Smother ApprenticeU Instant
Return target non-land permanent with converted mana cost 3 or less to it's owner's hand.
Scry 2. "Try to make it again."
High Temperature SpelltorchR Instant
Exile target artifact with converted mana cost 4 or less.
Acolyte's Disenchantment ExerciseW Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less.
If you cast this spell during your main phase, scry 1.
Shaman's SproutingG Instant
Choose one -
* Destroy target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less.
* Create a 1/1 green saproling creature token. It enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Pain Fueled DoomB Instant
As an additional cost to cast this spell, pay 1 life.
If Pain Fueled Doom targets a token, it can't be countered.
Destroy target creature with converted mana cost 3 or less.
Yeah, for Modern players, I don't think this is _enough_ better than any old standard set to justify the price of boxes properly, and the thing has Modern in it's name. Not being a limited print run helps it from being as problematic as Modern Masters, which is essential given that it introduces some brand new cards, but those cards are likely to end up with inflated prices compared to what they would be if they'd gotten a standard printing, not just because the base prices of the packs they are in is higher, but the set isn't enough better than standard sets to encourage people to open the packs as much at the prices given. Especially when this has the additional disadvantage compared to a Standard set of stuff not being also playable in Standard while it's in print (which thus produces some extra, temporary value in play-ability). It might have somewhat less chaff than most Standard sets, but I don't think it is to the degree needed to justify the price.
While I'd prefer it to be priced more like conspiracy, with the same prices as Standard packs, I'd be okay with it being priced, based on what is in the set, something like $4.99 a pack, and $120 for a box, not roughly double the price of Standard stuff, if they were to promise some kind of minor bonus like a guaranteed extra token card or snow basic or something in each pack.
One possible idea I like for this is that leveling in the game isn't tied to fighting enemies, but to filling out and exploring maps to claim them as a land. Basically, the game would have a sort of 'fog of war'-like effect on the maps, where the map gets filled in as you explore it. Once a certain area of the map is filled in, you 'claim' a 'mana bond' with it. Your in-game power level would be tied to your mana bonds. Exploring lands though would have it's difficulties, there may be inaccessible areas that you can't reach without certain skills and abilities and spells and such, or that you need to go on certain quests to convince NPCs to let you access or find keys to, and many of the maps out in the wilds have dangerous monsters roaming them that aggro relatively easily unless you have powerful stealth or intimidation type abilities or something to bypass them (so that they don't bother players who are more powerful than them too much) so that you can't just freely explore and claim lands willy nilly.
The game would have the ability to let you jump to 'random planes' of a certain 'mana density level'. The mana density level would be a rough gauge of power level of the mobs, and these planes would basically be randomly generated with various features. Early versions of the game would likely have them largely uninhabited by sapient life-forms or civilization, and just include a relatively small explorable area with a number of map regions to claim, including a random assortment and arrangement of basic land types (forest areas, plains areas, mountain areas, swamp areas, 'island' areas with less swampy water heavy space, like rivers and lakes and such). These places wouldn't be truly random in every sense, they'd be procedurally generated with a seed, so you can return to them, or even share them with other players. The mob types and gathering point materials and the like would remain consistent on these 'random planes', so there would be incentive to keep private or share with friends or trade or 'planar frequencies' or something to find or use ones that generate specific resources, or let you find certain creatures for farming certain resources and drops or perhaps gaining summoning patterns or something. The things they generate would be found within certain lists, not all mob types found in the game would be available, and things would be limited by the 'mana density level' of the plane in question.
Maps explored as a mana bond would not all be of the same power level, ones with more difficulty (more dangerous enemies and the like) to explore them would offer higher boosts to power levels, so you can take risks to power up faster by going closer or slightly above your own current effective level. Maps also offer different colored mana sources, so you can't just explore any old map, you have to explore ones matching the color you are leveling, unless you've got some kind of versatile multi-color build, which would likely have a much slower power curve and other issues with it's playstyle without special builds designed to work with it's difficulties. After you bond with a certain number of lower level maps, they stop contributing significantly to your current mana, and you are forced to move on to seeking stronger mana bonds and visiting higher density mana areas.
Besides the 'random' planes you can visit, which are basically impossible for the player base to truly explore all of (similar to No Man's Sky) but have limitations on what kind of content can be found on them due to the procedural generation engine used and balance issues, there are also specific planes inputted by the game developers with properly manually designed maps and potential for more things like cities and NPC populations and quest chains and stuff. These maps include whatever MtG canon planes have been implemented in the game, and might have various methods for discovering them related to the in-game story quest advancement or being shown there by other players by partying up with them or the like, and some of them would likely serve as starting areas for beginner players that they 'accidentally' travel to during their first planeswalk. Early ones would likely include places like Shandalar which aren't as heavily developed in the lore so are easier for the programmers to implement without breaking flavor or as having to do as much research on MtG lore details and such, and are known for their potent mana so likely have 'high level' zones ready for late-game play, but developers could implement more planes as they have the time to design them and their maps and NPCs and quests and loot and everything, including more complex ones like, say, Ravnica.
The sapient-life inhabited, civilization possessing, human-programmer and such designed maps would be some of the ones that include things like more typical spells one can learn, most 'random' procedurally generated planes would likely be limited to doing things like forging mana bonds, gathering loot, and claiming summoning patterns of mobs you turn into your summons, and things like that, if you are a summoning focused build (this may be largely a 'cosmetic' thing, with pre-approved and balanced designs made for player summoning mechanics, which means your own summons wouldn't be exact copies of the mobs you find out in the wild, although you could still find various 'types' more easily by traveling to random planes or specific ones that other players help you find or whatnot that might not be found in the more manually designed 'civilized' planes or the like). On the civilized (and game developer more directly designed) planes thus you could find things like new spells to learn via purchasing scrolls or doing various quests and other things like that appropriate to unlocking new in-game abilities, things equivalent to instant, sorcery, enchantment, and artifact spells, or collecting certain types of gear that players aren't personally crafting, or learning some kinds of crafting recipes for crafting focused players.
Maps that you have fully explored and forged a mana bond to are also ones you can more easily travel directly to when planeswalking.
Planeswalking itself would likely have two modes. The first would be a 'standard mode', which is somewhat 'slow' but lacking in penalties. It's likely different for different players, from a list of options on character creation, related to the 'ignition of your spark' and various innate affinities and such. It allows you to precisely target where you are going from planes you've visited and formed mana bonds on, and then pick the mana bonded map section you want to end up on, and probably needs to be done in a safe area and has a noticeable cast time to it that could have trouble if you are interrupted or the like. Probably some fancy animations too. The differences though would largely be cosmetic, and there would be limits on how much it could be upgraded. The second mode would be a 'random jump' where you randomly find a new procedurally generated plane (sometimes ones other players might have already discovered, in theory, although the odds would likely be relatively low, possibly lower than it is in No Man's Sky, since at least in that you are all headed towards the center of the galaxy and odds of encountering other players likely increase along the way). This would be slightly faster than the standard mode, but not by much, and can easily place you smack dab into a dangerous situation if you are going to a mana density appropriate or higher zone.
Then there is the 'emergency jump', this would be triggered instead of dying when a player would normally be killed, and takes you back to a place designated as your sanctuary, or, if you don't have one yet or deliberately don't set one, takes you to a 'super-low mana density, safe feeling' random plane with mana bonds so weak claiming them effectively doesn't level you, almost nill value materials gathering points, and harmless mobs, and leaves you littered with penalties and such until you heal up (this would be done to keep with the lore that death tends to cause one to lose the planeswalker spark, so we don't want players 'dying' or discovering a way around this too easily, at least at lower levels). This 'emergency jump' would possibly leave some stuff behind at random, losing you some loot and currencies and the like that you might have to go back and retrieve, and might be stolen by another player or certain mobs if you were in a PVP allowed zone. Emergency jumps and their sanctuaries can never be PVP enabled zones, at least not early on in the game before you might unlock alternative methods to avoid death with less penalties or the like.
Different planes would usually have different currencies, but you can easily 'convert' currencies by buying one type of good on one plane and selling it on another. Trading focused players could even find profitable trades based on differences in economies and stuff on different planes in order to trade between currencies, and some currencies wouldn't be 'suspicious' on certain other planes, and thus be able to be traded more directly for alternative currencies, especially if it's made of valuable raw materials or seems like a work of art to the other plane or something. A few planes that are more heavily trafficked historically by powerful planeswalkers might even share some currencies, but generally, players not focused on the economic stuff would usually earn currencies separately on each plane.
Some magic items don't work off their plane of origin, due to relying on local features (likely often for balance and implementation reasons), some might even 'break' if you try to take them off plane, and thus have to be 'stored' somehow on the plane you get them on, such as finding some kind of bank or private housing setup to keep them in when on that plane, perhaps later learning a spell to summon the stored items to you from where you have them kept after you arrive on the plane). This could include things like a magic chest that you can access from anywhere on a plane, but actually is located on a 'local' space, like a local ethereal or astral 'sub-plane' or something, or the local divine realm or afterlife or something. Or a magic whistle that calls a type of local steed to you that doesn't actually summon them out of aether like a typical summoning spell (to allow lower 'level' players or players in certain limited zones limited access to things like, say, mounts or flying mounts). Or access to a 'font of healing' in an area you use as a sanctuary to recover faster from an emergency planeswalk.
Things that you can bring with you across planes would likely have to have certain flavor restrictions that make sense. You couldn't take, say, a D&D style bag of holding across planes if you wound up on, say, Eberron, or the Forgotten Realms, because it is connected to the local connected plane cosmology, and wouldn't work on just any random planar group that might work differently. However, a similar item could exist funtionally speaking for players, that, say, works by say, shrinking and lightening items entering the bag, instead of it being a specific linked extradimensional space, or having the bag and it's contents be magically lightened and the space inside warped and distorted to be larger on the inside than the outside without actually expanding into alternate planar space. Or one designed by powerful planeswalkers or mages familiar with the blind eternities that actually let you take small demi-planes around with you that sit in the blind eternities, rather than local cosmologies, but might be a sort of higher 'level' item in the game (since it isn't just lowering loot weight by a percentage or whatnot, and probably has larger slot spaces availible than one that just 'warps' space or 'shrinks' items by a certain amount). This would limit early game item storage, and might tie into possible costs for account upgrades and subscriptions or purchasable with real world currency items for some of the higher end stuff like the noted 'small demi-plane that follows you and sits in the actual blind eternities' thing.
For balance reasons, I'd probably make it so that you can't planeswalk everything with you when over-encumbered, if over-encumbering is even possible, and you drop random stuff when overencumbered and doing an emergency planeswalk, if such a mechanic is implemented.
To ensure the game actually can run on a reasonable number of people's systems, there would likely have to be limits to how many summons a player can have up at a time, different from the card game. Other tweaks to how summoning works would be for controls and game balance reasons as well, but given how integral it is to the card game, I think summoning should definitely be a possible character build, and basically all mobs and NPCs should have a possible summon template you can get from them in some way or another, even if it wouldn't necessarily match their actual stats.
Additionally, some spells would be considered, 'suspicious' if they are illegal ones on a current plane, or ones the locals don't have equivalents of, at least not commonly, and would normally be restricted unless the game developers implement an 'openly a planeswalker' mode of some sort, and so can't be used in certain zones when in perception areas of NPCs and such. This could be a useful way to limit features for balance and/or implementation aspects in certain designed zones like cities. Players might even need some ways to disguise themselves as local races if they are a race that doesn't exist on that plane in order to visit such areas, unless it's a plane like Ravnica with lots of biomancy, or a weird plane where lots of people use shapeshifting and/or illusions of more extreme sorts as some kind of 'fashion' thing.
Might also be interesting if while starting a first character on your account, you are limited in a selection of more balanced races, it would be possible to later unlock the ability to generate new, characters of 'unlockable' races after encountering them in game once they are implemented and you reach a certain power level on one of your characters, maybe only unlocking them after you already have achieved effectively their innate abilities somehow, like a changeling race would require you learn some shapeshifting magic first. This could let players unlock races that are effectively more powerful, like, say, a changeling, or a dragon (as a 'late game' type unlock that has built-in mana generation of it's own beyond it's mana bonds of a significant amount, and effectively 'starts' at a higher level, and when not shapeshifted to disguise itself, is considered 'suspicious' on most civilized planes and areas), or a physically powerful and slightly larger race like an ogre or loxodon, or a swimming and water breathing race like a merfolk.
I'd hope the game has a very flexible and extensive character creation system, at least on the cosmetic end. I also hope for a relatively flexible system for character building and learning new spells and abilities and types of 'classes' or the equivalent. This might be determined partially at character creation, by picking 'affinities' and 'talents' for game balance reasons, but would have a relatively large number of effective classes within such limitations, including, at the very least, options for either mono or dual-color characters, characters focused on summoning vs. characters focused on instant/sorcery type stuff, 'burn' type characters in red, 'healing' type builds in white and green, and in a weirder way black, and a wide range of things you can learn and unlock as the game grows and expands with each new 'civilized' plane introduced or the like for each build based on what your 'talents and affinities' are and what colors you are in. If they aren't as focused on game balance, I might like for just freedom to learn almost any spell or ability, but limitations of play time and matching the complexity and power of your spells to your mana levels would necessitate following various training trees and make players focus on a viable build for more combat focused designs, rather than be super diverse.
Might be interesting to also have a difference between stuff that is 'learned' and stuff that is 'practiced' with stuff that is merely 'learned' winding up in game menus and having longer cast times and increased mana cost compared to what it would normally have, but once you use it enough in game training methods, many spells (although not all for balance reasons) can become 'practiced' and get to be added to hotbars and have their mana cost and cast times reduced. This would limit the sheer number of spells an individual player might keep on their general combat taskbar. It might also be related to previously noted 'affinities' perhaps making it so that while you can in theory, 'learn' almost anything the game allows (allowing for expansive utility options out of combat if you put in the effort), only things in your 'affinities' can be quick-cast effectively in combat. There might be some special ways in the game to change your affinities later, but perhaps not your 'talents', through some kind of ritual using a special location or powerful entity, in order to swtich play styles without it seeming like a character is 'forgetting' or directly getting 'worse' at things in terms of skills, just changing their ability to control certain types of mana by changing their 'aura type' or something, letting them change what options can be put on hotbars and cast more quickly and efficiently, but if you change back the things that were previously 'practiced' are put back to that status immediately that are within that 'aura type', while the new ones you unlocked that aren't are put back into a more 'dormant' status. It might also be slightly easier and faster to do and train in things that are within the correct 'aura type', and maybe things that you have down to a 'practiced' level that aren't in your aura type could still have somewhat reduced mana costs and cast times, just not down to 'in combat' reasonable levels, at least with most level appropriate encounters, making things easier for some types of play-styles, like certain sorts of diverse crafters and gatherers who learn magics from a variety of colors but aren't so much focused on combat ones.
Still, I'd prefer something more like FF14 to a more restrictive class system locked in at character creation and involving complete re-sets when you want to change, even if it feels like you 'forget' or become 'worse' at stuff occasionally temporarily, since it could at least seem similar to, say, creating a different deck in the card game, and it could let them still balance stuff somewhat easier. Although I'd prefer it to not be linked to items like it is in FF14, since sharing systems like that across different planes wouldn't make much sense.
I'd also like some builds to not necessarily unlock new abilities by 'learning' them normally, but by making deals or something, like black characters might enter contracts with demons, red characters might pay vast sums of money as tribute to ancient dragons, blue characters might convince ancient and powerful fey, white characters might enact certain services for powerful angels while maintaining positive reputations on the plane where that angel resides, and green characters might appease various spirits and elementals to some degree and then meditate and commune with nature in a certain location after following various quest trees to purify taints and deal with poachers or stop some destruction or over-harvesting of nature or whatnot. This could then imbue the character with various abilities in a different manner than, say, learning spells from books or from teachers at a magical school or whatnot, and allow for play-styles for flavor reasons like demon-contractors.
Hierophant's CharmWWW Instant
Choose One -
* Exile up to two target artifacts, enchantments and/or cards from graveyards.
* Create three 1/1 white cleric creature tokens, then gain life equal to the number of creatures you control with converted mana cost 2 or less.
* You and permanents you control gain hexproof until end of turn. Permanents you control gain indestructible until end of turn. Until end of turn, spells and abilities your opponents control can't cause you to sacrifice permanents.
Grand Warlock's CharmBBB Instant
Choose one -
* Exile target creature.
* Each opponent exiles two cards from their hand at random.
* Exile up to three cards from target player's graveyard, you gain life equal to three plus the total combined converted mana cost of the exiled cards, and if the targeted player is an opponent, they lose three life.
Supreme Sorcerer's CharmRRR Instant
Choose one -
* Exile up to two target artifacts from the battlefield and/or graveyards.
* Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste, trample, and +1/+0 until end of turn, and an opponent's creature must block it if it attacks this turn if able.
* Exile target land. It's owner may search their library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield tapped, that land doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step. If they do, they shuffle their library.
Archdruid's CharmGGG Instant
Choose one -
* Each opponent sacrifices three permanents that are artifacts and/or enchantments. Exile all artifacts and enchantments from opponent's graveyards.
* Search your library for up to two basic forest cards, reveal them, put one into your hand, and the other onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
* Target creature you control gains haste, trample, vigilance, reach, hexproof and indestructible until the end of your next turn. Put a +1/+1 counter on it and untap it. Lands you control gain indestructible and hexproof until end of turn. Graveyards gain hexproof until end of turn.
Not really sure if this is the right mix of abilities and such for these, but the general idea is aiming to complete the cycle started by Archmage's Charm.
Improvisational ChargerRR Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
First Strike, Haste 2/2
(looks like-ish a running humanoid soldier with a spear)
Sudden Wingsnapper1U Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
Flash, Flying 2/1
(Looks like-ish a small drake)
Transmogrimount3 Artifact - Vehicle
Changeling
Flying, Vigilance, Haste
Crew 1
You may remove a loyalty counter from a planeswalker you control rather than pay Transmogrimount's crew cost. "It can get anyone, anywhere, quickly. Probably..." - Shady Artificer 3/5
Segovian GiantG Creature - Giant Archer
Reach, Protection from Sorcery and Enchantment 1/1
Segovian Region Land
Spells and abilities treat Segovian Region as if it were a basic land and as if it were not a non-basic land while it is on the battlefield, except it still has it's abilities. t: Add . t, Reveal your hand and the top of your library to each player, pay 2 life: Add one mana of any color.
I actually think the draw two at instant speed for 3 cmc might be the most important part for non-esper control decks. The two other modes make it really good, rather than just barely what was needed.
I'd also like to note it doesn't necessarily have to go into control decks either. There are times when heavier on blue versions of merfolk, faeries, and spirits all might have reasons to consider a card like this waiting in the sideboard for certain matchups. Taking turns might also have interest in some situations.
I have a magical dream percolating of going from Archmage's Charm, curving into Cryptic Commmand, with the following turn involving Snapcaster Mage to Archmages Charm, doing exactly what is needed each turn.
Makes me wonder if we will get a populate card in this set (and what color).
Might be interesting to get both red and blue populate. Blue because cloning stuff and shapeshifters, and red because they also like lots of small dudes and certain sorts of mimickry and stuff that plays well with tokens in ways that share elements with both blue and white in different ways. Thus giving populate to every color except black.
Deconjury Flame1R Instant
Choose one -
* Deal 5 damage to target creature.
* Deal 6 damage to target artifact creature, if it would die this turn, exile it instead.
* Deal 1 damage to target player.
* Deal 4 damage to target planeswalker.
Undeniable ShockR Instant
Undeniable Shock can't be countered.
Deal 2 damage to any target.
Undeniable Meteor1R Instant
Undeniable Meteor can't be countered.
Deal 3 damage to any target. Damage to that target can't be prevented this turn.
Urza Planeswalker5WUBRG Legendary Planeswalker - Urza
Artifact spells cost you 1 less to cast. Your opponents spells that target permanents you control cost 2 more to cast. +1 - Draw a card, gain 1 life, add . -3 - Create a 3/3 colorless golem artifact creature token. Scry 6, then draw two cards. -20 - You win the game. {10} - Starting Loyalty
Something interesting based on the spoilers being as relatively good as they are, is that some cards currently out of reach of budget players due to their common inclusion in top decks could see their availability rise and price drop if they get shifted out of decks in favor of new stuff, and there is actually looking like there being enough new stuff to affect lots of cards across multiple archetypes, which could be a boon for budget players, but a loss for those holding onto things that previously seemed solid but get edged out by new stuff in deck construction.
Meanwhile, a lot of the potential new archetypes that could awaken could cause some cards that fill out strategies involved that previously lacked decks to raise in price. I could see a noteworthy price raise in some of cycling cards not currently seeing much play, for instance, if an Astral Drift deck takes off. Or an assortment of random sorceries getting boosted by some Collected Conjuring deck someone figures out.
Basic fetching rare land seems nice. Not sure how many situations you'd play it over a regular fetch. Maybe in some weird situations involving snow basics in a multi-color snow deck, or something with landfall-ish effects and wastes due to requiring some through a blood moon? Maybe for budget decks depending on the price it winds up as (although I suspect it won't wind up budget due to demand for formats like EDH). Maybe some kind of deck that cares about having all 5 colors of actual basics, rather than just all 5 color sources or land types?
This will be an 8 of purchase for me. A playset for a modern/legacy deck, and one apiece for my edh decks.
If even ten percent of players want more than one playset, this thing will be just as expensive as the "actual" fetchlands.
This will be at minimum a $20 card. No doubt in my mind.
It won't be too far behind some of the regular fetches, honestly. Sure, this only gets basic lands (including Wastes if that's your thing) but it still basically lets you play with a 56-card deck.
Not just wastes, it also gets snow basics... too bad we don't seem to be getting a snow wastes...
I can still see a possibility of Counterspell, however, if they include it, I suspect they'll put it at uncommon rarity. In that situation, we'd have Prohibit at common, and providing for Modern something that doesn't require UU for decks that don't get lots of blue mana as reliably early on, counterspell itself for most decks that care about such spells, and Force of Negation at rare as a something that is targeted more at emergency against degenerate combo and protecting against powerful turn 1 plays that would screw you over, like Thoughtseize or something, depending on the deck you are playing and whatnot. Plus Prohibit could be Counterspell 5-8 in some decks. It's existence in the set certainly reduces my confidence of seeing Counterspell significantly, but doesn't eliminate hope just yet.
On the other hand, with prohibit as an option, I'm almost hoping more for Force Spike or a slightly better variant on it than Counterspell itself, if only for another option at a different CMC in decks that are generating blue but not white.
While the ratio of modern playables is looking like it will be lower than I'd hoped with cards like Wall of One Thousand Cuts even existing in the set, the things we are getting so far are interesting enough that I have high hopes for the set.
I'm pretty sure the list is wrong, since it says the urza lands, and I'm pretty sure we were already told that besides basic lands, there are no reprints that are already modern legal.
Instant
Return target non-land permanent with converted mana cost 3 or less to it's owner's hand.
Scry 2.
"Try to make it again."
High Temperature Spelltorch R
Instant
Exile target artifact with converted mana cost 4 or less.
Acolyte's Disenchantment Exercise W
Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less.
If you cast this spell during your main phase, scry 1.
Shaman's Sprouting G
Instant
Choose one -
* Destroy target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less.
* Create a 1/1 green saproling creature token. It enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Pain Fueled Doom B
Instant
As an additional cost to cast this spell, pay 1 life.
If Pain Fueled Doom targets a token, it can't be countered.
Destroy target creature with converted mana cost 3 or less.
While I'd prefer it to be priced more like conspiracy, with the same prices as Standard packs, I'd be okay with it being priced, based on what is in the set, something like $4.99 a pack, and $120 for a box, not roughly double the price of Standard stuff, if they were to promise some kind of minor bonus like a guaranteed extra token card or snow basic or something in each pack.
The game would have the ability to let you jump to 'random planes' of a certain 'mana density level'. The mana density level would be a rough gauge of power level of the mobs, and these planes would basically be randomly generated with various features. Early versions of the game would likely have them largely uninhabited by sapient life-forms or civilization, and just include a relatively small explorable area with a number of map regions to claim, including a random assortment and arrangement of basic land types (forest areas, plains areas, mountain areas, swamp areas, 'island' areas with less swampy water heavy space, like rivers and lakes and such). These places wouldn't be truly random in every sense, they'd be procedurally generated with a seed, so you can return to them, or even share them with other players. The mob types and gathering point materials and the like would remain consistent on these 'random planes', so there would be incentive to keep private or share with friends or trade or 'planar frequencies' or something to find or use ones that generate specific resources, or let you find certain creatures for farming certain resources and drops or perhaps gaining summoning patterns or something. The things they generate would be found within certain lists, not all mob types found in the game would be available, and things would be limited by the 'mana density level' of the plane in question.
Maps explored as a mana bond would not all be of the same power level, ones with more difficulty (more dangerous enemies and the like) to explore them would offer higher boosts to power levels, so you can take risks to power up faster by going closer or slightly above your own current effective level. Maps also offer different colored mana sources, so you can't just explore any old map, you have to explore ones matching the color you are leveling, unless you've got some kind of versatile multi-color build, which would likely have a much slower power curve and other issues with it's playstyle without special builds designed to work with it's difficulties. After you bond with a certain number of lower level maps, they stop contributing significantly to your current mana, and you are forced to move on to seeking stronger mana bonds and visiting higher density mana areas.
Besides the 'random' planes you can visit, which are basically impossible for the player base to truly explore all of (similar to No Man's Sky) but have limitations on what kind of content can be found on them due to the procedural generation engine used and balance issues, there are also specific planes inputted by the game developers with properly manually designed maps and potential for more things like cities and NPC populations and quest chains and stuff. These maps include whatever MtG canon planes have been implemented in the game, and might have various methods for discovering them related to the in-game story quest advancement or being shown there by other players by partying up with them or the like, and some of them would likely serve as starting areas for beginner players that they 'accidentally' travel to during their first planeswalk. Early ones would likely include places like Shandalar which aren't as heavily developed in the lore so are easier for the programmers to implement without breaking flavor or as having to do as much research on MtG lore details and such, and are known for their potent mana so likely have 'high level' zones ready for late-game play, but developers could implement more planes as they have the time to design them and their maps and NPCs and quests and loot and everything, including more complex ones like, say, Ravnica.
The sapient-life inhabited, civilization possessing, human-programmer and such designed maps would be some of the ones that include things like more typical spells one can learn, most 'random' procedurally generated planes would likely be limited to doing things like forging mana bonds, gathering loot, and claiming summoning patterns of mobs you turn into your summons, and things like that, if you are a summoning focused build (this may be largely a 'cosmetic' thing, with pre-approved and balanced designs made for player summoning mechanics, which means your own summons wouldn't be exact copies of the mobs you find out in the wild, although you could still find various 'types' more easily by traveling to random planes or specific ones that other players help you find or whatnot that might not be found in the more manually designed 'civilized' planes or the like). On the civilized (and game developer more directly designed) planes thus you could find things like new spells to learn via purchasing scrolls or doing various quests and other things like that appropriate to unlocking new in-game abilities, things equivalent to instant, sorcery, enchantment, and artifact spells, or collecting certain types of gear that players aren't personally crafting, or learning some kinds of crafting recipes for crafting focused players.
Maps that you have fully explored and forged a mana bond to are also ones you can more easily travel directly to when planeswalking.
Planeswalking itself would likely have two modes. The first would be a 'standard mode', which is somewhat 'slow' but lacking in penalties. It's likely different for different players, from a list of options on character creation, related to the 'ignition of your spark' and various innate affinities and such. It allows you to precisely target where you are going from planes you've visited and formed mana bonds on, and then pick the mana bonded map section you want to end up on, and probably needs to be done in a safe area and has a noticeable cast time to it that could have trouble if you are interrupted or the like. Probably some fancy animations too. The differences though would largely be cosmetic, and there would be limits on how much it could be upgraded. The second mode would be a 'random jump' where you randomly find a new procedurally generated plane (sometimes ones other players might have already discovered, in theory, although the odds would likely be relatively low, possibly lower than it is in No Man's Sky, since at least in that you are all headed towards the center of the galaxy and odds of encountering other players likely increase along the way). This would be slightly faster than the standard mode, but not by much, and can easily place you smack dab into a dangerous situation if you are going to a mana density appropriate or higher zone.
Then there is the 'emergency jump', this would be triggered instead of dying when a player would normally be killed, and takes you back to a place designated as your sanctuary, or, if you don't have one yet or deliberately don't set one, takes you to a 'super-low mana density, safe feeling' random plane with mana bonds so weak claiming them effectively doesn't level you, almost nill value materials gathering points, and harmless mobs, and leaves you littered with penalties and such until you heal up (this would be done to keep with the lore that death tends to cause one to lose the planeswalker spark, so we don't want players 'dying' or discovering a way around this too easily, at least at lower levels). This 'emergency jump' would possibly leave some stuff behind at random, losing you some loot and currencies and the like that you might have to go back and retrieve, and might be stolen by another player or certain mobs if you were in a PVP allowed zone. Emergency jumps and their sanctuaries can never be PVP enabled zones, at least not early on in the game before you might unlock alternative methods to avoid death with less penalties or the like.
Different planes would usually have different currencies, but you can easily 'convert' currencies by buying one type of good on one plane and selling it on another. Trading focused players could even find profitable trades based on differences in economies and stuff on different planes in order to trade between currencies, and some currencies wouldn't be 'suspicious' on certain other planes, and thus be able to be traded more directly for alternative currencies, especially if it's made of valuable raw materials or seems like a work of art to the other plane or something. A few planes that are more heavily trafficked historically by powerful planeswalkers might even share some currencies, but generally, players not focused on the economic stuff would usually earn currencies separately on each plane.
Some magic items don't work off their plane of origin, due to relying on local features (likely often for balance and implementation reasons), some might even 'break' if you try to take them off plane, and thus have to be 'stored' somehow on the plane you get them on, such as finding some kind of bank or private housing setup to keep them in when on that plane, perhaps later learning a spell to summon the stored items to you from where you have them kept after you arrive on the plane). This could include things like a magic chest that you can access from anywhere on a plane, but actually is located on a 'local' space, like a local ethereal or astral 'sub-plane' or something, or the local divine realm or afterlife or something. Or a magic whistle that calls a type of local steed to you that doesn't actually summon them out of aether like a typical summoning spell (to allow lower 'level' players or players in certain limited zones limited access to things like, say, mounts or flying mounts). Or access to a 'font of healing' in an area you use as a sanctuary to recover faster from an emergency planeswalk.
Things that you can bring with you across planes would likely have to have certain flavor restrictions that make sense. You couldn't take, say, a D&D style bag of holding across planes if you wound up on, say, Eberron, or the Forgotten Realms, because it is connected to the local connected plane cosmology, and wouldn't work on just any random planar group that might work differently. However, a similar item could exist funtionally speaking for players, that, say, works by say, shrinking and lightening items entering the bag, instead of it being a specific linked extradimensional space, or having the bag and it's contents be magically lightened and the space inside warped and distorted to be larger on the inside than the outside without actually expanding into alternate planar space. Or one designed by powerful planeswalkers or mages familiar with the blind eternities that actually let you take small demi-planes around with you that sit in the blind eternities, rather than local cosmologies, but might be a sort of higher 'level' item in the game (since it isn't just lowering loot weight by a percentage or whatnot, and probably has larger slot spaces availible than one that just 'warps' space or 'shrinks' items by a certain amount). This would limit early game item storage, and might tie into possible costs for account upgrades and subscriptions or purchasable with real world currency items for some of the higher end stuff like the noted 'small demi-plane that follows you and sits in the actual blind eternities' thing.
For balance reasons, I'd probably make it so that you can't planeswalk everything with you when over-encumbered, if over-encumbering is even possible, and you drop random stuff when overencumbered and doing an emergency planeswalk, if such a mechanic is implemented.
To ensure the game actually can run on a reasonable number of people's systems, there would likely have to be limits to how many summons a player can have up at a time, different from the card game. Other tweaks to how summoning works would be for controls and game balance reasons as well, but given how integral it is to the card game, I think summoning should definitely be a possible character build, and basically all mobs and NPCs should have a possible summon template you can get from them in some way or another, even if it wouldn't necessarily match their actual stats.
Additionally, some spells would be considered, 'suspicious' if they are illegal ones on a current plane, or ones the locals don't have equivalents of, at least not commonly, and would normally be restricted unless the game developers implement an 'openly a planeswalker' mode of some sort, and so can't be used in certain zones when in perception areas of NPCs and such. This could be a useful way to limit features for balance and/or implementation aspects in certain designed zones like cities. Players might even need some ways to disguise themselves as local races if they are a race that doesn't exist on that plane in order to visit such areas, unless it's a plane like Ravnica with lots of biomancy, or a weird plane where lots of people use shapeshifting and/or illusions of more extreme sorts as some kind of 'fashion' thing.
Might also be interesting if while starting a first character on your account, you are limited in a selection of more balanced races, it would be possible to later unlock the ability to generate new, characters of 'unlockable' races after encountering them in game once they are implemented and you reach a certain power level on one of your characters, maybe only unlocking them after you already have achieved effectively their innate abilities somehow, like a changeling race would require you learn some shapeshifting magic first. This could let players unlock races that are effectively more powerful, like, say, a changeling, or a dragon (as a 'late game' type unlock that has built-in mana generation of it's own beyond it's mana bonds of a significant amount, and effectively 'starts' at a higher level, and when not shapeshifted to disguise itself, is considered 'suspicious' on most civilized planes and areas), or a physically powerful and slightly larger race like an ogre or loxodon, or a swimming and water breathing race like a merfolk.
I'd hope the game has a very flexible and extensive character creation system, at least on the cosmetic end. I also hope for a relatively flexible system for character building and learning new spells and abilities and types of 'classes' or the equivalent. This might be determined partially at character creation, by picking 'affinities' and 'talents' for game balance reasons, but would have a relatively large number of effective classes within such limitations, including, at the very least, options for either mono or dual-color characters, characters focused on summoning vs. characters focused on instant/sorcery type stuff, 'burn' type characters in red, 'healing' type builds in white and green, and in a weirder way black, and a wide range of things you can learn and unlock as the game grows and expands with each new 'civilized' plane introduced or the like for each build based on what your 'talents and affinities' are and what colors you are in. If they aren't as focused on game balance, I might like for just freedom to learn almost any spell or ability, but limitations of play time and matching the complexity and power of your spells to your mana levels would necessitate following various training trees and make players focus on a viable build for more combat focused designs, rather than be super diverse.
Might be interesting to also have a difference between stuff that is 'learned' and stuff that is 'practiced' with stuff that is merely 'learned' winding up in game menus and having longer cast times and increased mana cost compared to what it would normally have, but once you use it enough in game training methods, many spells (although not all for balance reasons) can become 'practiced' and get to be added to hotbars and have their mana cost and cast times reduced. This would limit the sheer number of spells an individual player might keep on their general combat taskbar. It might also be related to previously noted 'affinities' perhaps making it so that while you can in theory, 'learn' almost anything the game allows (allowing for expansive utility options out of combat if you put in the effort), only things in your 'affinities' can be quick-cast effectively in combat. There might be some special ways in the game to change your affinities later, but perhaps not your 'talents', through some kind of ritual using a special location or powerful entity, in order to swtich play styles without it seeming like a character is 'forgetting' or directly getting 'worse' at things in terms of skills, just changing their ability to control certain types of mana by changing their 'aura type' or something, letting them change what options can be put on hotbars and cast more quickly and efficiently, but if you change back the things that were previously 'practiced' are put back to that status immediately that are within that 'aura type', while the new ones you unlocked that aren't are put back into a more 'dormant' status. It might also be slightly easier and faster to do and train in things that are within the correct 'aura type', and maybe things that you have down to a 'practiced' level that aren't in your aura type could still have somewhat reduced mana costs and cast times, just not down to 'in combat' reasonable levels, at least with most level appropriate encounters, making things easier for some types of play-styles, like certain sorts of diverse crafters and gatherers who learn magics from a variety of colors but aren't so much focused on combat ones.
Still, I'd prefer something more like FF14 to a more restrictive class system locked in at character creation and involving complete re-sets when you want to change, even if it feels like you 'forget' or become 'worse' at stuff occasionally temporarily, since it could at least seem similar to, say, creating a different deck in the card game, and it could let them still balance stuff somewhat easier. Although I'd prefer it to not be linked to items like it is in FF14, since sharing systems like that across different planes wouldn't make much sense.
I'd also like some builds to not necessarily unlock new abilities by 'learning' them normally, but by making deals or something, like black characters might enter contracts with demons, red characters might pay vast sums of money as tribute to ancient dragons, blue characters might convince ancient and powerful fey, white characters might enact certain services for powerful angels while maintaining positive reputations on the plane where that angel resides, and green characters might appease various spirits and elementals to some degree and then meditate and commune with nature in a certain location after following various quest trees to purify taints and deal with poachers or stop some destruction or over-harvesting of nature or whatnot. This could then imbue the character with various abilities in a different manner than, say, learning spells from books or from teachers at a magical school or whatnot, and allow for play-styles for flavor reasons like demon-contractors.
Instant
Choose One -
* Exile up to two target artifacts, enchantments and/or cards from graveyards.
* Create three 1/1 white cleric creature tokens, then gain life equal to the number of creatures you control with converted mana cost 2 or less.
* You and permanents you control gain hexproof until end of turn. Permanents you control gain indestructible until end of turn. Until end of turn, spells and abilities your opponents control can't cause you to sacrifice permanents.
Grand Warlock's Charm BBB
Instant
Choose one -
* Exile target creature.
* Each opponent exiles two cards from their hand at random.
* Exile up to three cards from target player's graveyard, you gain life equal to three plus the total combined converted mana cost of the exiled cards, and if the targeted player is an opponent, they lose three life.
Supreme Sorcerer's Charm RRR
Instant
Choose one -
* Exile up to two target artifacts from the battlefield and/or graveyards.
* Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste, trample, and +1/+0 until end of turn, and an opponent's creature must block it if it attacks this turn if able.
* Exile target land. It's owner may search their library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield tapped, that land doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step. If they do, they shuffle their library.
Archdruid's Charm GGG
Instant
Choose one -
* Each opponent sacrifices three permanents that are artifacts and/or enchantments. Exile all artifacts and enchantments from opponent's graveyards.
* Search your library for up to two basic forest cards, reveal them, put one into your hand, and the other onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
* Target creature you control gains haste, trample, vigilance, reach, hexproof and indestructible until the end of your next turn. Put a +1/+1 counter on it and untap it. Lands you control gain indestructible and hexproof until end of turn. Graveyards gain hexproof until end of turn.
Not really sure if this is the right mix of abilities and such for these, but the general idea is aiming to complete the cycle started by Archmage's Charm.
Improvisational Charger RR
Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
First Strike, Haste
2/2
(looks like-ish a running humanoid soldier with a spear)
Sudden Wingsnapper 1U
Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
Flash, Flying
2/1
(Looks like-ish a small drake)
Transmogrimount 3
Artifact - Vehicle
Changeling
Flying, Vigilance, Haste
Crew 1
You may remove a loyalty counter from a planeswalker you control rather than pay Transmogrimount's crew cost.
"It can get anyone, anywhere, quickly. Probably..." - Shady Artificer
3/5
Creature - Demon
Flying
Wither
1/1
Segovian Sphinx U
Creature - Sphinx
Flying, Hexproof from Creatures
1/1
Segovian Dragon R
Creature - Dragon
Segovian Dragon can't be countered.
Flying
1/1
Segovian Giant G
Creature - Giant Archer
Reach, Protection from Sorcery and Enchantment
1/1
Segovian Region
Land
Spells and abilities treat Segovian Region as if it were a basic land and as if it were not a non-basic land while it is on the battlefield, except it still has it's abilities.
t: Add
t, Reveal your hand and the top of your library to each player, pay 2 life: Add one mana of any color.
Segovian Stampede G
Creature - Beast
Haste, Trample
1/1
Segovian Golem 1
Creature - Golem
Trample
2: Return Segovian Golem from your graveyard to your hand.
1/1
I'd also like to note it doesn't necessarily have to go into control decks either. There are times when heavier on blue versions of merfolk, faeries, and spirits all might have reasons to consider a card like this waiting in the sideboard for certain matchups. Taking turns might also have interest in some situations.
I have a magical dream percolating of going from Archmage's Charm, curving into Cryptic Commmand, with the following turn involving Snapcaster Mage to Archmages Charm, doing exactly what is needed each turn.
Might be interesting to get both red and blue populate. Blue because cloning stuff and shapeshifters, and red because they also like lots of small dudes and certain sorts of mimickry and stuff that plays well with tokens in ways that share elements with both blue and white in different ways. Thus giving populate to every color except black.
Instant
Choose one -
* Deal 5 damage to target creature.
* Deal 6 damage to target artifact creature, if it would die this turn, exile it instead.
* Deal 1 damage to target player.
* Deal 4 damage to target planeswalker.
Undeniable Shock R
Instant
Undeniable Shock can't be countered.
Deal 2 damage to any target.
Undeniable Meteor 1R
Instant
Undeniable Meteor can't be countered.
Deal 3 damage to any target. Damage to that target can't be prevented this turn.
Urza Planeswalker 5WUBRG
Legendary Planeswalker - Urza
Artifact spells cost you 1 less to cast. Your opponents spells that target permanents you control cost 2 more to cast.
+1 - Draw a card, gain 1 life, add
-3 - Create a 3/3 colorless golem artifact creature token. Scry 6, then draw two cards.
-20 - You win the game.
{10} - Starting Loyalty
Some random sorceries that might help include:
Dreadbore
Maelstrom Pulse
Angrath's Rampage
Blightning
Call to Mind
Flood of Recollection
Gaea's Blessing
Hidden Strings
Meanwhile, a lot of the potential new archetypes that could awaken could cause some cards that fill out strategies involved that previously lacked decks to raise in price. I could see a noteworthy price raise in some of cycling cards not currently seeing much play, for instance, if an Astral Drift deck takes off. Or an assortment of random sorceries getting boosted by some Collected Conjuring deck someone figures out.
Not just wastes, it also gets snow basics... too bad we don't seem to be getting a snow wastes...
On the other hand, with prohibit as an option, I'm almost hoping more for Force Spike or a slightly better variant on it than Counterspell itself, if only for another option at a different CMC in decks that are generating blue but not white.
While the ratio of modern playables is looking like it will be lower than I'd hoped with cards like Wall of One Thousand Cuts even existing in the set, the things we are getting so far are interesting enough that I have high hopes for the set.