Oh, wow, pictures on almost all the cards! Awesome! Quakespawn looks really cool now. Exponential growth for the win! Can't say I like the watermarks too much though.

What's wrong with the watermarks? That's my thing. I made them. I don't like two of them. I like the chavest and ulgris ones though.

I have a couple questions on the card Sprawling Thoughts.First, was it intentional to give the player the option to shuffle his library after searching for the lands?

Second, what's the point of finding two lands and putting one into play and one on top of your library if you're just going to shuffle your library afterwards?

Also, on the card Mindvine Revolt, I think the word "have" should be between the words "and" and "if"so the sentence should read;Lands you control are 2/2 creatures with wither and HAVE "if this creature would deal damage to a player... etc etc

Please pick other Venifuca Timepiece art again. http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gencon12/welcome#9 shows that the current image is special Timetwister art.

Also, the Irindu watermark resembles the Simic logo a lot. Try adjusting the upper portions of it.

@nemesis101 - sprawling thoughts basically gives you an option. It either gets two lands or gets one and a draw to help enable flow. Not my favorite design, but the choice to shuffle is intentional.

@Lectrys - again, good catch, will change for the final. Also. Yeah that watermark is a bit too similar. I tried adding fire to the bottom but it may need some more doing to separate it more.

So with sprawling thoughts, you get to see your whole deck and what order things are coming up in and keep it that way? I know i haven't tested it, but that seems... powerful.

Guardian of Chavest has a typo. There needs to be a space between chavest and enters.

Will make the typo change. We may have to rethink sprawling thoughts. It does need to be shuffled either way, but you need to have the option to get two lands or one and a draw.

sorry for pointing for being a pest, haha. one last one i promise. Why does Meadow Dancer's ability use X considering the flow costs don't change and this flow cost doesn't have an X in it?

shouldn't it just be a +4/+4?

I noticed that Morglen cards are missing their watermark, including its tri-land; I assume that is because it has not been created yet?

Also, are the watermarks necessary for this set? Shards didn't use watermarks, and it didn't really need to with being such an interchangeable set despite its division into five pieces, and this is kinda similar with many of the cards fitting nicely into other decks (e.g. Pathcutter Zombie). Besides, the wedge-shards' identities should be clear regardless of watermarks.

True enough. Yes the lack of shards on morglen is because it was not created yet. I thought they would be a nice touch. If people disagree we can surely ditch them.

I think there is a glitch on the flavor text of avatar of war. Shouldn't it read "they live and breathe war (and conflict)"?

@nemesis, Meadow Dancer gets +X/+X whenever any flow cost is paid, not just it's own. So Meadow Dancer is out, & then you flow Thought Storm for 5, Meadow Dancer will get +6/+6 until end of turn. Also, I don't think it even receives the bonus when you flow itself, since the flow cost is paid before Meadow Dancer resolves. Here's one suggestion for Sprawling Thoughts wording: "Search your library for up to two basic lands cards, reveal those cards, and put one onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library, and put one on top of your library. Draw a card." It needs to 1)reveal the cards, and 2) shuffle before putting the second card on top.

My first reaction to the watermarks was mainly: "Shards didn't use watermarks, why are we using watermarks?" They also make the cards look a little cluttered, especially on some of the wordier ones. They do serve some purpose here though; since the shards haven't even met yet, they're even more divided than they were in Alara. I like the Sorok anvil, and Ulgris symbol fairly well.

*the choice in Sprawling Thoughts comes in the "up to two basic land cards" part. You can choose to get only one (or 0!), in which case you'll just put one on the battlefield, and then draw a card.

I think that sprawling thoughts is chaning to a flow spell. Similar to rampant growth

how does one playtest exactly?

basically build them into decks, via printing for proxy or various programs online that they cane be imported into

I just built what I thought would be a janky Flow/Miracle deck, and it turned out to be pretty good. Beat some delver decks with it; though Razer's Edge on low land count lists helped as well.

The flow mechanic is really strong. Anything you flow into, you 2 for 1 your opponent if they use removal or a counterspell on it. Storm Seer is also a really good enabler for flow and miracle: tap Storm Seer, draw Temporal Mastery , put Sphinx of the Flow on top, cast Temporal Mastery, untap...

Recurring Curse + Storm Seer is repeatable bounce & card draw. Venufician Forcemage & Quakespawn also helped out with repeatable removal & and a lot of 3/1's; both of those are only as good as the mechanic is. Element of Chaos is a great Squadron Hawk , but it feels awkward tapping it (especially once it's larger than a 2/1). It's also really good: if you untap with it, get another 3/2 for just UR (& not a card). Then you can get some 4/3's or 5/4's next turn, or just start attacking. Maybe "+1/+0" and/or an increased Flow cost would help? The tap trigger could also involve dealing damage, attacking, dying, or just entering the battlefield. Luckily almost everything is an X/1, so they're not too hard to kill.

Collector Stone also does ridiculous things in Storm, like infinite mana (& infinite storm) with Rite of Flame . With an artifact land, it lets you do the same thing with Desperate Ritual , or draw your whole deck with Manamorphose . In other decks, it merely does normally ridiculous things, like cast Lightning Bolt as many times as you have mana. Affecting each player and "unless any player pays 1" clauses don't matter if you just wait for your opponent to tap out. I think it could just copy spells rather than return to owner's hand. Also, it could cost more, since "Johnny" doesn't care as much about the cost. Potentially the "unless any player pays 1" could also be changed to "unless any player pays X, where is X is the number of artifacts you control", or removed entirely.

great feedback. So is flow too powerful. Is the draw power of it a bit too much, or can it be dealt with.

I actually thought Collector Stone was balanced in testing. Yes, it, Manamorphose , and another artifact draws your deck into infinite storm with a 0-cmc artifact (card:Mishra's Bauble in Modern, Lotus Petal in Legacy) into Grapeshot , but I basically had to assemble a 3-card combo, with one of the pieces being a land tapper like Gigadrowse or Early Frost , because everyone left 1 mana untapped at all times. Yes, it slowed down their tempo, but not by enough. The disturbing part is that I also had to leave 1 mana untapped in case of suddenly spammable artifact removal like Ancient Grudge .

So, I believe Collector Stone needs no adjustments.

Well, luckily it is not too abusable, except for with Storm Seer and library manipulation. In a vacuum, most of the cards seem reasonable (and Constructed playable). It doesn't seem broken, because it's not like you win very quickly; you just draw ton of cards. If your opponent kills you fast enough it won't matter, but it seems very difficult for a control deck to defeat simply by outgrinding. Kind of like in the current Standard, control decks can still win by going big with a difficult to answer Titan or other threat though. Also, I think only Spark of Insight and maybe Element of Chaos are good enough to see play in Modern/Legacy.

Really, I need to do some more testing though. Also, it may not be broken, but I'm not exactly sure what to look for: is it fun? Some development questions I'm not used to answering. Same sort of goes for Collector's Stone; I think the main target audience doesn't need it to be good in Storm to use it. I have not actually played against anyone with Collector's Stone yet; just fishbowl theoryizing.

The card Symbiotic Meltdown reads:

"At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the creature with the highest power. If two or more creatures share the highest power, exile them both"

Citing Topple as an example, this should be reworded as:

"At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the creature with the greatest power. If two or more creatures are tied for greatest power, exile all of them."

Meh, flow deck is fine. Storm Seer + Recurring Curse lockdown is pretty good, but that's rareish & disruptable. Element of Chaos is a good free creature, but slow before it gets really good. Most of the good things came from Storm Seer + Miracles (& those are risky if Storm Seer dies), or from Razer's Edge mana screwing an opponent.

Palus Lizard Tail is just too good in my Jund Deathtouch Ping deck.It effectively becomes a 1 drop, mana fix and steal/regenerate a creature.AND it has flash??

Give me a few days and I'll have a deck built around Ulgrisian Fly and Pickaxe of the Suterran.

haste might fix element of chaos. So that you can almost run them into each other. but maybe not. what if i added draw a crad to the ability? That would be too strong.

Its good but not too good. i think that is where an uncommon should be. but do we really want this as an uncommon for limited play. It is meh in constructed, and sux in limited. So I think we need to improve it for limited. Either give it haste or make it common, but haste becomes and issue because the box is already crowded.

So what if its common with +1/+0?

Or a "if you paid its flow trigger you search for another and put it ontop of the library. That way you get almost as good as an enter the battlefield trigger and the carddraw from flow. I think that is the way to go.

@ snotskie its a two drop, but yeah it can be deadly in those situations. That is a 3 card combo though. And it only steals creatures. There are a million ways out of that issue. Any control deck can handle it and aggro can outpace it. it might be tough to deal with late game out of nowhere, But regardless, we need it to not steal. It should just regenerate your thing.

Ulgresian fly and pickaxe of the suterran is fun, but really weak too. It would not win any games i think

Will these cards be added to the tappedout database when the set is finished?

that is still up in the air. We have looked at it, but do not want it to interfear with regular deckbuilding.

XD tricky wizardry combos with Vessel of Endless Rest

I like that actually.

@squire1 the fly+pickaxe combo wouldn't win games on its own. however, it will provide blanket removal on a stick to compliment well with large/quickly buffed creatures (that can survive the fly's blanket ping). i would also be running a little instant speed spot removal, trample, etc. the fly combo would simply be the icing of the "too much to handle" cake.

@squire1: I know we already have enough deck categories already to choose from (Standard, Modern, Casual, Noble, etc.) when making decks, but we could see if we could get a new deck type that tells onlookers that a deck built with Community set cards is a Community set deck. Would that be a decent solution to that issue? That'll help, as people might not be so easily mislead by all these strange new cards popping up and it'll be tougher for them to interrupt basic deckbuilding.

That is a good point @pookypuppy6. I will ask the bossman about that. Maybe if people put a community set card in a deck it autolabels it as such and does not put it into 'genpop'

P.S: Speaking of Tricky Wizardry, while it is a cool card and all, is it really what the set needs at common? I would have thought space would have been better used for some card sifting Ponder /Preordain effect to help mana fixing than a janky cantrip (unless this spell was made by the community, of course).

Also, aimed at those who are playtesting, how are the common mana-fixing lands working out? Are they helping things at all more than the original cycle?

@snotskie & @squire1: Palus Lizard Tail is much better than the rest of the cycle. It might not be too strong, but it is actually worth a card. It could be nerfed, or the others could have improved abilities, potentially something like these:

Blightforce ETB - put a -1/-1 counter on target creature

Venifucia ETB - draw a card?

Dur ETB - all creatures get -1/-0 until end of turn, & your creatures gain resolve until end of turn?

Judjurcut ETB - target creature gains Cleave 1 & must blocked this turn if able

@squire1: (about Element of Chaos) I think adding the search to the flow trigger (or an enters the battlefield, which makes starting easy) trigger would be good. also +1/+0 seems good.

@Palus Lizard Tail

I think we can nerf it by limiting its target to just creatures you control. This would have it still at way more utility (imho) than the rest in its cycle, but it limits it to just saving a creature from death. There are low drops that regenerate in standard as is, so it shouldn't be too broken.

Can we fix Sources of Knowledge? As it stands, the text is too wordy and doesn't cover every instance that could happen.

For example, if your creature gets Condemn ed, which pile does it go to?

I propose that since it is at 8cmc anyway and it seems to be a combo card, it could work like this:

---

"When Sources of Knowledge enters the battlefield, you may search your library for any number of cards and exile them face-down. Then shuffle your library.

Whenever you would draw a card, you may add a card exiled with Sources of Knowledge to your hand instead.

If a spell or ability would cause you to shuffle your library, sacrifice Sources of Knowledge."

---

The gist of the card is still there, a reliable Archmage Ascension if you like, but it adds a mean uncertainty to what happens. Any removal can make your combo worthless, cracking a fetch land could cause your best cards to be exiled forever. Alternatively, you could exile all your deck except the cards for the combo and hope that you don't deck out. High risk, high reward play style and fun for Johnny and Timmy alike.

I'm having some unanticipated difficulties in making the new XML. Is it worth pursuing?

What is the issue. Can I fix it?

Well, the exporter for MSE is throwing up an error I don't know how to deal with. I managed to make it work last time just by chance, and I can't seem to reproduce that success.

I've been playtesting Fetid Evolution in Modern and Legacy. I think the card is simply too good. In a Modern deck with Faithless Looting , Wild Cantor , and various green creatures, the card is capable of landing Progenitus , Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Protean Hulk consistently by turn 3. Dedicated combo-oriented builds can cast Fetid Evolution on turn 1 about 10% of the time, and the card also fits into top modern decks such as Birthing Pod. The simplest fix I can see is to remove the alternate cost or make it require exiling 10 green creatures from the graveyard.

10 is too much. And why not make it an amazing legacy card? If anything, I'd fight for... 4 or 5 creatures instead. Also note that so many other combos are just as fast or just as easy to get out. Honestly, I'd make it mythic, exile one more creature and leave it at that

next phase up http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2012/sep/3/community-set-playtesting-round-4/