Community Card Cycle Winner

Community Set

squire1

30 September 2011

1940 views

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So finally the Rare Cycle for the community set is complete. Thanks to Mpz5 for his help in creating this cycle of rares. Even more important than this cycle being done, is that all the rares are finished and we are moving to other segments of the set soon. More details on that later. Now lets take a look at the creative process behind the new set of cards we have.
So where do I start here? Well the design of this cycle started much like the design of all cards in the community set, a contest was held. For this contest we asked users to create a concept for a cycle and at least one associated card to represent what a card in that cycle would look like. From there we narrowed the many cycle submissions that we received into 10 cycles that we though would be flavorful, playable and clearly cyclical. By cyclical I mean that we looked at the basic structure of the card and extrapolated what it might look like in the other shards to see if it could be balances and resemble the original card enough that it would be recognized as a cycle.
From the 10 cycles the design team chose, the community voted on their favorite for those same purposes. In the end, a cycle designed by Mpz5 was chosen as the winner. Mana Flow was the first card of the cycle. As voting went on the design team examined the concerns of the users about how it would be difficult to make Mana Flow a cycle. We even agreed a bit, but still saw potential.

Now that Mana Flow had won the challenge it was time for collaboration between the design team and the challenge winner, Mpz5. We started out by each making a cycle based around the winning card in each of our own visions. Lets see what we each did: My cycle was the first that was posted in the file. I decided that giving the card itself flow seemed odd since you could not give and enchantment wither, cleave, resolve, or memento. So I looked at making the card an enabler. Since it already gave other cards FLOW: RGU, I figured that was the same as giving a single card FLOW:0 by activating RGU. This led me to thinking That instead of this card having FLOW, it should have an ability that worked off of FLOW. So I basically tacked on a stronger Jace's Erasure since flow makes you draw. I figured that it was useful and synergistic. Then i waited to see what the others came up with.

The next person to post suggestions was $ªmHεiπ. His ideas were related to mine but had a slight decrease in power level on each in his cycle so that he could decrease the casting cost to 4CMC.

Mpz5 added his next, and had some very different ideas, both from his original card and from the design team's so far. He too took into consideration the concerns of what the community said about this cycle. His initial idea went back to a static ability coupled with a triggered static ability. He also went for a one sided effect that granted all of your cards the main keyword and then had a synergistic triggered ability to go along with it.

Xander574 posted his next and leaned toward the direction of the design team with the static ability and activated ability combo. Yes the design team often agrees on things but not always (trust me). Xander pointed out for example that the milling ability that $ªmHεiπ and I had suggested, was in the wrong shard to begin with and that turning creatures into something else had much more flavor for this shard.

So where did we go from there. Well when you have a lot of different ideas on just one card and you need to design five that go together, it makes sense to build a template or a structure first. I was still in favor of my own template due to power balance issues for other cards in the cycle. Mpz5 felt that they could be balanced using his general template. The design team decided that since Mpz5 was the winner of the challenge we would go with his structure of one sided global buffs. And hence worked from this paradigm throughout the rest of the discussion. As with all cards that have been added to the community, if one is deemed OP in playtesting, it will be amended then. Also we collectively decided that making them Legendary enchantments was a good idea for balancing and for flavor. Each enchantment is the power or lifeforce of the shard itself. It is what sustains life and grants powers to denizens of the shard. So here is the working structure of the rest:

Based on this structure, we developed the cards below:

	So here is the final Irindu card. It gives all of your cards FLOW and then gives you an added bonus to playing a card for its flow cost. Note the careful wording of the card. It does not target. This could reduce your Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to a 0/1 for me to ping and I get to draw a card. Loving it. This card truely ended up feeling like it belonged to the RGU shard.
	This was one of the cards that we disagreed on the most. And I will freely admit that I was a pain in the butt on this card. I think that giving MEMENTO to all creatures is really strong, maybe too strong. I am alone in this opinion though, since the design team and community roll with it. That said I am probably wrong and its not too powerful. Just feels it. Because of that this card took some time to get through. After we decided to go ahead with all of your creatures having MEMENTO we had the equally difficult task of making a synergistic ability that was not too OP. I think that we did fine on that. It is a classic lifedrain ability and fits the shard nicely. Green, black, and white all gain life and black makes people lose it. I think it really fits.
	Sorok went through a couple of iterations. It was originally suggested that it give all creatures -4/-0. Then a -2/-2 was suggested. The difference in thought was what color was being represented by RESOLVE. If RESOLVE was mostly blue, then -2/-2 would be white and make sense. Since in the Sorok challenges we said that dwarves were mostly W/R and they would be the main resolve creature then it made sense to have -4/-0. in the end we decided to add a touch more red to the card with the "can't block" piece and decrease the creature nerf to -3/-0.
	This card was another stumbling block for us. Some felt that the card as is means that you pay five for a GG. However, since all creatures attack each turn it could be a gamble, since playing this forces one player or the other to be open to full out attack. in the end we agreed that this is alright to go and fairly balanced since it is difficult to cast and Legendary.
	Originally some wanted this to have mill, but overall we were against having to count -1/-1 counters each turn. It slows the game too much. Then it was suggested that it say "creatures with -1/-1 counter on then can't attack or block". Should sound familiar to some of you, but as Mpz5 pointed out, that is a bit on the red side, since it is the panic mechanic. However black (e.g., Paralyze) and blue like to keep stuff tapped, so we went with that.

Well that is about it folks. Those are the final cards until playtesting. At which point some may change or they will all stay the same.

So now what?

Well all the rares are finished. So logically we are moving to uncommons, however those challenges will be a bit different. I don't want to give too much away, but you remember all those cards you have submitted over the last year, yeah I have them all and some of them will see the light of day again. Until that challenge comes up in the next couple of weeks, we will be putting out articles that map out exactly what each shard is about clearly and what cards have already been created for it. Until then, start designing those uncommons.