiversal implications (this makes sense if only you knew all my secrets)

:: The return of and sudden ubiquity of sagas (Sagas weren't even a thing when I started.)

:: The return of hideaway

:: Maestro's Ascendancy comes pretty close to one of my mechanics, though not quite as weird or widespread as mine

:: And many more smaller slights that I can't think of now, but add up to a growing avalanche of ideas that can't have the same impact now that they are "old hat".

I say all this to say that as the official Marvel tie-in product inches ever closer and all my fresh ideas become stale, I'm feeling a bit beaten down. I'm going to finish my project, and I hope I have something worthy of showing off before the "deadline" (once Wizards unleashes its own comics-inspired set, mine will be DOA).

I also hope to share bits and pieces more often between now and then. I enjoy writing my ideas out, but I tend to be feast-or-famine when it comes to word count. I don't expect anyone to read this or follow me, but if you do, I will honor your interest in seeing what comes next by providing updates. I'm no longer even going to pretend I can produce blog posts regularly, but I can promise my next missive will be sooner than later.

[overseer2020]

Just Disastrous

19 -- January 2024

I just looked over what I've written so far and realized I haven't yet mentioned Disasters. You see, superheroes don't just fight crime, they often find themselves saving innocent victims from natual disasters (and deal with governmental authorities, but we've already talked about the Lawbringers).

For my project (I keep wanting to say "set"), Disasters are mythic rare Sagas that don't go away as long as someone is in peril. Originally, they were simple enchantments with their functionality spelled out in so many words that I chose to use the Big Text frame in Magic Set Editor to fit it all in. After all I was already going to use that frame for the big, complicated Schemes I originally envisioned, but more about those later.

Much like Skills, Disasters were an early idea that went through many iterations before landing where they are today. Part 2 Disasters will be a little different, and if they appear in part 3, I think I have yet another treatment for them there, too. It's one of the reasons I knew I would have to split the project up into separate sets -- some of my ideas clashed with others if they had to exist together in the same set.

A Disaster in Part 1 will put "peril counters" on each eligible permanent and grant the power to remove them to heroes and creatures with one of two specific keyword abilities. For example, Aerial Disaster (think plane crash), heroes and creatures with flying or vigilance can be tapped to remove a peril counter from something. This is important to do because permanents with peril counters on them will have something bad happen every (other) turn until there aren't any peril counters left.

I came up with the idea of disasters BEFORE SAGAS EVEN EXISTED. That's how long I've been at this, I'm embarrassed to report. When I saw their potential for storytelling in this project revolving around a story-telling medium (comics), I resisted a bit because I thought I would have to give up too much control with the way Sagas generally work. But then, tweaks like read-ahead and transformational Sagas opened my eyes to the possibilities. (My Saga-Disasters remove their own lore counters if peril counters still exist.)

Oh, and everyone will be affected by Disasters, not just the opponent's stuff; I intend for weilding Disasters to be dangerous. Some Disasters get more dangerous with each loop through the use of doom counters that aren't removed on each loop. Disasters are also legendary in addition to being mythic and expensive. This keeps them rare in Limited and less-than-obnoxious in Constructed. I've since reduced the expense, but in the grand scheme, they're still an investment.

[overseer2020]

Type, Two

18 -- January 2024

Now, the Skill mechanic was envisioned as a core pillar of the whole project, which is why I spent so much time going back and forth and in every concievable direction on how exactly to make the idea work. (Even now, I'm considering the tweak I came up with in yesterday's post.) So, it has been very important to me to get it right.

To that end, I sort of wrote myeslf into a corner with this first batch of skill cards because I accidentally took a concept I now think I should have held onto for Part 2 and built it into Part 1. That concept is that each skill spell has two modes. The idea here being that superheroes often have abilities they can use in more than one way. Heroes (and Villains) have a choice in how they use their powers and my players should, too.

The problem is that by debuting the keyword exclusively on cards with two modes sets up an expectation I do not intend. But I've gone too far in design to go back. If I could do a "Developer's Cut" version of this project, I would start off with single-effect Skills, roll into dual-effect Skills for Part 2, Triple up on Part 3 and do whatever for 4. As it stands, most Skill spells in Part 1 are very small, very simple abilities like "Draw two cards" or "Scry 2", so I hope to create Skills for Part 2 that are more complex. Heck, if I can do it right, I might be able to swap out my Part 1 Skills with whatever I come up with fpr Part 2.

Balancing the mana costs for spells that can be cast multiple times dovetails well with the idea that magic is still in its inefficient infancy, so spells will be a little overcosted. In case that last sentence didn't make sense, I mean that Skills are often overcosted because you can cast them more than once. If you haven't noticed, the purest expressions of a spell effect will always be the cheapest version. Tack on secondary abilities or keywords, and that same basic spell effect will cost a bit more.

Mind you, each slightly different iteration of the Skill mechanic (there were literal DOZENS of them) presented a different set of challenges with regards to costing and usefulness across the phalanx of cards I had already designed. I do ascribe to the idea that one can "just print it and let the players figure it out' to some degree, but it's always a good idea to establish the borders/barriers/limitations of a given mechanic so you don't over- or under-shoot the cost.

For example, the combat tricks with Skill have to be cheap enough to be useful, but not too efficient as to push the envelope. Now that the boundaries are defined, I can tailor the abilities limitations, mana costs, skill creature type and/or color mix of the spell to fit within them.

But that's all basic design stuff. My point here is that I had to do that A LOT since I hadn't locked in the mechanic's functionality early enough. Or rather, I THOUGHT I had it locked in until I changed my mind.

[overseer2020]

Type, One

17 -- January 2024

So, I've spoken about creatures, enchantments and artifacts, and I'll say right now, there are no planeswalkers in Part 1, but now, I must address the elephant you didn't know was in the room. Instants and sorceries.

You see, my vision for a superhero-centric Magic set would help the player FEEL like a superhero by giving them reusable "powers" they can cast/activate at just about any time. This suggested to me to create instants and sorceries that could be recast. But buyback, flashback and various variations on those already existed, so how could I carve out a unique spin on the idea (or use one of those existing mechanics)?

Well, I started with an idea of ONLY allowing these "powers" spells to be cast IF the player controlled a creature of the appropriate type, but in compensation, the player may cast that spell as often as they like as long as they control an appropriate creature. I was willing to have such a harsh limitation on spells because they could be cast ad infinitum, but in practice, it meant that a player would have dead cards in hand until they can draw a creature AND get it to stick. Perhaps there's still a handful of cards that might be powerful enough to use this concept without keywording it. (If you control your commander?)

The Idea behind these cards went through many many (many many) iterations, but the most important early change was the removal of the Tribal cum Typal card type. Since the conceit of the set is that these cards are to be designed as if Wizards of the Coast themselves produced them, I felt it was better to follow the current design philosophies, which includes no longer supporting producing new cards with the Typal card type. (I wonder why Wizards bothered to make that name-change announcement, so if they bring it back, I'll revisit the idea of using Typal cards.)

I considered exiling them, then letting them be cast from exile if the player controls the appropriate creature types. But that did not allow the player to interact with "power" cards in all the traditional ways one could with flashback. (Now that I think about it, this might actually work out with the most upgrades to the mechanic I recently decided upon. Hmmm.)

Long story short, this mechanic is now called "skill" (as in "{Type} skill"}, and one can cast the spell as normal. If you'd like to cast it again, you must tap an untapped creature you control of the appropriate type in addition to its mana cost*. Then exile the spell unless the tapped creature is legendary. This allows one to reuse the spell and reinforce the legendary theme at the same time. *or an optional alternate mana cost, although I haven't designed any cards this way.

[overseer2020]

Artifactual

16 - January

Last time I talked about the roles of Enchantments and Artifacts in Part 1. Enchantments lean toward criminal activity, being ephemeral but powerful. Meanwhile, sturdy, persistent Artifacts are favored by law enforcement (Lawbringers) and by extension, Vigilantes and their Protoges.

In part 1, Artifacts represent more of the plane's history returning to life with old things becoming useful again as well as certain "Kits", Vehicles and unique devices that make life better on Ethra. I wish I had more space to insert more Equipment in Part 1, but I expect this shortfall will be made up easily in Parts 2 and 3 where the majority of hero/villain conflicts will take place.

There's also supposed to be a strong sense of artifice amongst the population and its history, but that kept threatening to clash with the idea that about half of the populace is various degrees of hesitant to unwilling to engage with all this "magic" business so early in its rediscovery. There's also the idea that no living person is skilled enough to truly craft quality magical artifacts this early. Perhaps Part 4 will reveal more opportunities for Artificers to step into the spotlight.

The "kits" started out as an homage to the various cycles of "trinkets" and "boons" as originally embodied by Ivory Cup, Wooden Sphere, Dark Ritual and Lightning Bolt. The similarities are perhaps too subtle, but I'm okay with that since in-universe, the inspirations for them would have been nearly forgotten. They still give three bonuses (if you squint), but tying them to spellcasting almost immediately changed to controlling a creature of the appropriate color (so they can't be activated too early in the game (and require players to actually have the right colors in their deck).

The color-coded "Stone" cycle of indestructible artifacts were concepted as a number of random rocks anyone could stumble across. The fact that they're indestructible helps both the cards' ability to fulfill their promised threats of activation, but also made for enough "artifacts with indestructible" to make Tomorrowman's weakness a credible issue.

[overseer2020]

Schemes and Memes

15 - December 2023

So, I've explained most of the structure of this first set of my custom block, but creatures aren't the only card type in the set (of course). Now, maybe I went a bit far in assigning… attitudes? to artifacts and enchantments, but if I do this right, the subtle conflict between villains using pure magic and heroes using physical tools should resonate nicely.

But we aren't at the point where such a conflict can really play out yet. In Part 1 here, artifacts are presented as ancient objects being revived and resurrected now that Magic has returned. Apparently, in a bygone age, magical artifacts were a big part of everyday life. Meanwhile, ephemeral, temporary enchantments can be powerful, persistent and overwhelming. As alluded to previously, the criminal elements on Ethra have made it their business to master these "magical arts" for their own purposes. In Part 1, some of the most powerful enchantments are Schemes.

Each Scheme has an activated ability that requires the presence of one of the villainous creature types in one way or another to activate and resemble an actual major crime as represented in Magic terms. Since each faction spans two colors, there are ten Schemes in Part 1. I originally had more than two Schemes for each faction, but I realized that would be actively promoting multicolor deck construction in Part 1 and Crimeworld is concepted as being a monocolor set. So, I shipped the off-color Schemes to Part 2. It was a bit of a shame, but at least they would eventually see the light of day.

[overseer2020]

Don't Believe the Type!

14 - December 2023

In addition to the Six-ish factions (The Four Families, The Lawbringers and the Citizens), sentient creature types in this set are divided between Humans, Dwarves, Vedalken, Goblins, Orcs, and Elves. Magic has done typal sets before and I've tried my best to learn from them. Onslaught block made the mistake of choking out the types it promoted in adjacent blocks, so I chose (some) Races and Classes that appear everywhere. Mirrodin included changelings to sort of smooth out the balance. Ethra doesn't rely on Race as much and Class-specific cards are still playable outside of Class-specific decks, so I didn't feel the need to introduce a "neutral" race (although Humans kind of fill that role anyway). What I did do was give each creature type a clear color identity.

Dwarves are exclusively white or blue ("and" comes later), Vedalken are blue or black, Goblins are black or red, Orcs are black, red or green and elves are green or white. Humans can be found in all colors pretty evenly. Colorless creatures usually don't have Races, just Classes, but artifact creatures are usually Constructs as opposed to Golems or anything else.

I haven't figured out how exactly to handle it, but black Orcs are extra selfish "Ogres", red Orcs are aggressive and green Orcs are mellow, nature-loving "Trolls". For cards that care about creature types, I didn't want to always type out "Orcs, Ogres and Trolls" when just "Orcs" is cleaner and easier to read, but I also don't want to lose the idea that these three types are similar enough to bunch together the way that Neon Dynasty bundles "Samurai and Warriors" or "Ninjas and Rogues" to make cards that call out those less-than-universal creature types more useful. Perhaps I will decide that there aren't too many Orc cards to spell out the three types as if they are one.

It occurs to me that this is supposed to be a chronicle of how this all came to be, so here's a bit of bts. It took some doing deciding on these creature types. Vedalken are always blue, so a monoblack Vedalken would be treading new ground. Dwarves are usually red, but white is becoming common -- blue, however is not. Reveka is currently the only blue Dwarf, and perhaps there's some internal/lore reason why Dwarves haven't been blue before. That said, I've actually decided that while adherance to Ethra's Racial color pie is going to relax in Parts 2-4, but Dwarves aren't ever going to be green. Seems wrong, somehow. Deciding that Orcs can bleed into black was also a difficult choice, but then I realized Goblins (and Humans) are pretty small, so big black, red and green creatures are going to be Orcs.

[overseer2020]

General Topography of Ethra

13 - December 2023

It has been a couple of weeks since I sat down and wrote the first dozen entries and I hope to do better in keeping up the pace.

So, I've introduced you to the factions and outlined the idea that this set is a precursor to a world full of extraordinary people. Now, I want to outline the way this world works.

Like I said previously, "Part 1: A World of Crime" takes place in the late stages of an industrial revolution and at the beginning of a magical reawakening. As the world begins to understand more about this strange "magic" and how to incorporate it into their lives, the disparate townships scattered across the landscape are growing and combining, becoming one gigantic city-state. Beyond The City's city limits, there are still a few smaller settlements, but beyond those are vast tracts of barren wastelands of all types. There are burning sands, dense forests, mountain ranges, slimy swamps and stormy seas. And beyond THAT, should anyone be foolish enough to make such a trek, they will find impassable barriers. Barriers of light, heat, lightning, overgrowth and… nothingness. But the people of Ethra don't think about that. Most don't even know what's out there. And THAT's mostly because few survive the return trip. Those who HAVE are often less than coherent after experiencing such madness.

No, the people of Ethra don't often think about what lies at the furthest edges of their plane. Not when there is so much unexplored territory within those borders, not to mention all the space that has been explored and populated. The plane of Ethra may have solid boundaries, but the livable area is as large as a small planet in our universe.

I was going to start in on the races that populate Ethra, but since I'm on this geological tangent, I suppose this is the best time to mention that Ethra's sun doesn't rotate around the plane like a star in our universe would. Instead, it bounces back and forth between the five extreme boundaries in a star pattern. This has had the result of establishing The Five Directions: Sandward, Seaward, Bogward, Rockward and Greenward. For the sentient denizens of Ethra, it only makes sense to have five major directions; after all, they all have five fingers on each hand.

[overseer2020]

Faction 6: The Commonfolk

12- December 2023

Whew! Twelve entries in one sitting. This is always how it starts. I get a full head of steam, then I just can't seem to get back into it at the next opportunity. With any luck, the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head will get me typing more soon. Goodness knows I should have started this two weeks ago when the actual announcement (For Marvel Universes Beyond) dropped. I think I'll upload these to my tumblr tomorrow and set them a day apart. (It helps me stick to the plan if I write it down. Just don't remind me that no one can hold me to this promise until I actually upload it.)

So, those are the five factions and the way they fit into the color wheel. But wait, there's more! In addition to law enforcement and the criminal element, there is also the innocent bystanders -- the common Citizen!

Maybe the exclamation points were a bit much, especially since the identity I've carved out for Citizens is best described as "boring". You see, not everyone on Ethra is jazzed about all this new technology and even less enthusiastic about what everybody is calling "magic". Therefore, Citizens are (mostly) colorless and Citizen-flavored spells generally neutralize abilities.

Originally, Citizens were just going to be vanilla creatures and stand in contrast to all the heroes and villains with all the cool abilities. As design continued, I realized I had fewer and fewer reasons to make dull Citizens. Citizens are still… simple, but not only are they represented in all colors (including and mostly colorless), but they are also a key component in most villains' schemes. This effectively makes Citizens a set "mechanic" just like Treasures. And, so you have the general setup for part 1.

[overseer2020]

Faction 5: "Thieves! Thieves, They Are!"

11- December 2023

Okay, last one! We've got our Liars and our Cheats, our Killers and Mercenaries but we don't yet have our Thieves. And how can you have A World of Crime without thieves? On Ethra, thieves come in the form of Rogues (of course). And if you've been paying attention, the color pair left for my Rogues is blue/green.

Again, it is my intention to make the player complicit in acts of criminality, so I devised a keyword action that makes the player a thief.

Pilfer! Now, in the time since I came up with this mechanic, Wizards has not only created a card called Pilfer, but has separately reused the mechanic several times. I know that having a card exist with the same name as my mechanic doesn't automatically invalidate my mechanic, but having similar variations of my mechanic does make it less unique.

Not that I came up with it all by myself; Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Stolen Strategy already existed when I decided to make a keyword action out of the idea. At first, pilfer would let you choose from the top four, then the top two, but ultimately, you only get to exile the top card of your opponent's deck. You can cast it any time you like -- no time limit, but you aren't given the ability to use any mana you want. This makes Treasure tokens a bit more valuable.

Oh, yeah. Treasure tokens are in my set. Is it any wonder, now that you see where I'm going with this. Again, when I started this journey, Rivals of Ixalan was the latest set and Treasure tokens were only just starting to take off as a deciduous-cum-ubiquitous mechanic and I thought it would be cool to bring it back whenever my set got finished. Little did I know that the world would become nearly sick of the things. Not even my (borrowed) idea to have them enter tapped remained my sole claim to fame as that tweak has now been used on actual Magic cards. I'm too deep now, so Treasures that enter tapped have to stay.

And with good reason, too. Because while blue Rogues will steal the cards right off the top of your deck, green Rogues tend to steal any artifacts that aren't nailed down (but ironically ARE tapped down). To be more clear, whenever a Rogue deals combat damage, they tend to do one of the above. Either pilfer from the defending player or take control of a Treasure. Some do other "saboteur" effects like destroying things or just creating Treasures that weren't already present.

In-universe, Rogues are merchants and fences, salesmen and burglars, sailors and smugglers, spies and… well, spies! I can't think of much else to say about them. I think my inspiration is leaving me.

[overseer2020]

Faction 4: Bringing the Law

10- December 2023

Which brings us to the "Lawbringers". Technically, I'm referring to the Knights for this entry of the five factions, but the term Lawbringers (which is not actually used on the cards to 'batch' these creature types together -- too much overhead) refers to Knights, Soldiers and Scouts. I almost threw Archers in there too, but this set already cares about too many creature types, and I can always layer them in later. Note that there ARE Archers in Part 1, so officially making them Lawbringers for the handful of cards that care about the Lawbringer creature types wouldn't be too hard. They may end up being the Lawbringers' idea of escalation once the big bad guys arrive.

While Knights are one of the Five Factions that are actively making lives miserable on Ethra for their own ends, Soldiers and Scouts are not "in on" the backroom deals that the Knights have struck with the admittedly more powerful factions of the Four Families to stay out of their businesses. To their credit, Knights have become very good at covering up misdeeds and redirecting attention away from the Four Families.

I was real close to signing off on 'arrest' as being the signature mechanic for my Knights, but then Wizards came up with stun counters, which plays very well with my themes of difficult mana (more on that later) and my counters theme. Stun counters don't shut off activated abilities that don't have a tap symbol in their activations, but I can get around that by either stating that creatures with stun counters on them can't activate their abilities or ensuring that the majority of creatures with activated abilities must tap to do so. (In fact, as I wrote this, I realized that one of my rare Knights could really use this clause, so I added it. This blog is already paying off!)

Mechanically, white Knights are more likely to stun down opposing forces while red Knights like to take the direct approach with… direct damage. Both like to summon 1/1 Soldiers but none of the above are hard, fast rules, because while the Knights maintain a semblance of control over the forces of evil, they utilize too many disparate tactics to form a coherent strategy against the other factions. This is how I chose to represent the ineffectiveness of law enforcement on Ethra as well as the "demonstrated good intentions" of the Lawbringers. The Commissioner knows that he spreads his forces too thin and he knows the public is on his side as he commissions tactic after tactic to keep crime at bay. Everyone thinks he's doing as good a job as is possible in the meantime. Diabolical!

[overseer2020]

Faction 3: Lost and Found

09- December 2023

If you guessed that the Finders' Guild were Assassins, then your house earns 10 points this semester. Bridging the gap between black and green, Assassins (should I shorten their class name to "Assies"?) use any and all tools at their disposal to accomplish their often lethal missions.

Officially, they appear to the public as investigators, bounty hunters and even secretly as first responders and sports heroes -- whatever will get them closest to their targets. Their legitimate business is literally in finding people. In a world of crime and corruption, people go missing all the time for one reason or another. Sometimes, the missing are in need of rescue, but all too often, the "missing" don't want to be found, and by design, the Finders are the last people they want to be found by.

Mechanically, black Assassins use -1/-1 counters, 'destroy' effects and surprise tactics to remove opposing threats from the battlefield while green Assassins will outsize and outfight other creatures, often employing deathtouch. Additionally, black Assassin cards can assassinate your opponents' minds with discard effects. I originally wanted creature destruction to be difficult in H&V, but removal is too deeply ingrained in the game and too central to the idea of ultimate villainy that I couldn't NOT have an Assassi-- oops, a "Finders' Guild".

This entry's a bit short, so I'll let you in on a little secret. Of the Future Sight Slivers' abilities I had intended to weave into this set, 'poisonous X' would have made some sense here (as would infect or perhaps wither). But I already have so many other counters for a player to track that I didn't want to add poison counters to the main set. Maybe DDD (I'll explain later -- another promise). So, I left the door open by spelling out frenzy's mechanic on a prominent Assassin card that exists in a cycle of cards that hints at the future of each faction. I'm not locked in to using the frenzy keyword as I also have quite a few keywords in mind to use (as of this writing, Part 1 is almost finalized, but Part 2 is still malleable).

[overseer2020]

Faction 2: Minions! (Not those)

08- December 2023

The Speakers' Guild -- as I so recently dubbed them -- as a whole are represented by the creature type Minion in the H&V Project. They straddle the blue and the red with their abilities to manipulate people through illusion, deception, persuasion and confidence, respectively. The mechanics they utilize involve manipulating libraries with scry and fateseal. (Hey, look; fateseal! I wonder if the other Future Sight mechanics will make an appearance!) These are supposed to be villains, so I figured what better way to make the player feel like a villain in a card game than by giving her the means with which to cheat? If Mercs are effectively bullies, then Minions are effectively liars.

Oh, and about the creature type, I figure that the big bad guys of Parts 2 and 3 are going to need their strong seconds. You know, the Starscreams, Wormtongues, Destros, Darth Vaders and Sagats of the world. The people who have bought in to the company line so whole-heartedly that they can convince others to join the cause. Blue minions are all about manipulating the opponent through fateseal and occasionally recruiting their creatures to your side. Red minions might browbeat a creature into joining, but only as long as the "recruiter" is around. Mostly, red likes to scry ahead to see the plan to fruition, whatever your plan might be, Boss. Both sides can scry and fateseal, but I wanted some differentiation between the colors.

In-universe, Minions don't call themselves "Minions" and don't often work together in teams like Mercs or Assassins might. (Oops, did I give away the next faction?) Operating as lawyers (known as lawgivers), spiritual gurus, inspirational speakers, psychiatrists and other "soft service" professionals, many Minions are actually legitimate businesspeople, making those with ulterior motives that much more difficult to suss out.

[overseer2020]

Faction 1: Enter the Mercs

07- December 2023

But I promised to flesh out the color schemes of the five factions. Because I got sidetracked last time, I'll do one better and outline their mechanical function in the set.

Mercenaries in Part 1 are White or Black ("or" because mixing magical colors hasn't become a thing yet -- Ethra is still coming to grips with how to wield one color at a time), and predictably, they can search each other out of your deck.

Now, some of you might remember the first time creatures started fetching other creatures out of your library in Magic and think this is a big mistake. You may be right; failure is always an option, but I think Wizards threw the baby out with the bathwater twice when they lumped the Mercenary mechanic in with the Rebel mechanic and then decided never to explore that concept again. This may be hubris on my part, but I think it wasn't the mechanic (linear and parasitic though it may be) that was at fault. Properly costed, I think it can still work.

My white Mercs don't put the creature onto the battlefield, but rather in your hand, effectively requiring you to pay for them twice. Sounds like a Merc to me! Meanwhile the black Mercs CAN put a smaller creature onto the battlefield, but always tapped, so no hasty shenanigans or surprise blockers, thank you very much. (Oh, heck. I had intended to get through all of them, then half of them, but now I see I'm reaching my self-imposed word count limit, so let me just give a little more context on the Merc faction to finish up.)

Mercs in Ethra are the only faction to be openly operating in their milieu, but they do still have a dark side in that some people only become Mercs due to the crippling debt that society foists upon them. Nevertheless, it is not considered out of the ordinary to hire one for personal protection, temporary companionship (as in a "plus one" to a black tie affair), as a skilled skipper, a sherpa, extra security guards or just to mow your lawn once a week. Even Lawbringers have been known to beef up their presence with the judicious (no pun intended) use of Mercs. Comic book aficianados might already see where this faction's future is headed. Needless to say that as henchmen go, Mercs are a ready-made solution to a manpower problem that hasn't arisen yet.

[overseer2020]

Four-Color Adventures is Actually Six

06- December 2023 Last time, I described the five major villainous factions of Ethra, but I didn't go into their color affiliations. That's partially because color is an important aspect of Four Color Adventures. This first set, Part 1: Crimeworld is concerned with one color at a time. There are only two multicolored spells in the set and that's by way of technicality. One of them is like Transguild Courier, requiring generic mana to cast and stating in its textbox that it is every color. The other is a five-color spell that serves as a box-topper and won't be found in boosters. Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm approaching H&V like an actual WotC product, keeping to their (ever-evolving) design philosophies.

Exciting design dictates that I must push envelopes, but in hindsight, I don't think I pushed as hard as Wizards themselves have in the six years since I started this project. As I describe some of the decisions I've made, I will try to remember how many of them weren't actually a thing when I came up with them.

One of those ideas was colorless (non-artifact, non-Eldrazi related) spells. Ikoria may have started it, but Strixhaven popularized the idea with Lessons that could be brought in from one's sideboard. As a sidenote, the core mechanic of this set (which I'll get to, I PROMISE) was originally designed along those lines. I don't remember if changing it was in response to Lessons, but I'm rather pleased with the current incarnation, though it does now resemble an existing mechanic a lot.

I bring up colorless non-artifact spells here because in contrast to the Five Factions' embrace of the color pie, most Citizens of Ethra have yet to take up magic and can be summoned with colorless and/or generic mana. That's right. I'm bringing back the colorless mana symbol.

P.S. I prewrote these posts so I could frontload the series, but I couldn't even keep up with that. (I forgot to keep uploading them.) *sigh*

[overseer2020]

Apologies!

Sorry guys. I forgot I was in the midst of uploading to this blog.

As I said before, if I start proofreading these things, they'll never go out, so apologies for any dropped conceptual threads or bad grammar. I just want to get this down.

[overseer2020]

The Four Families AKA (Some) Guilds of Ethra

Note: Honestly, it is the WORST experience, trying to paste text into tumblr. Anyone have a best practices suggestion?

05- November, 2023

Earlier, I spoke of the Four (plus) Families. Writing this down has forced me to give certain unnamed elements names. None of the "Guilds" are called guilds on the cards at the moment, but it serves this blog (and future reference) for them to have names.

The Locators' Guild may be the best place to go when someone you love goes missing, but it's also the place to go when someone you don't love NEEDS to go missing.

The Merchants' Guild has the best manufacturers and distributors at their disposal, but if what you want can't be made or legally transported, they can usually get it to you anyway.

Self-help, inspiration and legal representation can be useful services, but putting your full trust in the Speakers' Guild can be dangerous, too.

The Mercenaries' Guild has thousands of members that are ready, willing, and (usually) able to take on any task you throw at them… for the right price.

But if you are hurt, think you may have been taken advantage of, or are in need of official intervention, the Lawbringers are sworn to protect the Citizens of Ethra, though the wise can see that they often serve their own interests in the process.

These five factions conform to the five enemy color pairs and appropriate creature types (classes to be specific). Can you guess them before the next entry?