Custom Block Cubing

Servo_Token says... #2

The only real big pointer that I would have would be to run your cards and set as a whole by other people (Us on TO, your friends, etc), to check for powerlevel, balance, and consistency.

Otherwise, just try to keep your colors balanced, and stick to your central themes and mechanics.

July 25, 2014 11:28 a.m.

Also, what should my ratio of commons to uncommons to rares to mythic rares be and what should the total number of all the cards in the block be and how much should I print of each card? I'm thinking 2 of each mythic, 3 of each rare, 5 of each uncommon, and 7 of each common.

July 25, 2014 11:37 a.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #4

I presume you have MTG Set Editor? If so, here's some general hints to further improve the quality of your set:

Make sure each two-colour combination has something to do. This may mean weaving the mechanics together so that they work alright with mechanics in similar colors. For example, a colour combo that uses one mechanic should be able to splash a card with another mechanic. Or, a colour combo with no specified mechanics (but an identity) should be able to use a mechanic to help it.

Use the statistics charts to check how many mechanics (evergreen or otherwise) are in your set, and also another important thing: the P/T ratio of creatures. Keep it as close together as possible, as a cube with too much toughness for example will lead to long, grindy games.

Use Microsoft Word to list down how many cards you need to create in each colour for each rarity, and what each card needs (type, size if a creature, mechanics). This is called a "design skeleton", and it really helps. Check out the "Nuts & Bolts" articles on the MTG site for the low-down on these, they are AWESUM.

Remember, you'll probably be using only one copy of each card thanks to the nature of Cube, which drastically changes how the mechanics in your set will function. With 360 cards to design too (unless you wish to run a 6-person cube of 240 cards), you'll have a lot of space to fill to stretch your mechanics... unless you intend on running multiples of, say, commons. That is allowed, if not typical, in Cube.

July 25, 2014 11:38 a.m.

Servo_Token says... #5

I believe that the rarity ratios go something like:

1 : 2 : 4 : 10

That is, Mythics to Rares to Uncommons to Commons. So if you have 15 mythics, you will end up with a 255 card set, which is probably fine.

July 25, 2014 11:43 a.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #6

For a 249 card "large" set (a fairly typical number), I have the ratios at 101 commons, 60 uncommons, 51 rares and 15 mythics. Useful, but not very useful for a 360-card cube, especially when these aren't typical booster packs but packs choc-a-block full of singletons.

It'd be best to start from mythic rares backwards: How many do you want in your pool? 360 cards in an 8-person draft means EVERY card in the Cube is being used, so if you have 20 Mythics in the Cube, ALL of them are going to get pulled. Decide how many Mythics and Rares you want flying around, then ratio out the commons and uncommons.

July 25, 2014 11:43 a.m.

Servo_Token says... #7

With this rarity ratio, I think that you're fine with the numbers of printings that you gave already.

July 25, 2014 11:45 a.m.

MagicalHacker says... #8

pookypuppy6, thanks so much for the feedback, it's really helpful!

I do have MSE, and will be using it to design the block/three sets.

In this set, there are seven factions: one of each color, five color, and colorless. It's a top-down block with the set structure being Large-Large-Small. There is a good vs. evil theme in the set, and the set is "color weight matters". High color weight = evil, low color weight = good. This means that it will be easier to splash other colors if you aren't running a lot of "evil" cards. They will be balanced to have effects that are exponentially better the more color intensive they are. Basically, this means there is some synergy in mechanics between cards, but one will notice more leniency to the decks of "good guys banding together". (Also, this set was being designed before even return to ravnica, so it has nothing to do with the devotion mechanic of theros.)

I can do that! Obviously, different colors will have different P/T ratios, but overall, I can try to keep it the same.

I am definitely going to need help with the design skeleton, so I'll check out those articles!

Actually with this cube, I wanted to have nine piles: Set #1 rares and mythics, uncommons, and commons; Set #2 rares and mythics, uncommons, and commons; and Set #3 rares and mythics, uncommons, and commons. Instead of building the packs beforehand, I would distribute one of the first pile, three of the second, and eleven of the third to each player, with a lot left over in the piles. That would be the closest to a real draft in my opinion, because sometimes no one gets a mythic, and sometimes everyone does for example. it adds that randomness of allowing cards to be nonpresent in the draft sometimes.

July 25, 2014 11:56 a.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #9

Of course, the biggest thing about building a set is what makes it SPECIAL. Namely, the theme and mechanics. Do you have any ideas at the moment which you could relay at all, MagicalHacker? I'd love to see them and give my critique.

July 25, 2014 12:01 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #10

Oops, ninja'd.

You'll have to test how that pile technique works yourself, I couldn't give you a handle on how the maths works. You seem to have it figured more than I do :p

As for the "colour weight" concept, I'll want to have a look at how you do it. Having a lot of colour-heavy cards can make deckbuilding quite difficult on both sides (good and evil) and could pull a drafter in different directions (like Infect or not-Infect + Metalcraft in Scars of Mirrodin did). So you'd have to balance quite well. I also sense that you'd have to do some heavy flavour work to make heavy white "evil" compared to lite-white being "good". Say, maybe the beings on your world go power-crazy when imbued with all that mana?

You may want to consider bring an optional costs mechanic to the evil cards, to help alleviate for the problems above. Say we have a white card with converted mana cost WW. It could have an alternate cost of 3W on it so that it is far easier to draft, albeit with the penalty of not being so strong for its cost. The only issue then is the flavour problems. This is not the only solution that could be available to you though.

July 25, 2014 12:09 p.m.

MagicalHacker says... #11

The optional costs sound good, but I think it'd be instead pay one of it's particular mana and either lose life or lose cards or lose creatures or lose lands or lose cards in the library or something.

I really wanted to wait on the card design once I got all the mechanics down... but sure, this is the flavor of the plane:

Originally, this was the plane of all that was good, but something changed at some point. Even though the plane was inhabited only by humans, a Demon planeswalker came to this plane and twisted it in order to make himself stronger. At first, nothing seemed to change, but slowly, people's minds became twisted so much, that now the entire multiverse is becoming tainted with the pure evil coming from this plane. The demon planeswalker, with his new-found power of using the will of the people of the entire plane as a powerful evil magic, has been able to defeat anyone who stands in his path, even his old friend Liliana. As the last of the four demons who she sold her soul to, whenever she uses magic, he simply becomes more powerful. This is her last target, but certainly not her easiest.

The world is divided into seven based on the seven deadly sins:

W: Pride.

U: Lust.

B: Greed.

R: Wrath.

G: Gluttony.

M (multicolored): Envy.

C (colorless): Sloth.

(For multicolored and colorless, I have two new mana symbols, M and C respectively. M must be paid with a color not already paid in the mana cost, and C must be paid with colorless mana. In addition, there are two new lands that will be at basic land rarity, even though they are not basic lands themselves. The two abilities for these lands are "T: Choose a color at random that is not in your mana pool. Add one mana of that color." and "Tap an untapped land you control: Add 1 to your mana pool." In addition, these lands would have a mechanic that says "A deck can have any number of cards named ~.")

I have written down in a notebook somewhere the other set mechanics, as well as the seven virtues, but the idea is this:

In the first set, evil is ever present, and the righteous cards are hard to find (No righteous cards at common or uncommon rarity.) In the second set, it's the opposite. In the third set, there are cards that are either legendary cards from the two sides of the seven factions, cards that increase the power of all evil cards, and cards that increase the power of all the righteous cards.

I have thought about making little watermarks for either each faction, or just good and evil, but I don't want to over complicate things.

That's kind of a preview of what I'm building.

July 25, 2014 2:42 p.m.

Egann says... #12

Wow, how many custom cards are you planning on making for that?

That is a fascinating cube idea which I really like. It just strikes me as a ton of work. My major concern is that the subtlety of how the rarity and the card personality combine will go right past most players. You may actually want to add another mechanic to drafting to make players notice when they are drafting good or evil cards a la Conspiracy.

July 25, 2014 6:42 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #13

I'm a bit confuzzled (okay, completely lost) as to why you have to have new mana symbols for all colours and colorless. And why do you heed to invent two new basic lands for this?

Instead of basic lands (which don't work here because you're doing Cube format), why not just a sizeable bunch of colourless mana-generating lands (like Phyrexia's Core ) that would fit nice with your set, and/or lots of all-colour lands (like Rupture Spire and the like)> That way you'd be in theme, get to make cards for each archetype without messing with game fundamentals unncessarily, and it'll make up a sweet flavourful suite of nonbasics to your Cube.

Anyways, your flavour should really come across in the spells, not the lands here. Your all-colour creatures and colourless spells should convey their.

Can't wait to see the Sloth spells. How about creatures that enter tapped, or don't untap the untap step after they attack? Hilarious.

July 25, 2014 7:31 p.m.

MagicalHacker says... #14

Egann, 600-700, with about 100 being reprints.

Thank you! It is a lot of work, but I am almost done building a commander deck for every good commander, so I'm planning on what I'm going to be using my time after that xD I'm not sure what you mean about the subtlety and personality or about the additional mechanic you're talking about. Could you elaborate?

pookypuppy6, Okay, so the way it works is that for five of the seven deadly sins, the five colors correspond pretty well to those sins, but sloth and envy don't, but rather correspond to multicolored and colorless well. Let me walk you through my reasoning behind each;

Most colorless spells cost generic mana (a lot of people say it costs colorless, but it's a common misconception/confusion of the terms). Those spells tend to be a bit weaker since any deck can run them, and it's true. So I wanted to design a colorless card that was just as color intensive as any monocolored spell, and it lead me to think of a mana symbol that can ONLY be paid for with colorless mana. This would allow lots of power in these cards, while keeping them colorless. However, that means that someone building a colorless deck in draft won't be able to grab simply basic lands for the draft... The only way I thought about circumventing this issue is by creating a type of sixth basic land (note: it won't have the basic supertype) that functions essentially as a basic. (Rules for this land: any number can be in a deck, it taps for colorless.)

For multicolored, unfortunately, this required quite a bit of thinking... Firstly, let me say that there is no way that I could think of to make a multicolored one drop just as hard to cast as a monocolored one drop without making it over complicated or way too hard to cast (like when you cast it, choose X colors at random, where X is the number of those symbols, it costs that color to cast). So I instead focused on five drops and worked my way down and up from there. A multicolored five drop would be WUBRG, so it was obvious to me that colorless mana would definitely not work for the envy cards. The multicolored four drops that had no generic mana in their mana costs cost four different types of mana, so at this point, I considered a mana symbol that could be colored mana of any color, as long as there weren't any colors used twice (a seven drop in envy for example would be MMWUBRG, where M is the special symbol). The "basic" for this color would have to work just as well as a basic would for the other factions, but simultaneously much worse than a basic for those factions. Therefore, a straight up effect of "T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool." was just not an option. With a bit of brainstorming, I realized that by letting you choose a color not in your mana pool, you could add the mana required for the multicolored symbol, but "T: Add one mana of any color not in your mana pool to your mana pool." had two issues. First, it allowed other factions to tap for whatever color they wanted first and then the rest of their lands to add just their color. Second, it meant that it couldn't add mana to the mana pool if WUBRG was already in it. So, with some more brainstorming, I considered randomization to fix the first issue and a rephrasing of the words to fix the second issue. This was the ability that I had gotten: "T: Choose a color at random of the colors with the least amount of mana in your mana pool. Add one mana of that color to your mana pool." Wordy, confusing, and too lengthy, this needed another fix. With some more brainstorming, I thought about going about this ability a new way: "X, T: Choose X colors at random. Add one mana of each of those colors to your mana pool. Use only mana produced by lands with the name '~' to pay for X." This accomplished everything I wanted in the land, and even though it has a long ability, this ability is easy to read and easy to understand. After a bit of thinking on how to limit the wording down, I came up with this: "Tap X untapped lands with the name '~' you control: Choose X colors at random. Add one mana of each of those colors to your mana pool." The cost is understandable, the ability is understandable, it fixes all the issues I have had to this point, and I am happy with it. (The only small asymmetry involved is when all lands are turned to creatures, this can still tap when it enters, but I am not sure if it's worth changing this land if there aren't any effect like that in the block.) Again, this is going to have the ability to put any number of these in the deck.

(All of that was in reply to your first paragraph.)

If I chose to go with the colorless lands and/or the all color lands, there would be a couple of asymmetries involved:

The colorless lands would have additional abilities. which is not fair to anyone choosing a different faction.
The all colored lands would be balanced so that they have a downside to the fact that they tap for any color you choose, which is not fair to the envy faction.
Anyone choosing envy or sloth would have to also try to pick the lands that they need since they wouldn't be able to get those lands after the drafting is finished, which is not fair to them especially if those lands are good for the other factions as well because of the additional ability or the ability to tap for any color.

Those issues are way too harmful to the balance I want in the set, so that is why I chose to create new "basics" (again, they won't have the type, but they will function in every other way as a basic).

The lands aren't ingrained into the flavor as much as they are ingrained into the mechanical balance of the set and it's flavor. The spells of the set will definitely have all the flavor, but these lands allow those spells to use their mana cost for the flavor as well.

For the sloth spells, I have effects like that, but it tends to make other cards "more work" like "Creatures you don't control have 'This creature doesn't untap during the untap step unless you pay 1 life.'" and "spells you don't control cost 1 more to cast." Additionally, it makes you work less with effects like, "At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a creature, put it onto the battlefield tapped." and "At the end of your turn, if you didn't cast a spell this turn, gain X life, where X is the number of cards in your hand." Lastly, with every faction, I want it to cater to those who have more in common with the faction, so sloth is going to have LOTS of static abilities.

July 26, 2014 2 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #15

Okay, while I now get what is going on there, I'm still really not on board with it. It sounds like a lot of work for something that could far more easily be "This faction just has colourless cards and this other one has all-multicoloured cards". I understand your balance concerns, but really that's the last thing you need to worry about, and from a design perspective I find making two new mana sources unintuitive. Actual Magic designers couldn't even make a sixth colour work for Planar Chaos, so effectively making seven seems off.

A note on colour sharing in the draft: I imagine you'd be worried that, say, the colourless and multicoloured faction would have it hard because their cards would be pinched by other players with different sins. But remember, it's likely that those players are most likely mixing sins already to go two colour already. A balance of five colours already pushes drafters to go with 2 colours most of the time, and you are running 7 unique mana symbols...you think anyone will stick with one sin in that environment? Think of the card quality!

How about you have multicolour cards that not only fit into its own identity but work into a two-colour combo identity (say, between two sins)? It'll be like making cards that work well between guilds in Ravnica AND have their own identity, and it helps supplement the other sins for more flexible draft choices that can be hunted for. Same with the colourless cards. They can have their own identity, but their effects can work well with one or two of the other sins. It can be done!

Flavourwise, it's fine. Having an exclusive sin identity is less interesting I feel than a mixture of sins, and with the right mechanics placed next to each other they could mix fine. How about a player who gives in to the sins of Greed, Gluttony and a bit of Sloth too, for example? That's an interesting image portrayed by the deck.

July 27, 2014 8:43 a.m.

Egann says... #16

MagicalHacker

I mean that magic drafts are inherently agnostic about good and evil. Unless you make how many color symbols a card has part of the draft players will tend to consider things good cards or bad cards, not good cards or evil cards.

This is just an idea I'm pulling out of thin air; it's just to give you ideas.

Say you have 16 card boosters and the average colored mana cost is 2.5, so there are 40 mana symbols in each "pack." Good would be 2 or fewer color symbols, evil would be 3 or higher.

So, imagine you add a good counter and an evil counter. Draft a 1 color cost card? Your good counter goes up by 2 because 1 color cost is 2 away from the nearest evil card value. Draft a 3 color cost card? Add 1 to your evil counter because it is 1 away from the nearest good card value.

Now when you're playing, you mulligan Evil-Good cards for free and once per turn when you would draw a card, you may scry 1 until you have done that Good-Evil times. Evil decks start with fantastic opening hands (evil cheats), but good can consistently find cards through the game (divine intervention).

Obviously that's a bad system which needs work. You could possibly scry 240 times, which is about a zero too much, and neutral players get nothing. It's just a way to make players think about good and evil as a part of the cube.

July 28, 2014 10:17 a.m.

MagicalHacker says... #17

That's a neat idea, I'll try to play with it.

July 28, 2014 10:26 a.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #18

@Egann: Players not playing good and evl shouldn't have to be penalised by not having these bonuses. While its true that players think of good or bad cards/strategies and not often on a Vorthos level when Cube drafting, the solution is not to change fundamentals of the game unnecessarily, and to the detriment of players who want to try to innovate and try a mix of cards for a new strategy (for example).

If the Cube is designed and built right, then good and evil will come about in people's card choices regardless. And if not, then maybe mana and colour is not the best place to try and mechanically introduce that dichotomy.

July 28, 2014 12:54 p.m.

MagicalHacker says... #19

pookypuppy6, I think you're right. I can design the block so that the good cards work best when there are fewer evil cards in play and the evil cards work better the fewer good cards are in play.

Aside from that, I've seem to lost what I worked on this set from those years in the past, so it seems that I have to reinvent the mechanics. (I designed effects, but never named them as mechanics.) So the following are my ideas thus far:

For vanity, there are a couple of things that I want to focus on;

In many formats, white is one of the weakest colors. In commander, legacy, modern, and most of the time in standard, mono-white is not only sub-par, but even considered to be a poor strategy by most. So I want to give white some sort of utility to keep up with the other colors.
I want the mechanic of vanity to be the favorite of those whose vice is vanity themselves. That means that I have to give something that is completely fair (which also fits in white's definition in the color pie) and something that uses opponents' momentum against them. This way, those players will be proud of this faction, and most likely claiming it to be the best (each faction has it's own advantages and disadvantages).
I want the cards to be in flavor with the concept of pride. So creatures or enchantments with this mechanic should be gloating creatures or enchantments of pride in terms of flavor.

So with these in mind, this is what I imagined.

First, a mechanic based around cards in a certain location could work, and since white is all about equality and fairness, the idea behind this mechanic pretending to be about equality while actually portraying one-sidedness and vanity. So something like "Put X 2/2 white Cat creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the number of creatures you don't control". Additionally, "Draw X cards, where X is the number of cards in target opponent's hand" and "Gain X life, where X is target opponent's life total" would work the same way. Unfortunately, this seems clunky and not a type of effect that needs a mechanic... I may scrap this altogether.

July 28, 2014 2:02 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #20

@MagicalHacker: White is one of the weakest colours? Huh Ill be damned, because it's the colour I most hate playing against. With it often having some of the most powerfully costed creatures, some strong rmeoval in conditional destruction and exile, and also other useful effects, White is a powerful force in LIMITED. Because remember, a Cube is essentially a LIMITED format (as in, a Draft). Now true it is a constructed, pre-determined set of cards, but keep that in mind.

Your sins should come across in the cards and the attitude will follow, but I don't think giving white better (or even better-looking stuff) is how to do it. Think about it: if it works, everyone will try to play white!

Pride is well suited to white, what with it being suited to fancy-pants knights and people sooo proud of upholding order and valuing their oh-so-special life energy and shit. Sounds a bit like Azorius or Boros actually, being too proud and overzealous with their authority and awesomeness. Now...how that would be represented in a creature card? Exalted would be an interesting mechanic with this concept, or something along those flavour/mechanical lines maybe?

July 29, 2014 11:31 a.m.

MagicalHacker says... #21

True, white is a formidable force in limited.

Should I just stick to creature-based mechanics? The sins are going to affect them a lot more than anything else, so it kind of makes sense...

July 29, 2014 12:05 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #22

Rememebr that blue and red typically have less creatures than the other colours (the order in terms of quantity is white, green, black, red and blue), so those last two will have less room for creature-based mechanics. If you are comfortable with creature mechanics, design those first, but afterwards try some other ones.

Also remember that a variety of mechanics is important. You'll want each one to do different things, and not in the obvious way that statement first appears. You typically want what's called a "mana-sink" mechanic (like extort, multikicker, replicate) that uses/rewards excess mana. A "pseudo" mechanic is often good (like morbid or constellation), as those are often simple effects. One that affects combat (like bloodrush or heroic) also works well, as that can liven up the combat step. And a reward/fulfillment mechanic (like cipher and metalcraft) gives players a goal to work towards for the rewards.

With these mechanics working in different ways and at different times, you give your straegies more of a separate identity; filling your set with combat mechanics is less definitive (plus in this example, confusing). I'd also say that since you're trying to create 7 of them, don't go for anything too revolutionary (like bestow or transform). With 7 mechanics fighting for attention, keeping them simple will mean you'll need less design space to make each one owork. This gets easier if you make your mechanics work well with some other ones (like, the blue one working well with the white and the black mechanic) and so on.

Have fun with it though! I'd be happy to show you mechanics I've made over the past for inspiration to make your own.