MTG Salvation

Map

Photoshop map above. You don't have to thank me, but the pen tool and the layer fusion options of Photoshop. I made the cities relatively small, which makes the proportions look much better, and I added a few names in addition to those Flatline had in his original map. The forest zones within the wall and the mountains are called the "Woods", each with its name. The "secret passage" is actually a steep canyon formed by the river through the mountains, that separates the two mountain ranges. The source of the river is unknown. Belkin is the abandoned village of just a few wooden homes, too few to make it a camp, that will be the first Rebel refuge. I also picture here the Rebel meeting where Ziarn is brought to when she returns to Ormos and where she's anointed leader of the Rebellion. The red dots are the camps. W78 is Workcamp 78 and C83 is the Alcatraz-like Camp 83. I don't think I've added anything else by memory. Some of the names I added come from distorted Italian words, like Belkin from "ribelle" (Rebel), while others are random.

Worldbuilding

Because Ormos was split across philosophical and religious lines instead of racial ones, the cities have inhabitants of all races intermingling within them, although each city has its own majorities. Before the rise of Dahl, the plane had two major cities: the coastal city of Orithia and a city named Fenalo, that sits at the base of the Kunfar Mountains, being surrounded by them on two sides. These two cities are separated by the Permin Plains. Prior to Dahl’s reign, the Permin Plains had many small villages scattered throughout it. Since Dahl’s rise to power, most of these villages have been converted to Workcamps and Correction Camps, which has forced most of the population into the two major cities. Outside of these inhabited areas lies the Great Wilds, which was home to the largest village outside of the two main cites, the Elvish village of Venak. Venak was situated just within the borders of the Great Wilds, and was one of the very few settlements outside of the Permin Plains until Dahl forced its inhabitants to abandon it. The others were Thisis Isle, which was of great use to the Merfolk, who have since been made to live among the rest of their brothers, and Belkin, that was just a very small refuge for the few who dared adventuring into the Great Wilds. None of those adventurers has ever come back, so the Great Wilds themselves and what is behind them remains a mistery for the vast majority of Ormosians.

The Brotherhood has set up its most heinous camps, the ones it doesn’t want people to know about, in Venak and Thisis Isle. Camp 83, the worst Correction Camp on all Ormos, is on the island. Venak has been turned into a Zombie factory. Belkin wasn't worth being turned into a camp, as only a few wooden houses were there, and was abandoned instead. Now it has become the Rebellion’s first base of operations.

One of Dahl’s first actions as ruler was to build a great wall cutting the settlements of Ormos off from the Great Wilds. Father Dahl told his people he had constructed the wall as a way to keep them safe, but Dahl's real main purpose was to keep the Ormosian people confined to a smaller area, and thus easier to control. Also, most (but not all) of the devices of the Isolation Network are located in the Great Wilds. This was another good reason (from his point of view) for Dahl’s wall and his desire to make people fearful of the Great Wilds. This is also why Dahl has the Ratillions make Zombies to release them into the wilds as yet another deterrent (remember, they’re mindless Zombies). Venak is the place where Ratillion slaves create those Zombies.

Dahl also built another city in the very middle of the Permin Plains and established it as his main base. The city is appropriately named Dahl City. Here the last device of the Isolation Network is located, the one that Friegh and 137-F will destroy.

Orithia:

Main races:
- Humans
- Vedalken
- Merfolk
- Aven
- Ratillions

Ministries:
- Ministry of Guilt
- Ministry of Truth

Fenalo:

Main races:
- Humans
- Leonin
- Elves
- Goblins
- Viashino
- Ainok

Ministries:
- Ministry of Industry
- Ministry of Agriculture

Dahl City:

Main Races:
- Humans (almost all other creatures are seen in subordinate roles in Dahl City)

Ministries:
- Ministry of Order

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Most of these derive from outside suggestions by scrad_the_wanderer that in some cases have been slightly refined. Those are denoted with a star.

WU: tempo *

This deck uses detain, other pacifism effects, blue tricks and so on to get a tempo advantage over the opponent.

 
UB: brainwash *

This deck is all about messing with brainwash and with -1/-1 counters.

 
BR: aggro / burn

An aggro deck with low curve, that wants to use cheap creatures and punishment effects like Lavaborn Muse, Blightning, Liliana's Caress, Anathemancer, Breath of Malfegor, Havoc Festival, Mudbutton Torchrunner, Rabid Bloodsucker to get the opponent low on life before closing the game with burn spells.

 
RG: embolden

The creatures of this deck will be mostly Rebels, to take advantage of embolden. Some of them will have embolden thenselves. This deck will also use embolden instants and sorceries.

 
GW: Rebel tribal

A tribal deck taking advantage of classic tribal synergies ("Rebel creatures you control get +1/+1", "Whenever a Rebel creature enters the battlefield under your control", and such) as opposed to RG that is also a Rebel deck but focused on embolden.

WB: grindy control *

This archetype is going to have a lot of removal and restraining cards.

UR: artifacts / Implants *

This is the archetype that deals with the chips, implants and drones. Red has the Ministry of Industry that makes a lot of sense here.

BG: ramp

Ramp can make sense in black. It still has the ability to care about Swamps and such, check out the infamous Liliana of the Dark Realms. This is well explained in this post by NegativeFiveBelow:

Quote from NegativeFiveBelow »

I like those archetypes, but how exactly are we going to do black ramp? Black rituals aren't a thing anymore, and any color can search for it's corresponding basic land, so that is not something that is unique to black. an example of black ramp woul be Liliana's Shade, but then again, we have Knight of the White Orchid and landcycling.

While colors are allowed to search for their own basic lands, black and green care the most about their respective basic lands. In addition to cards like Crypt Ghast mentioned above, earching gatherer for "each (land type) you control" yields far more results for BG than any other color pair. In particular, black and green are the colors that have creatures with abilities that set their stats to the number of their particular lands you control (Dungrove Elder, Kalonian Twingrove, Nightmare, Squelching Leeches).

Also, the original reason I suggested BG ramp is because of black's top end; black, to me, has cool options for excess mana at uncommon in the form of its X spells. Things like Consume Spirit, Exsanguinate, and Postmortem Lunge (and at rare, Mind Shatter and X-costed wraths like Black Sun's Zenith), combined with green's large creatures at the top of the curve, give a ramp player options for how to end a game after he's gotten to absurd amounts of mana.

RW: recruit aggro *

An aggro deck focusing on recruit. Plain, simple, and fast.

GU: playing with counters: brainwash + counter-moving effects *

This is the "fun with counters" deck, with blue brainwashing and moving counters around and green passing them to the opponent or removing them altogether.

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Mechanical notes

• The Brotherhood and the Rebels have separate mechanics, kind of like in Scars of Mirrodin block.

• The block is double large with a 2/3 planeswalker split. The two sets are drafted separately.

• To reflect the shift in focus from the Brotherhood to the Rebels, the former will lose a mechanic in the second set (probably Implants) and the latter will gain one, inverting the proportions (Brotherhood/Rebels mechanics ratio = 3/2 in the first set, 2/3 in the second).

• The Rebel creature type will return. The so-called "rebel mechanic" will NOT.

• The block might have a slightly higher percentage of artifacts than usual, to reflect the Brotherhood's use of technology (drones, chips (represented by the Implant subtype), surveillance devices, etc...), but not necessarily an artifact theme or subtheme.

• The block also has a slightly higher percentage of gold cards than usual, even though not certainly at Ravnica levels. Those gold cards will be focused mostly (not all though) on the Brotherhood pairs in the first set and the Rebel pairs in the second one, with the following split:

First set: WU UB WB UR GB
Second set: RG GW WR BR UG

The pairs containing two main colors of the same faction are obvious. For the non-obvious pairs, UR is in the first set because it represent the Ministry of Industry and interacts with all of Dahl's artifacts. Then, one between BG and GU has to be in the first set, that would have no green otherwise. The same goes for blue and GU in the second set, so BG must be in the first and GU in the second. The only spot left for BR is in the second set. There are no alternatives if we want all colors to be represented in both sets, even if not equally (that's impossible). Each of the two sets should still support the pairs it doesn't include, just less. If you want to draft a Rebel color pair in the Brotherhood set, you should still be able to do it, you just won't have that many gold cards.

The Brotherhood (3 mechanics - 1 in the second set)

• One of the mechanics for the Brotherhood side is detain from Return to Ravnica block. It's our only returning mechanic.

• Another mechanic for the Brotherhood are Implants, which are Equipment with negative effects that can be equipped to creatures your opponents control in addition to your own. "Implant" is a new artifact subtype that carries mechanical baggage in the rules, just like Equipment and Fortification. Being a subtype, it can (and should) be referenced to by other cards in any way. The added rule for Implants in the CR will simply be the following:

"An Equipment that has also the Implant subtype can be attached to creatures your opponents control."

Example card (costs are not meant to be balanced; also, this has been refined to implement Implant as an artifact subtype):

Weakening Chip 3
Artifact - Equipment Implant (C)

(This Equipment can be equipped to creatures your opponents control. You still control it when it's equipped to a creature an opponent controls.)

Equipped creature gets -2/-0.
Equip 2 

• Brainwash by Flatline:

Brainwash (Whenever this deals damage to a creature, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature. If it isn't brainwashed, it becomes brainwashed.)

This mechanic exploits monstrosity/renown technology, but kind of reverses it. The fact that multiple brainwash instances put multiple -1/-1 counters on the brainwashed creature is intentional. In my opinion, this mechanic is very flavorful for the Brotherhood. Obviously, there would be cards referencing brainwashed creatures and triggers like "Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes brainwashed" and such.

Brainwash forces us to only use -1/-1 counters throughout the block. That's not necessarily a problem, just a thing we must be aware of as it heavily shapes the mechanical design. It's such a great fit for the Brotherhood though that I personally would have no problem with this. Also, it also forces us to use -1/-1 counters ONLY or MOSTLY as brainwash markers. If there are too many other ways to put -1/-1 counters, it becomes difficult to recognize a brainwashed creature by the counter.

These considerations led us to the idea of using -1/-1 counters in the first set and +1/+1 in the second one, to represent the shift in prevalence from the Brotherhood to the Rebellion, which is allowable because the sets are drafted separately. This means that brainwash needs to be (one of ?) the mechanic(s?) the Brotherhood loses in the second set.

Flatline posted the following two cards in the DCC with this mechanic. Both have been adjusted after discussion and are presented here in their current forms.

Mollification Mage
Creature - Vedalken Wizard (R)
Vigilance
Brainwash (Whenever this deals damage to a creature, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature. If it isn’t brainwashed, it becomes brainwashed.)
Brainwashed creatures your opponents control can’t attack or block.
2/4

Shock Therapy
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant creature
When Shock Therapy enters the battlefield or at the beginning of your upkeep, Shock Therapy deals 1 damage to enchanted creature.
Brainwash (Whenever this deals damage to a creature, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature. If it isn't brainwashed, it becomes brainwashed.)

The Rebellion (2 mechanics + 1 more in the second set)

• Recruit by Flatline:

Recruit - Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, [EFFECT].

It's similar to rally, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem, as it's heavily associated with Allies and we don't have any here. Recruit also only triggers when another creature etb and not when the creature itself etb, unlike normal etb abilities and rally, and this is a good way to differentiate it from both of those. The flavor is very good, and we need simple mechanics to go with Implants and brainwash, which are more on the complex side.

Recruit is an ability word, and as such it has no rules meaning and no CR-like entry.

• Embolden by me (name by Flatline):

Embolden [COST] (You may cast this spell for its embolden cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Rebel.)

This mechanic is a variant of prowl from Morningtide that always looks for Rebels, regardless of the card's creature types. It can be put not only on Rebels themselves, but also on Rebel-associated instants, sorceries, artifacts, and enchantments, and also on non-Rebel but still Rebel-associated creatures (kind of those dogs the Rebels use to detect implanted chips, see the first example below).

Embolden still works with old Rebels (the ones with the "Rebel mechanic") if you want to do some crazy past-present mix. And most of all, embolden cards still perfectly work outside of block. You can still cast my Chip-Detecting Dog from the examples below for its normal mana cost outside of block. The discounted price would just be a bonus for you to do the "block thing".

Examples (not meant to be balanced, just to show off the mechanic):

Chip-Detecting Dog 2R
Creature - Hound (C)
Embolden 1R (You may cast this spell for its embolden cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Rebel.)

When Chip-Detecting Dog enters the battlefield, you may destroy target Equipment.
2/2

Rebel Rhino 3G
Creature - Rhino (R)
Embolden 1GG (You may cast this spell for its embolden cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Rebel.)
Trample, hexproof
3/3

This Rhino could probably be constructed playable even without embolden. With it, it's even better.

Rebel Bolt 1R
Instant (C)
Embolden R (You may cast this spell for its embolden cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Rebel.)
Rebel Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

This is a Lightning Strike, that is a perfectly playable card by itself. With embolden, it becomes a Lightning Bolt, a Modern staple.

Distribution of mechanics

In WUBRG order. The blue one is the split we're officially adopting. "1" means the mechanic is in that color. Each color has 3 mechanics.

• Detain: W, U.

• Implants (activations): U, B.

• Brainwash: all colors.

• Recruit: R, G, W.

• Embolden: B, R, G.

• W: detain, brainwash, recruit.

• U: detain, Implant activations, brainwash.

• B: Implant activations, brainwash, embolden.

• R: brainwash, recruit, embolden.

• G: brainwash, recruit, embolden.

For the second set:

• The following has been proposed by Flatline as the additional mechanic for the Rebels in the second set, if at all. We will discuss it again when we get to the point of designing the second set.

Defiant - Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, <effect>.

I personally don't like this mechanic that much and I'm still concerned with it being too uninteractive. If I'm your opponent, I'll just never target your creature unless it's lethal. Anyway, I'm open to playtest it. Maybe actually playing with it can convince me.

< Return to index

The setting is inspired by dystopian novels such as 1984, Brave New World, A Handmaid’s Tale.

The (color-)phylosophical inspiration is trying to show the evil side of white, or, to say it in another way, to show "white gone bad", or "white pushed to the extreme". MaRo often said that fascism is white, and we'd like to highlight that particular side of white in this block. Obviously that doesn't mean we're doing here with white what has been done with black in Torment: all colors are represented as equally as possible in Ormos. This is just the flavor twist for the block.

One of the block’s major themes is lack of privacy and government intrusiveness and restriction. We want people to feel like they need to go to great lengths to hide anything from the Brotherhood. The Rebels need a pretty intricate way to keep themselves hidden from the Brotherhood. There won't be a lot of out and out battles in the first set, rather covert actions and symbolic acts of defiance. The first set is more about planning and recruiting for the Rebels, and then they will strike in the second set.

DETAILED PLOT

---INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST SET---

Dahl is a human artificer planeswalker from an unknown plane. When he was still a young man on his homeplane, he served in the government, when he was caught developing a device that he planned to use to take the plane from the ruling party. For this, he is sentenced to death. During his execution, his spark ignites and he escapes with his life. The government of his homeplane sends out a few planeswalkers who are on that plane at that moment (not necessarily native to that plane) to find him and bring him back so that justice can be served. Among those planerwalkers who are chasing Dahl through the planes on behalf of the government, there is a female mad-looking and very young woman called Freigh. She is a red/green character mechanically focused on artifact destruction. Knowing her passion for smashing things just for the fun of it, the government hired her thinking "who best to send after an artificer?".

After a bit of time on the run, Dahl eventually finds Ormos. Ormos is a young and fairly undeveloped plane on the outskirts of the multiverse, remote and somewhat inconsequential, therefore it is not visited by planeswalkers very much. The citizens of Ormos are somewhat primitive when compared to citizens from other planes, and have been locked in a planewide holy war for times untold. The sides of this holy war are divided as such:

W - Clerics, who believe in a single god that is the absolute ruler of all things.
U - Atheists, who believe in no "superstitions". They consider themselves to be scientific people, and would prefer the "religious zealots" not stand in the way of progress.
B - Worshippers of death. They believe that only in death can one be set free, and that the body is just a vessel to be used.
R - Shamans believing in a mysticism that is dependent upon personal growth through individual experience.
G - Druids that believe in the ultimate power of nature.

Each of these sects believes that their philosophy is the only correct philosophy, which causes the five sects to be at constant war. Each sect has its own main races, which are the races of the majority of its members, but there is not a biunique correspondence between sects and races. Each sect includes some members of other races as well. The plane is divided along philosophical lines more so than racial ones.

List of main races:
W - primary: Humans - secondary: Leonin, Aven
U - primary: Vedalken - secondary: Merfolk (legged)
B - primary: Ratillions (creature type Rat) (this is a new race similar to the Nezumi from Kamigawa) - secondary: Zombies (of the mindless variety and maybe just a few, necromancy isn't supposed to be a big things on Ormos)
R - primary: Viashino - secondary: Goblins
G - primary: Elves - secondary: Ainok (creature type Hound)

In each color, one race extends to an ally color and the other(s) stays exclusively in that color:

Humans in all colors but the majority in white.

Aven - White
Leonin - White secondary green

Merfolk - Blue (Which have legs and are able to live out of the water. This could also be a factor for the Merfolk when they start to join the rebellion.)
Vedalken - Blue secondary white

Zombies - Black
Ratillions - Black secondary blue

Goblins - Red
Viashino - Red secondary black (we could switch Goblins to secondary black since there's already precedent there, but I think I like Viashino better for this.)

Elves - Green
Ainok - Green secondary red

Upon coming to Ormos, Dahl soon comes to believe it to be the best place to hide from the planeswalkers seeking him. He also immediately realizes the opportunity such a plane gives him to gain power for himself, so he sets about exploiting the religious chaos that is the plane of Ormos. He aligns himself with the Cleric faction of the war, and claims to be a messenger from their god. The Clerics don’t have a hard time buying that because of Dahl's charisma and power, as they haven’t seen a lot of planeswalkers. Also, they clearly see that the powerful Dahl may be just the advantage they need to win the war. With Dahl on their side, the Clerics quickly gain an advantage over the rest of the factions on the plane, and eventually establish their own religion as the one true religion, with Dahl as its leader.

Once this happens, Dahl begins to preach unity and brotherhood for all of the Ormosian citizens, up to calling the religion itself "the Brotherhood". His preachings are imposed as a law, and soon Dahl builds structures to punish those that he calls the "guilty", meaning everyone who committed even a slight infraction, despite how little it may be. After all, the law is useless if you don't enforce it. He builds two types of camps, sparse throughout Ormos with guards watching over them. Those are:

• The Workcamps, where prisoners are forced to work too many hours a day as a punishment for what they did.

• The Correction Camps, where the most difficult prisoners are punished. Correction Camps execute all kinds of sentences and punishments, always involving a heavy prison regime, often involving torture and brainwashing, and including death sentences in the worst cases.

Normally, the first infraction brings you to a Workcamp, while the second one, or another infraction while you're in a Workcamp, gets you to a Correction Camp. But if you commit a particular serious crime, you may also be sent directly to a Correction Camp. Obviously all camps have a lot of guards keeping things under control.

Anyway, the Brotherhood wants people to see that people can be reformed, even the ones that actually can't. With so many people disappearing to the camps or "reaching final enlightenment" (aka "being sentenced to death"), the Brotherhood wants people to hold out hope that their loved ones may yet be "saved" (aka "rendered harmless", sometimes including chip implants) and then return to them. The Brotherhood tries to never take people away in broad daylight, and they never inform any of their survivors as to where they've gone, people are just left wondering.

In order to appease the remaining factions, Dahl appoints each faction its own division within the governing body. Such divisions are called "Ministries". The previous sects end up being transformed into the various Ministries that have been set up by the Brotherhood, although any adherence to their old teachings is strictly forbidden as blasphemy. The Brotherhood also makes it difficult to adhere to the old ways by erasing all history of them from media and textbooks. The Ministries are as follows:

W - Ministry of Order: it deals with making laws, maintaining public order, managing all the camps except for Correction Camps, and propaganda.
U - Ministry of Truth: it deals with information and education, constantly making sure that all the schools and the analogue of the media spread the "right" information.
B - Ministry of Guilt: it deals with torture and brainwashing, using them to punish the "guilty", which actually are anyone who committed even a slight infraction, no matter how small it can be. It manages the Correction Camps, using those means at full extent to "re-educate" the prisoners.
R - Ministry of Industry: it deals with actually producing the devices Dahl designs, like chips (represented by the new Implant subtype), drones, and such. It's actually made up by Viashino and Goblin slaves working in factory assembly lines.
G - Ministry of Agriculture: it deals with managing the food and waste systems for camps, schools, public offices and all population really.

Although Dahl has built a system of strict laws, surveillance and punishment, he still mostly controls his people through religion and re-education. When someone is caught doing wrong on Ormos, most of the citizens think this person should be punished. This often includes the person being punished. People are generally afraid to express their feelings of discontent because they are never sure if the person they are talking to will blow them in for what they are saying, whether the person is a Brotherhood agent or just an average citizen. It takes a long time to trust anybody on Ormos under Dahl's regime, even your own family might turn you in to the authorities in order to "save" you.

After Dahl is firmly entrenched as the ruler of Ormos, he quickly puts the Ministry of Truth to work, rewriting history and "teaching" (aka brainwashing) the population the orthodoxy of the newfound Brotherhood. While doing so, he eventually transforms himself from a disciple of the Cleric's god, to a god himself, acquiring the name of "Father Dahl".

To protect himself from the planeswalkers chasing him, he soon creates a network of devices called the "Isolation Network" to isolate Ormos from the rest of the Multiverse, allowing no other planeswalker to enter or leave the plane, while also reinforcing his power as self-imposed god. This traps Freigh, who had finally tracked Dahl to Ormos in the meantime. Realizing she can’t defeat Dahl by herself, as he now has the entire plane under his command, she sets about recruiting help. This is the beginning of the Rebellion, which begins quite slowly at first due to Dahl’s complete influence over the minds of the Ormosians. In fact, it takes a few years for the Rebellion to start gaining enough momentum.

During those years, in Workcamp 78 an unfortunate event happens: a woman prisoner gets pregnant. As usual in these cases (a few other ones have happened before), the father is immediately sent to a Correction Camp, while the mother stays in the Workcamp until the end of her pregnancy. When the baby is born, she is sent to a Correction Camp too (a different one of course), and the baby is given a number and stays in the Workcamp, passing there all their life. This baby is a female and has been assigned the number 137-F, where the F stands for "female". She grows in Workcamp 78 while being exposed to different prisoners that come and go from the camp. Some of those prisoners tell her of the starting Rebellion against the Brotherhood, and as she always wondered how it was like to live on the outside with freedom in your hands, she becomes fascinated by those tales and starts developing a desire to possibly join the Rebellion one day.

---END OF INTRODUCTION---

---FIRST SET STARTS HERE--- (These are the ones I propose as the five pivotal moments in the first set to represent on cards)

The first set starts here, with the Brotherhood already firmly entrenched, the Isolation Network already in place, and the Rebellion starting to enter its middle stages.

After some years from 137-F's birth, in addition to keeping on looking for help, Freigh is finding and destroying the devices making up the Isolation Network. While attempting to destroy the last one, she is caught and sent directly to a Correction Camp ("Camp 83") waiting for a sentence. Her case is of unprecedented gravity, so it will take a long time to judge.

When she comes of age, 137-F finally decides to attempt to escape Workcamp 78 but she's caught and sent to a Correction Camp for a "re-education retreat" (aka "brainwashing"). That Correction Camp happens to be Camp 83, the same one where Freigh has been imprisoned all this time. Freigh has been sentenced to "find final enlightenment" (aka "be executed") in the meantime. They meet in Camp 83, quickly becoming friends and deciding to try to escape. Freigh has never felt like trying that alone, and 137-F has the experience of her previous failed attempt. Together, they start planning an escape, and eventually their plan works and they escape Camp 83.

Together they also decide to attempt again to destroy the final device of the Isolation Network. Freigh knows where it is located, so she takes 137-F there with her. Freigh takes her sword, empowered with Rebel magic, and hits the Network device, destroying it. It was the last one: it had within itself all the magical energy of the whole Network. That energy bursts out in a huge explosion that kills Freigh and blinds 137-F, almost killing her too. She just has the time to take Freigh's magical sword in her hand before feeling like passing out.

---FIRST SET ENDS HERE---

---BRIDGE STARTS HERE---

She finds herself somewhere unknown. This is her first planeswalk, and her spark just ignited with no Isolation Network anymore to keep her on Ormos, but she doesn't know all of that yet. She looks around herself and finds some people. She tries to tell them what just happened to her, but they seem to not understand. One of them proposes to bring her to one of their mages, maybe he would understand her. They bring her to her village, where she's brought to XYZ (insert male returning planeswalker here, possibly white). She explains to him what happened and he immediately understands. He tells her about the spark, the Multiverse, and introduces her to what planeswalking means. Her mind is blown away by all of this, she wanted to experience what freedom was like, but this was even more than all she could ever have hoped for! XYZ invites her to stay with him at least for a few days, as long as she needs to recover. She agrees. In those days, she tells him all about Ormos, the Brotherhood, the camps, the Rebellion, and asks him for his help. He gladly agrees. During those days, they also start feeling something for each other. One day, she tells him that she has no name except for a number. XYZ is horrified at the thought of people being just numbers and offers to give her himself a name. She loves the idea, and actually loves him too. He names her Ziarn, which means "seed", as in both this being just the "seed" of her journey as a planeswalker, and her being hopefully the "seed" of the Rebellion on Ormos. As soon as she recovers her strength, she asks him to come with her back to Ormos and help the Rebellion. He agrees, and they both planeswalk to Ormos.

---END OF BRIDGE---

---SECOND SET STARTS HERE---

As they arrive on Ormos, Ziarn's attention is caught by a small group of Rebels talking to each other and wondering what happened to Freigh, who has disappeared since a few days ago. She walks to them and explains them what happened and that Freigh is dead and she was there. They immediately bring her in a hideout, where all the highest ranked Rebels are meeting to decide what to do after Freigh's sudden disappearance. They stop the meeting, asking them to listen to what this woman has to say. She tells everything to them too, bringing Freigh's sword, which she still has with herself, as proof. They believe her and they tell her that Freigh was actually their leader, and as she helped her and was there during the heroic (from their point of view) act that caused Freigh's death, they ask her to become the new leader of the Rebellion. She enthusiastically accepts and leads the Rebellion to victory. How that victory is exactly achieved will be the focus of the second set.

(Insert story of how the Rebellion wins here. We'll make it when we arrive to the second set.)

In the end, the Rebellion is victorious, the Brotherhood falls, and Dahl planeswalks away choosing that over certain death by Rebel hands. Freigh, who was the one looking after Dahl on Ormos on behalf of Dahl's homeplane government, is dead without having captured him, so one thing is for sure: Dahl is still free and still chased by a few other planeswalkers sent by the government throughout the planes. This leaves us the possibility to make another block with Dahl in the future.

---END OF SECOND SET---

---END OF THE BLOCK---


REVISED TIMELINE

(Time zero is the start of the first set.)

---INTRODUCTION STARTS HERE---

- 20 years: A young Dahl is sentenced to death on his unknown homeplane when his spark ignites. The government sends various planeswalkers, among which a very young Freigh, looking after him through the planes in a multi-planar chase.

- 19 years: Dahl comes to Ormos, where the "holy" war between the sects is going on.

- 18.5 years: Dahl becomes the leader of the Cleric's religion. Under his lead, they quickly win the war.

- 18 years: Dahl builds the camps and creates the Ministries out of the former sects.

- 17 years: The Ministry of Truth starts rewriting history. Dahl establishes himself as a god under the name of "Father Dahl".

- 16 years: Dahl creates the Isolation Network, trapping Freigh on Ormos. Freigh starts recruiting help. This is the start of the Rebellion.

- 15 years: In Workcamp 78, 137-F is born.

- 2 years: Freigh discovers about the Isolation Network and starts breaking its devices throughout the plane of Ormos

---INTRODUCTION ENDS HERE---

---FIRST SET STARTS HERE---

At time zero:
• The Brotherhood is already firmly entrenched, the Isolation Network is already in place, and the Rebellion is starting to enter its middle stages.
• Freigh is caught while trying to break the last device of the Isolating Network and sent to Camp 83, waiting for a sentence. Her case is of unprecedented gravity, so it will take a long time to judge.

+ 2.5 years: Freigh is sentenced to "find final enlightenment" (aka "be executed").

+ 3 years: 137-F tries to escape Workcamp 78 but is caught She is sent to Camp 83 too, for a "re-education retreat" (aka "brainwashing"). She meets Freigh there and the two quickly become friends, and plan their escape.

+ 3.5 years: Their plan works and they escape the Camp 83. They reach the last device of the Isolating Network and destroy it. The explosion kills Freigh and ignites 137-F's spark.

---FIRST SET ENDS HERE---

137-F meets XYZ on her first planeswalk plane. XYZ names her Ziarn. After a few days, they come back to Ormos.

---SECOND SET STARTS HERE---

Ziarn is anointed leader of the Rebellion.

+ 4 years: Ziarn thinks their time has come, and leads the Rebellion's revolt against the Brotherhood (details to be established later when we come to designing the second set).

+ 5 years: The Rebellion wins. The Brotherhood falls, and Dahl planeswalks away, still free but chased by other planeswalkers sent by his homeplane's government.

---SECOND SET ENDS HERE---

---BLOCK ENDS HERE---


PLANESWALKER BREAKDOWN

First set (Brotherhood of Ormos):
• Father Dahl (WUB, focusing on law and artifice)
• Freigh (RG, focusing on artifact destruction)
• 137-F, Camp Worker as a monowhite mythic rare Human Rebel legendary creature.

Second set:
• Ziarn (ex 137-F) (RW, focusing on building an army of small creatures and then pumping them, which I envision being her leading the Rebels to battle)
• XYZ (at least W, maybe mono W, as we've not yet included a monocolored planeswalker. Again, Gideon would probably fit perfectly, but we'll have to see BFZ's storyline)
• A returning "minor" planeswalker (possibly not white) who happens to be on Ormos. He/she doesn't have to tie into the main storyline, he/she can just have his/her own side storyline here. Me and Flatline would like this to be Tamiyo, if we're able to fit her in. It's been suggested that her attention might be caught by a plane that first was isolated and then suddenly is no more isolated (we know that's because of the Isolation Network but she does not). Her innate curiosity might stimulate her to come to Ormos and study the case.

Features/notes:
• Two males (Dahl and XYZ), two females (Freigh and 137-F/Ziarn), and one unknown. Whichever gender the returning minor planeswalker is, we have the best balance (a 2/3 split).
• A double large block with a 2/3 planeswalker split, that is actually more of a 2.5/3 split because of 137-F's legendary creature card in the first set.
• The two main characters of the Rebellion (Freigh and Ziarn) are female, which feels appropriate and ironic for the Brotherhood treating them as second class citizens. Even those who might feel bad at first about that representation should like the fact that in the end it's exactly a female who leads the Rebellion to victory. There is a nice kind of redemption story hidden there.
• The second set doesn't only have planeswalkers on the Rebellion side, but also the minor returning one who should not care about the Brotherhood/Rebellion fight.

FACTIONS AND MAIN CHARACTERS

The Brotherhood

The plane or Ormos is controlled by an oppressive, theocratic, totalitarian regime that calls itself "The Brotherhood", founded and also currently headed by Father Dahl. He uses the Brotherhood to rule the plane of Ormos with his strict religious laws, and by using his artifact creations (drones, implanted chips, etc...) to keep a close eye on his people. The Brotherhood controls the whole plane. It is an oppressive presence that's felt everywhere on Ormos.

To the Brotherhood, names are worthless. Everything is identified with a number: prisoners, workers, camps... (examples from the story above: 137-F, Workcamp 78, Camp 83) and everything should be uniform and equal, as mass-produced. No diversity is allowed. If there was a person that's different from the mass, that person could even... gasp! ...think! And if they think, they might understand what the reality is like. And if they understand it, they might even... gasp! ...rebel to it! So the underlying philosophy is that a society with no individualism, free will, diversity, privacy, etc... is easier to control. And if you are able to control people, you are able to keep or even increase your own power, while at the same time avoiding that someone takes it away from you. That's what the Brotherhood wants. The means to obtain that are control and propaganda.

The Brotherhood uses both magical and technological means (the latter invented by Father Dahl who is also an artificer) to keep control over the ordinary people. For example, some chips are being planted in people secretly, and used as a way for the Brotherhood to spy on people, and maybe even control their thoughts remotely. The Rebels use dogs (could this be the Ainok's role?) as a way to detect these chips. Anyway, the Brotherhood’s main way of controlling its citizens is through religious propaganda, and manipulation of history through re-education (basically brainwashing). The artifacts are just meant to be a part of the Brotherhood. They are there to help make sure people are obeying the law. We want them to be there but not be too pervasive in the block.

The Ministries idea was originally by Tilwin.

The Brotherhood is in all colors, but centered in white, blue, and black.

Father Dahl

We've know since the beginning that he's a planeswalker. He's not native to Ormos though, rather he's from an unknown plane. He claims himself the god of the Brotherhood religion, and that's why he calls himself "Father" rather than "Brother". It's easy doing that for him given his power as a planeswalker. He uses that as one of his means to keep control over Ormosian citizens. To sum it up, he's a secret planeswalking artificer from another plane that has taken over an already existing Ormosian religion to manipulate the citizens of Ormos and gain power. To prevent this facade from being discovered for what it is, he had to do two things:

• He established a revisionist history removing all records, traces and memories of other planeswalkers that might have visited Ormos in the past, making the citizens of Ormos completely unaware of the existence of planeswalkers, and also rewriting the history of how he rose to power.

• He built a set of devices, called "Isolation Network", that traps other planeswalkers on Ormos while also preventing the arrive of new ones and still allowing him to fully use his own powers instead. They can't get in or get out of Ormos, while he can get in and get out as he wishes. That allows him to present planeswalking powers as only his own, which gives him credibility as a god to the eyes of the average Ormosian citizen. The real main purpose of the Isolation Network was to protect himself from the planeswalkers chasing him though. The Network will be broken at the end of the first set, and its breaking is connected to 137-F's spark igniting. After that, if the people of Ormos don't know about planeswalkers, someone (137-F renamed to Ziarn coming back to Ormos) that suddenly appears that seems to have as much power as Father Dahl will be a great way to expose his shame. It would prove that he is no god, but just an ordinary planeswalker. This will happen in the second set though.

The religious war before the rise of the Brotherhood is Indighost's idea.

Father Dahl is Esper colored: his means are white (pseudo-fascist government), his motivation is black (wanting power for himself and to keep it), while he's also blue as an artificer.
 

137-F / Ziarn

Who she is and her story is explained above. She is a legendary creature in the first set whose spark ignites during the events of the block, turning her into a planeswalker in the second set. She won't planeswalk away until her brothers and sisters are free, she's been brought up in such a white environment she can't imagine not saving them. Of course, she's also red because he values freedom and emotions. She will be a monowhite Human Rebel mythic rare legendary creature in the first set and a red/white gold planeswalker in the second set. This transformation is well detailed in the above story.

She has been a very righteous and motivated person right from the beginning. She has been training to join the Rebellion since very early in her life as soon as she first learned of it (as much as one can in a Workcamp). Although she has never experienced freedom, she still yearns for it. Basically, she has always intended to free the people of Ormos, even if she wasn’t really ever sure how he could do that. As a result of the Isolation Network being broken, her spark ignites.

After she leads the Rebellion to victory, she can either stay on Ormos to make sure something like that never happens again, or decide that now that her fellow citizens are free she's also free to explore the multiverse.

She actually started as a male, but we later realized she could be female. We lacked female protagonists in Ormos and she being female also plays very nicely with women being treated as sort of second-class citizens by the Brotherhood. This is a delicate point, that could potentially be slightly offensive to some of the audience, so we should be careful with this. But having the leader of the Rebellion being female and so having a female being successful at destroying the oppressive regime, giving back to women the respect they deserve, can be a wonderful story of redemption and can teach the audience that the Brotherhood had it wrong and women do deserve the same respect, dignity, consideration, whatever than men. There is also a nice irony there: after completely disregarding women as second class citizens, the Brotherhood is eventually overthrown by a rebellion led by one!

Freigh and the Rebellion

The Rebels will be victorius at the end of the block. Flatline proposed that in the first set the Rebellion is headed by a planeswalker that has been stuck on Ormos due to Dahl's device. That is Freigh in the latest version of the story (see above). She has managed to get some citizens of Ormos to believe her when she tells them the true story of Dahl (she knows Dahl is a planeswalker and isn't who he says he is), and this is the start of the Rebellion. At the end of the first set, she manages to destroy the Isolation Network, but is killed in the process. 137-F is involved in this exchange, and her spark ignites at that moment.

The Rebels are in all colors, but centered in red, green, and white. There can be factions involved which are either racial or geographically split, or even both.

< Return to index

Brotherhood of Ormos

(Last updated on 9/19: modified the map and removed the design assignment.)

What is Brotherhood of Ormos?

Brotherhood of Ormos is a Magic custom set based on the dystopian plane of Ormos and its oppressive pseudo-fascist government, called the Brotherhood. The block tells the story of the fall of the Brotherhood caused by a rebellion of Ormosian citizens against it.

What is its design goal?

A couple versions have been proposed. Here's mine:

We want to make players feel the oppression of the Brotherhood regime through gameplay and the player can feel either the oppressor or the rebel that struggles to break free of it, depending mainly on which colors he's playing.

and here's Flatline's:

We want people to experience what life is like when white aligned philosophies are taken too far, when justice and order become oppressive laws and a homogenized existence.

I think probably the two can be merged into one, but no one attempted such a thing yet. I might do though one day.

Design Team

Flatline (I'd say lead, but it probably feels better to him to just say he's the creator of the original idea)

bravelion83

Indighost

Tilwin

scrad_the_wanderer

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

We are finalizing the commons.

FURTHER INFO

Flavor and story

Map and worldbuilding

Mechanics

Limited archetypes

Design skeleton / card list (public to view but only editable by members of the design team)

(The banner is my own elaboration. The original image is by Holly Chaffin and is released in the public domain.)

The Lion's Lair #12

"Magic grammar"

The article index is always updated with the latest content.

First of all, thanks to Aspirinsmurf who unwillingly inspired this article just by participating in the DCC and designing this card, which you can see me and Flatline talking about in the discussion thread. There is a problem with that card that I'm going to talk about later in the article, but an even bigger problem is that I'm seeing such mistakes done a huge amount of times, way too often and by a lot of different people. What kind of mistakes I'm talking about? Simple: pieces of rules text or reminder text that are good and perfectly acceptable in English, but at the same time are wrong and not acceptable in Magic. This kind of mistakes is particularly subtle, as they rightly don't even sound wrong to the average English speaker.

Back to school

Suppose you're learning a new foreign language that you only know one thing about: it uses the same alphabet as English. In my case, that language could be German. What are the key basic components you have to learn to start speaking that language so completely unknown to you? I can think of three: pronunciation, some vocabulary, and grammar. Magic rules text is kind of its own language, separate from English, Italian, or all other languages Magic cards are printed in. In fact, sometimes technical Magic text is even referred to as "Magic-ese", which is an expression I personally hate but gives a good idea of what I'm talking about. I'll just call it "Magic language" instead. So, how do the English and Magic languages compare in those three categories I mentioned above?

• Pronunciation is obviously the same, so no problem there.
 
• Vocabulary can already bring some troubles, as there are words which meaning is different in Magic compared to their ordinary English one. That's one of the reasons R&D doesn't want to keyword "milling" (which means "put some cards from the top of a player's library into his or her graveyard" for those who might not know), "bounce" (returning permanents to their owners' hands), and such. I think I might write another article in the future about Magic vocabulary, but that's not what I want to talk about today.
 
• Grammar is by far the worst comparison. There are a few rules of English grammar that rules text doesn't respect (and cannot do so even if you'd want) and many more specific rules of the Magic language's grammar it has to respect. Practically, Magic rules text has to obey to two grammar systems at the same time. You can imagine this as different layers in an image, for those that know Photoshop or similar programs. You have your raw text at the bottom with two layers of grammar applied over it: the lowest one is ordinary English grammar, and the topmost one is Magic grammar. A structure like the following:
 

---MAGIC GRAMMAR---

---ENGLISH GRAMMAR---

---RAW TEXT---

You're observing (or reading) from the top, don't forget that! Just like with an image in Photoshop, what you see (or read) is the overlap of all the levels. That is the final result. That must be the final result. Well, unless you don't care about the quality of your custom cards, but if that's the case, what are you doing here?

Apples, oranges, and Schroedinger's cat

The problem lies where those two layers of grammar are telling you different things. So now let's see some examples.

1) "Whenever... would... instead..."

This is the mistake in the card by Aspirinsmurf I linked at the beginning of this article. Let's look at its rules text again:

Whenever you would draw a card, you may instead have Ignorant Brute deal 2 damage to target creature or player.

This sentence is perfect in English, but wrong in Magic. That's because of the special meaning that three words have in the Magic language, that imposes additional rules on where to use or not to use them. These three words are "when", "whenever", and "at". Their special Magic meaning is to identify triggered abilities. If an ability starts with one of them, it is by definition a triggered ability. So you can only use them when the ability they're used in is actually a triggered ability.

Now, one could say: "then it will just mean this is a triggered ability", except it's not. Why can't that be a triggered ability? Because there are other two words that have additional baggage in Magic grammar: "would" and "instead". These two words identify a replacement effect, which is an effect that substitutes a particular event (specified by the "would" part) that never happens with another event (specified by the "instead" part) that happens in its place. Not all replacement effects are worded like this, but most are. Those that are not don't invalidate this point anyway. Replacement effects are a kind of static ability, so that can't also be a triggered ability at the same time, as the word "whenever" at the beginning wants it to be. The result is an ability that is half a triggered ability and half a replacement effect. If you allow me to use an example from my field of study (chemistry), you have the "Schroedinger's cat" of Magic abilities: it's both a triggered ability and a replacement effect at the same time, just like that cat can be dead or alive at the same time, or an electron can be both a wave and a particle at the same time! But the foundations of quantum mechanics have nothing to do with Magic mechanics, and what is acceptable there is not in Magic. No ambiguities are allowed in our favorite game!

So how should a replacement effect of the kind Ignorant Brute wants to have be worded? The solution is very simple: change "whenever", that has unwanted baggage in Magic grammar, with "if", that doesn't change the English meaning of the sentence and doesn't have that rules baggage (it has other rules attached though, namely the "intervening if clause", but that's another matter).

Use "if... would... instead..." for your replacement effects and nobody gets hurt! Ignorant Brute should say:

If you would draw a card, you may instead have Ignorant Brute deal 2 damage to target creature or player.

But that's not the only mistake in that card. Let's see another Magic grammar rule, which this time stems from logic.

2) If you replace an event with something you "may" do, you must always specify what happens if you don't! Remember: the original event (the "would" one) doesn't exist anymore!

Let's say, for example, that you have a basket with one apple in it that can't be empty for whatever reason. You remove the apple, then "you may" put an orange in the basket. Let's make both cases. Let's first suppose you choose to put the orange in the basket: you end up with an orange in the basket, so the basket is not empty and you're fine. But let's consider now what happens if you choose to not put the orange in the basket. You end up with an empty basket, because the apple is no longer there: you've already removed it! So now the basket is empty, and you have a contradiction: at the beginning we said it can't ever be empty. Change the "basket" with a "replacement effect", the apple with the "would" event that no longer exists, and the orange with the new "instead" event that happens in its place, and you have the equivalent of that contradiction in Magic. And again, we don't want contradictions in our favorite game!

Do you want a real example of such a kind of replacement effect done right? Just look at one of the game's most infamous mechanics: dredge! Let's look at its reminder text:

Dredge N (If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly N cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Have you ever wondered where the underlined part comes from? One could say: "but you were drawing that card anyway!", but that's not true, as the "would" part of the replacement effect has already erased that draw. You've already removed the apple from the basket! You can't say the apple is still in! If you want the basket to be always full you have to say "you may put the orange in, but if you don't put the apple back in"! The equivalent of putting the apple back in is the underlined part of dredge, and that's why it's necessary.

So, at this point, now that we've explored this aspect too, how should have Ignorant Brute been worded?

If you would draw a card, you may instead have Ignorant Brute deal 2 damage to target creature or player. If you don't, draw a card.

But it's not over!

3) Static abilities (and replacement effect as part of those) CANNOT target.

In all of the above I've been ignoring the "target" part, which is also wrong. The word "target" is another of those words that have attached baggage in the rules. It's probably the single word with the heaviest baggage attached, so you should pay attention to where it does or does not belong.

Choosing targets is part of the procedure called "casting a spell". It's one of the earliest parts actually, but what I want to notice here is that it's a word that is part of the process that puts a card on the stack, waiting to resolve. Only things (spells or abilities) that use the stack can target! Don't underestimate this aspect: it's huge. Non-exhaustive list of notable things that do NOT use the stack, and thus CANNOT target:

• Static abilities (which replacement effects are part of) do not use the stack, because they are always active anyway, so they can't target.

• Special actions, like morph and its variants (manifest and megamorph). Turning a morph or a manifested creature face up is a special action that can be done at any time and cannot target. Triggered "when this is turned face up" abilities can target though, as they are, well, triggered. Beware of not confusing those two things!

• Playing a land. Lands aren't spells (no, not even Dryad Arbor is a spell) and thus they can't target when played. Again, landfall abilities that trigger on you playing a land can target though, and you don't have to confuse them!

Note that "choosing" something is different from "targeting" it. What the above can't do is target things, not have you choose things. What is the difference? Targeting happens while the spell is being cast, while choosing happens only much later, when the spell resolves. The same goes for abilities.

So we said that Ignorant Brute's ability can't target because it's a replacement effect. How can we fix it? At the low cost of a very small functional change, that many players won't even notice nor understand, you can turn targeting into choosing and you're good to go!

If you would draw a card, you may choose a creature or player instead. If you do, Ignorant Brute deals 2 damage to that creature or player. If you don't, draw a card.

Now we finally have a functionally working version of the Brute's ability. Phew, that was long... but hopefully now you understand it. But that is not the only custom card that catched my attention recently...

4) "As" vs "when"

I've already talked about this in my "Mark of Quality" articles, but a card I recently judged in the MCC gave me inspiration to also include it here. The card in question was by Marco and had the following new custom keyword:

Ambition 1 (As this creature enters the battlefield, put the top card of your library into your graveyard and put a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature card put into your graveyard this way.)

This ability doesn't work as is, and that's because of the specific Magic meaning of the word "as", which again is way more specific than its ordinary English meaning, and that's the trap!

First, a premise: this, like the dredge example before, is reminder text, and that has no rules meaning, so it's allowed to be looser and less precise than rules text. It's even allowed to make lands continue to burn! (Man, how I hate that card just because of that reminder text...) The problem comes when the reminder text is functionally different from the actual rules of the ability it represents. The key word there is "functionally". To go on with the basket metaphor, you can't say "I'm putting an apple in it" and then you put an orange. That is a problem, because when a player opens the card in a booster, he or she will certainly not go check the Comprehensive Rules (CR) before playing it, but will trust the reminder text to be accurate enough, and if the reminder text is misleading because its functionality is actually different than how the ability is defined in the CR, he or she will play it wrong! But it's not their fault, a player can't be expected to have the CR memorized in his or her brain.

So, this means that the reminder text for the "ambition" ability is functionally different from what it should be, and that was confirmed to me by the CR-like entry for ambition the card designer sent me, where the ability is rightly mentioned as a triggered ability and has the right wording. But wait: that ability, which is rightly defined as triggered in the CR-like entry, is not a triggered ability in that reminder text, and that's because in Magic "as CARDNAME enters the battlefield" abilities (from now on "as" abilities for short) are defined as a kind of static ability that modifies how the object is entering the battlefield. So here's already a contradiction: is the ability triggered, as its CR-like entry says, or static, as its reminder text implies? That is already a functional difference.

But there's more: "as" abilities happen before the permanent actually enters the battlefield, and that's logical. If they have to modify how the permanent enters the battlefield, they just have to apply before that happens. If the event they want to modify (the permanent entering the battlefield) has already happened, than what is left for them to modify? Nothing!

As I've already mentioned, triggered abilities are defined as abilities that start with "when", "whenever", or "at". They trigger, go on the stack, and resolve after the triggering event happens. This is logical too: if I say "I'll put an orange in the basket when it's empty", than I won't put the orange in if there is still an apple in the basket. The triggering event (the basket being empty) has to happen before the actual trigger (me putting the orange in).

What this means is that the same effect (for example, drawing a card) attached to different wordings will happen at different times. That is a functional difference too! Consider the following two abilities:

"As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, draw a card."

"When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, draw a card."

In English the meaning is the same. In Magic it's not: with "as" I will draw the card before the permanent enters the battlefield (actually as part of the event of entering the battlefield itself, but anyway the permanent won't be on the battlefield yet), with "when" I will draw the card after the permanent enters the battlefield.

Now, that's not a problem when the effect is something like card draw. But what if the effect relies on the permanent being on the battlefield? Than the difference is not only theoretical, but practical too. Let's consider two abilities that put a +1/+1 counter on a creature entering the battlefield:

"As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it."

"When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it."

We should know by now that the first ability happens before the creature enters the battlefield. But if the creature isn't on the battlefield yet, how can you put a +1/+1 counter on it? You need the creature on the battlefield to put the +1/+1 counter on it. You can't put a +1/+1 counter on a creature that's not already on the battlefield!

The second ability happens after the creature has already entered the battlefield, so the creature is already available on the battlefield ready to receive the +1/+1 counter, so there is no problem and the ability works.

To make the next step, let's consider the shocklands. Let's see what their Oracle text says and make up a not working example:

Oracle: "As Stomping Ground enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, Stomping Ground enters the battlefield tapped."

Not working: "When Stomping Ground enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, Stomping Ground enters the battlefield tapped."

Again let's consider both cases. Why does the "when" ability not work? It should be easy by now: because it happens after the land has entered the battlefield, but if the land has already entered the battlefield, how can I have it enter tapped? They are worded the way they are because the ability needs to apply before the land enters the battlefield to make it enter tapped.

The shocklands also give us another interesting thing to notice. Let's compare their printed wordings (updated with "enters the battlefield" instead of "comes into play") in their two printings. Again, I'll just consider Stomping Ground as an example, but this is true for all ten of them.

Guildpact: "As Stomping Ground enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, Stomping Ground enters the battlefield tapped instead."

Gatecrash: "As Stomping Ground enters the battlefield, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, Stomping Ground enters the battlefield tapped."

Do you see the difference? The original Ravnica block printing has one more word: "instead". Why was it rightly removed in the Return to Ravnica block reprint? Because "instead" identifies a replacement effect, as we saw before, and this is not a replacement effect! It's a different kind of static ability! It doesn't replace anything. Somehow, they didn't see that in original Ravnica... in the end, Wizards R&D is made of human people too, they can make mistakes.

And speaking of mistakes R&D did, let's see how they worded the two abilities they printed that most look like the ambition custom keyword I mentioned at the beginning of this section. I'm talking about amplify and devour. The first of those getting printed was amplify, in Legions (2003). Let's compare its reminder text (the same example the wiki page mentions: Glowering Rogon) with its CR entry (rule 702.37a, Magic Origins edition):

Amplify 1 (As this creature enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each Beast card you reveal in your hand.)

702.37a Amplify is a static ability. “Amplify N” means “As this object enters the battlefield, reveal any number of cards from your hand that share a creature type with it. This permanent enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it for each card revealed this way. You can’t reveal this card or any other cards that are entering the battlefield at the same time as this card.”

See the difference? The CR rightly has an "as" ability that makes a permanent enter with +1/+1 counters, and that works as we saw in one of the previous examples. The reminder text, though, has an "as" ability that wants to put counters on a creature, not have it enter the battlefield with counters. Those are different things! So here are both of the problems I mentioned before: first a functional difference between reminder text and the CR, and secondly an "as" ability that doesn't work as written because it wants to put counters on the creature before it has even entered the battlefield. There you go: the same mistakes have been made in a custom keyword mechanic (ambition) and also by the real R&D! But pay attention: the fact that R&D themselves made these mistakes does not justify the fact that we do them.

Also, R&D corrected themselves five years later. In Shards of Alara (2008), devour is the Jund mechanic:

Devour 1 (As this enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This creature enters the battlefield with that many +1/+1 counters on it.)

702.81a Devour is a static ability. “Devour N” means “As this object enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This permanent enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it for each creature sacrificed this way.”

The difference from what they did five years before is noticeable. Now we have a reminder text and a CR entry saying the same thing, and that thing actually works.

So beware: "as" and "when" may be the same in English, but they are definitely not in Magic grammar!

5) "Has flying" and "has indestructible" are right

This case is slightly different. These are sentences that are wrong by ordinary English grammar, but that are not only correct but necessary in Magic grammar, and in our favorite game Magic grammar takes precedence. In English grammar, if I say "target creature has..." a noun should follow. And you know what? In Magic grammar, "flying" and "indestructible" are nouns! They are the proper nouns of the abilities they represent. That's why in Magic not only it's right to say "target creature has flying" instead of "target creature has flight", but you have to say it that way! The name of that ability is "flying", not "flight". That's also why in Magic not only it's right to say "target creature has indestructible" instead of "target creature is indestructible", but you have to say it that way! "Indestructible" is a keyword ability in Magic now, so you can think of it like a pronoun representing what the ability says, it's no longer a characteristic of the creature.

Remember: in Magic grammar, permanents (and creatures are a subset of that) always have (or gain, NEVER get) abilities, regardless if in English that ability is called with a noun, an adjective, or whatever.

6) Plural card names still want singular verbs, adjectives, etc...

One card in Magic Origins highlighted this particular mistake, so I want to mention it again quickly. I'm talking of the card representing Chandra's parents: Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Let's look at its (notice: NOT "their"!) rules text:

When Pia and Kiran Nalaar enters the battlefield, put two 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature tokens with flying onto the battlefield.

2R , Sacrifice an artifact: Pia and Kiran Nalaar deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

Notice that everytime "Pia and Kiran Nalaar" is mentioned, the verb is always conjugated in its singular form. That's because "Pia and Kiran Nalaar" is considered as a whole as a single card name. There aren't two separate cards, one for Pia and one for Kiran. The card is a single one, and when you use a card's name in its own rules text it always just means "this object". If you substitute all instances of "Pia and Kiran Nalaar" with "this creature" in the above text, you obtain a text that is also perfect in the English grammar. And also notice that would be true also for all kinds of words, adjectives too. Let's imagine that Chandra's parents' last ability (the activated one) was a Soul's Fire kind of ability. I'd have to write that as follows:

Pia and Kiran Nalaar deals damage equal to its power to target creature or player.

If I had written "deal damage equal to their power", it would have been right in English grammar but wrong in Magic grammar, and always remember that the latter takes precedence!

Signing out

This is in no way an exhaustive list, these are just the ones that come to my mind right now and that inspired me to write this article. Also, they are the only ones I have room for, as word count is also a thing to look for.

Until next time,

bravelion83

Jeff Lionheart is a new planeswalker character I created. He's a Leonin coming from Tethmos (Oreskos, Theros). I wrote his origin story for the July MCC, which I hosted and was inspired by the set Magic Origins coming out that month, and I'm writing the sequel for the August MCC, which I'm also hosting. This blog post is meant to be a summary of all his stories in chronological order.

It's a day just like any other one in Oreskos. When a new Leonin is born, is he a baby or is he a cub? Does it matter at all? In the end, Theran Leonin live in a community isolated from human poleis, so they are what they are. They aren't bound by human definitions. What will this young male become? A warrior, like his father? A trader? An adventurer? There's something in his eyes, like the glimmer of a new dawn. That must mean something: whatever he'll become, success will be with him. That's a good omen, and there's no need for Heliod or another of his kind to reveal that. Who is Heliod? He's no one here! But this newborn will become someone instead, his parents were sure. "How shall we call him?" his mother asked to his father. He answered: "His name shall be..." and the whistle of a gentle breeze came to seal this moment forever.

 
Jeff Lionheart. This was his name, in spite of what many in the pride probably expected. There's a little irony in having a name that means "peace of God" among a tribe that has abandoned worship of human gods. Anyway, that hasn't prevented him from learning and training as a warrior, following his father's footsteps. He liked to fight when it meant protecting the meek, but he hated having to do so without a reason or to execute orders he found wrong or immoral. He was a free spirit. Whenever he could, he liked wandering alone enjoying the nature in long walks, confident that he could always fight to self-defend or defend those in need he encountered along his road. During his walks he used to reflect about his people. He felt different, and there was something he couldn't grasp about them. How could they become so insular, so detached from all other living beings that they needed to isolate themselves from everything and everyone? The more strangers he saved, the stronger this question got inside his mind. "We can't ignore others", he thought. "We all live in this world. Why can't we get along with other beings living in the same world? Our only difference is our outer appearance, inside we're all the same! Here I swear: I'll fight for all those in need, whichever race they might be!"

Jeff quickly made a name for himself among Oreskos ranks. He was well known for being a valorous and selfless fighter. He refused promotion multiple times because he felt his place was among the troops, not among those who decided everything but didn't step foot in battle a single time. One day he was patrolling the surroundings with his boss, when at the side of the road they saw a dying human screaming: "For Heliod's sake, help me! Help me!" The boss told Jeff to proceed on their road, because the Leonin had no god to share with the humans, and that human was invoking a god's name. But Jeff replied: "I don't care about such details! He's suffering and I'm going to help him!" His boss replied: "Lionheart!" with a bit of sarcasm, "You're not going to do that! This is an order! If you disobey, I'll fight you as our enemy and King Brimaz will banish you from our land!" Jeff didn't care. He ran to the dying human and gave him a healing potion: "Here! This will heal you! Use it and then wait for me over there, behind those rocks!" Jeff's boss attacked him. After a long and exhausting battle, Jeff finally dealt the fatal strike to his boss. "What have I done!" he screamed, then he felt like passing out. He fell to the ground, eyes closed. After a few moments to regain control of himself, he opened his eyes, but he didn't recognize the place. "Where is my boss's body? Where are those rocks? And where is that stranger? Where am I?" Panicked by all those thoughts, he closed his eyes again, keeping his head into the palm of his hands. Then he reopened them and he was back on the land he knew. He saw the rocks. He ran towards them. The human behind was healed and waiting for him.
"Thanks! I don't know how I would have done without you! I'm a merchant and I've been robbed of all my goods. They escaped and left me dying on the road! What's your name, my savior?"
"My name is..." Jeff pondered for a moment how wise it was to tell him his real name. Then he thought he could trust him. He just saved his life after all, at the expense of his boss's one. "...Jeff Lionheart."
"You have the heart of a real lion indeed! I saw how you had to fight against your own companion to heal me."
"Yeah. But now I have no home. I can't go back to Oreskos. They'd see me as a traitor."
"Then come with me to my home! I'm from Meletis and I can be your host there! It's the least I can do for the one who saved my life!"
"Many thanks, but I think I just have to follow my own road. Anyway, what's your name, so that I could find a safe place in Meletis should I need it?"
"Just ask of Martin Hellanos! Everybody knows me in Meletis!"
"Do you need anything else, Martin?"
"No, thanks. You have already done more than enough for me!"
"Then you can go back to Meletis now. Maybe one day we'll see again!"
"I sure hope so! Thank you again, Jeff! I owe you my life!" screamed Martin as he disappeared into the horizon.

And there he was. Alone. He had that image of a different unknown landscape stuck in his mind. He travelled all of Theros during his long walks, and he didn't recognize that place. What could it be? Maybe there were other worlds beyond the one he knew? And now that he had no home on Theros, may one of them be his new home perhaps? One thing was for certain: "I don't belong here, not anymore. Where is my home? Where is my home now?" he screamed to the sky. He closed his eyes, and disappeared again.

Being able to wander the Multiverse has changed Jeff quite a bit. He still is a free spirit, but he developed an even stronger hate for authority, which he saw as always oppressing people, while keeping his strong sense of morality. His long solitary walks on Theros have turned into long walks between the planes, but they still were his favorite chance to reflect about himself and what happened around him. On Theros, he walked just to think, without any particular other purpose, while now his walks acquired a new one: he was looking for something. He was looking for meaning. Why was he born? Why was he gifted with the spark? He knew, he felt he had a mission to be carried out, but what was it? Maybe he just had to accept that nobody will ever be able to give him the answers he seeks. Maybe he was born to defend the meek of all planes against the authorities oppressing them. Maybe... too many "maybe"s and no certainty. His search was becoming increasingly within himself instead of out of himself. He still won't give up helping those in need, but pure altruism was no longer his main way. On the other side, his inner one, he had a new quest. But will that quest ever be over? Could it even be over someday? Maybe...

One day, Jeff was thinking back of his family in Oreskos. It was a few years he was away from them, and while he knew he couldn't come back there, as he would be captured at least and killed at worst, he still missed them. That day he realized one thing that somehow had always escaped him. Theran Leonin refused the gods everyone else believed in on Theros. Then why did his parents name him with a name that means "peace of God"? Why was his father's name Matthew, meaning "gift of God"? And why was Matthew's father named Micheal, meaning "Who is like God"? Even Jeff's mother was named Elizabeth, meaning "God is an oath". Why did all his ancestors have a very Leonin last name, Lionheart, but first names always linked to those same gods they were supposed to reject? His inner search for who he truly is was now leading him back to his home plane. He was himself part of a mistery, his own name was part of a mistery, and he wanted to shed light on it somehow.

ATTENTION SPOILER!!!

The following is how the story will go on in rounds 3 and 4 of the August MCC. These paragraphs also contain hidden hints about what the challenges for those rounds will be. You're reading it at your own risk. You have been warned!

(The banner is my own elaboration. The original image is by Holly Chaffin and is released in the public domain.)

The Lion's Lair #11

"Monthly (Card Contest) Review"

The article index is always updated with the latest content.

Starting with this issue, new articles will only be posted in the blog.

This issue is going to be specifically about the MCC (Monthly Card Contest) held each month in the Custom Card Creation and Games subforum. If you're not interested in that, you can stop reading here and I'll see you next time.

A premise

You might know that this month (July 2015 as I'm writing this) I am the MCC host. This article comes from an idea by one of my judges (Tilwin), who thought it might have been a good idea if I wrote something about how I, and in general more experienced people, see the MCC in its current state. I think that's a wonderful idea, and in fact it's exactly what I'm doing, so many thanks to Tilwin, but a premise is necessary. All of this article, and I'm writing it here so I don't have to repeat it each time, is written exclusively from my own point of view, and those that are written here are just my own personal opinions. In no way they are an absolute statement of truth. I want this to be clear because lately there has been some misunderstanding of my intentions with this article series, and I want it to be clear since the very beginning of my discussion. I am not in permanent charge of the MCC, neither I would want to be if such a thing was even possible. I am just a guy who has experienced all three roles in the MCC (player, judge, host) multiple times by now, and that has been judging for eight consecutive months and has no plans to stop in the foreseeable future. I only actively post since about a year, so there are still plenty of people even more experienced and qualified than me, and I respect them very much. I am just humbly sharing my opinion, nothing more.

The new rubric

That said, it's time to go into the meat of this article. First, the MCC has undergone a pretty important change lately: the rubric was updated. This doesn't obsolete everything I've written so far taking the old rubric as an example, but it still requires a recap of the current situation to be made. Let's take a look at the new rubric:

Design -

(X/3) Appeal: Do the different player psychographics (Timmy/Johhny/Spike) have a use for the card?

(X/3) Elegance: Is the card easily understandable at a glance? Do all the flavor and mechanics combined as a whole make sense?

Development -

(X/3) Viability: How well does the card fit into the color wheel? Does it break or bend the rules of the game? Is it the appropriate rarity?

(X/3) Balance: Does the card have a power level appropriate for contemporary constructed/limited environments without breaking them? Does it play well in casual and multiplayer formats? Does it create or fit into a deck/archetype? Does it create an oppressive environment?

Creativity -

(X/3) Uniqueness: Has a card like this ever been printed before? Does it use new mechanics, ideas, or design space? Does it combine old ideas in a new way? Overall, does it feel “fresh”?

(X/3) Flavor: Does the name seem realistic for a card? Does the flavor text sound professional? Do all the flavor elements synch together to please Vorthos players?

Polish -

(X/3) Quality: Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.

(X/2) *Main Challenge: Was the main challenge satisfied? Was it approached in a unique or interesting way? Does the card fit the intent of the challenge?

(X/2) Subchallenges: One point awarded per satisfied subchallenge condition.

Total: X/25

*An entry with 0 points here is subject to disqualification.

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities, but also some differences.

First, let me state that personally I like this rubric better than the old one, mainly because the points are divided in a more detailed way. As a judge, I no longer have ten points to assign for each big section, say Development, to assign as I wanted. Now I have three specific points for Viability and three specific points for Balance. That's an improvement, for two reasons: first, it should improve uniformity of judgment between different judges. If before I evaluated, say, Balance more than Viability, while another judge evaluated more Viability than Balance, now both of us are forced to evaluate them equally. Still, some judge subjectivity unfortunately remains, but it shouldn't be that the factor determining who advances or wins in a round and who does not. Even if that still can happen sometimes (look at the final round of June for an evident example in my opinion), it should happen less often and be less severe in effect. At least, that's the intention behind this change.

The second reason is actually linked to the first, and it's that it should also improve the objectivity of the contest. I've always talked about how the three main contests have different levels of rules enforcement and strictness, and that's a good thing, because everyone can have the experience he or she likes best. The MCC is and is meant to be the strictest one of our contests, you can imagine that it's like the Pro Tour, where a Professional REL is applied, versus a Friday Night Magic, where a Regular REL is enforced. In another metaphor I like, and that I've already explained to someone privately, I see the three main contests as different soccer competitions. For those that might not know, here in Italy soccer is by far the main national sport and it's hugely followed, think something like the NFL in the United States. The comparison I usually make is this: the DCC is the national championship (think the "Serie A" in Italy), that is lowest level of the three; the CCL is the Europa League, that is a bigger competition, already at European level and no longer national, but not the most prestigious; and the MCC is the Champions League, the main and most prestigious competition at continental level.

Because of this role as the most prestigious contest, the MCC just has to be the most strict and objective possible. The means to try to achieve such strictness and objectivity are the rubric and the way it is enforced. As judges, we just have to care about all the little details, to the point that sometimes we might even look pedant and almost obsessed with seemingly unimportant little things, right because of these high standards the MCC is supposed and expected to live to. To go on with my soccer metaphor, it's way worse if the referee assigns a wrong penalty kick in the Champions League finals rather than in a national championship match involving two team which are low in the standings.

As a player, I expect this kind of strictness and objectivity if I choose to play in the MCC.

As a judge, I always try to make my best to live up to such high standards.

As a host, I expect my judges to enforce such levels of strictness and objectivity in their judgments. I also expect players to take care of all the little details of their cards.

Now let's discuss each single point in the new rubric, what I'm looking for in each of them as a judge, and the particular critical issues they might present.

Appeal

This is substantially the old Potential section, which indeed was an odd name for the section that cares about how the three different psychographics see the card (Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, remember that Vorthos and Melvin are NOT psychographics but aesthetic scales).

There are two different approaches at judging this section. One is to assign 1 point for Timmy, 1 for Johnny, and 1 for Spike, and assign them as follows:

0: the card does not appeal at this psychographic at all.

0.5: the card has something that this psychographic might like, but it doesn't excite him/her fully.

1: the card excites this psychographic fully.

The consequence of this approach is that the card reaches full points here if it appeals to all three psychographics, and that a card that is purely meant to appeal to one psychographics (and there are plenty of those in real Magic) will not score as well. The advantage of this method is that it's very practical and easy to apply. This is the method I use personally, but I recognize that it's not perfect.

The other approach is to evaluate how well the card appeals to its intended audience. If a card is meant to appeal to Timmy, it can make sense if it doesn't appeal to Johnny and Spike, provided that card is one that Timmy will absolutely love. This other approach is difficult to apply, in my opinion, because it relies on something (the identification of the intended audience) that often is very hard to do correctly and opens the way to more subjectivity in judgments. I admit, though, that this is the approach that better reflects how R&D actually designs cards, according to how MaRo explained it to us several times.

There is no right and no wrong method here. Different judges see things differently, just because they're different human beings, so they are free to choose whichever one they like best. Each approach has its reasons and defects, so there is no such thing as "the right one". There is no perfect judging approach here. That's why this has been, is, and will certainly continue to be a hot topic of discussions among judges and players. I see no possible solution, given the way things are now. Unfortunately, I don't either see a way to improve this section to eliminate this duplicity. This is just something I think we have to live with and we have to learn to accept.

Elegance

This section looks at two things: how easy is the card to understand, and whether the card concept makes sense as a whole. The first is tied to complexity of any kind. Remember there are various kinds of complexity in Magic:

• Comprehension complexity: how hard the card is to understand when you read it for the first time. If you have to read the card several times to understand what it does, that's bad, and it should be kept into account here.
• Board complexity: how the board state becomes after you've cast the card. Does the card require constant attention once it's on the battlefield, maybe because it has an activated ability that might affect other permanents and has to be kept into account during combat, or maybe it has an usual ability you might forget, or maybe it forces you to keep track constantly of something you're not used keeping track of, or whatever else. Remember that all players must be able to understand clearly the board state at all times. If you are able to do so, but any of your opponents is not, that's equally bad, if not worse. This is also linked to the more general concept of "tracking complexity". All of this should be kept into account here and impact the judgment on Elegance.
• Strategic complexity: how complex are the interactions of the card with other cards. This is the least important kind of complexity to monitor, because it's seen only by experienced players, while new and less experienced players won't even notice it.

The second part of elegance asks whether the card concept makes sense as a whole. Does the flavor given by name and flavor text blend nicely with the card mechanics? Does it all come together to make something that is bigger than the sum of its parts? Something that makes sense naturally, that resonates to the players, that makes immediate and complete sense as to what it represents? All of this should also be judged here.

Viability

The development section is probably the one that changed the least. This is the same Viability section you were already used to. Two things are judged here: how the card fits the mechanical color pie (the philosophical one will be taken care of later in Flavor), and if the card has the right rarity. As it's the same section as before and the discussion on both those things would take us way too far, I'm not going to discuss them here. You can find a lot of resources on the internet about these topics, including previous articles of mine.

Balance

This is also the same Balance section of before, just with a better focus. Things to be judged here: costs, power level in contemporary limited and Standard formats, power level in Modern and eternal formats (if applicable). There are a few other things that before were only implicitly included here, but now they are also explicit parts of the judgment on Balance: power level in multiplayer formats (including Commander) if it differs significantly from two-player classic play, how this card fits in casual groups (remember that "casual" is NOT a format), and whether the card could generate potentially unfun experiences either for you or other players, including opponents. Finally, always remember that an overpowered card is as bad as an underpowered one, and arguably worse because the former warps a whole format around it, while the latter is simply ignored. Here too a detailed discussion would take us too far, so I recommend you to check other resources (again including other articles of mine) if you have any specific doubt pertaining this particular area.

Uniqueness

This is essentially the old Creativity section with a better name. Here we will judge if your card is original, new, or creative while also trying to quantify how much it is. It's not easy to quantify such concepts. Here are the guidelines and the scores I personally use myself (from best to worst).

3: this is a card that does something never done before, not even on a single card.

2.5: this is a card that has an effect that is rarely seen in modern Magic, but not very often.

2: this is a card that does something we've already seen but in a new way or with a new twist.

1.5: this is a card that does something we've already seen but without big innovations.

1: this is a card that does something we've already seen multiple times and doesn't innovate it in any way.

0.5: this is a card that does something we see all the time in real sets, and maybe there is only some little detail we've not seen before.

0: this is a card that does something we see all the time in real sets and in a way we also see all the time in real sets.

Again, these are my own guidelines, I'm not saying in any way that other judges should adapt them, it's just the way I see this section personally.

Flavor

Again, this is another section that was already there but with a different name, in this case Creative Writing. Here we judge the quality of the card name and of the flavor text. My method is to divide points evenly (so 1.5 points for name and 1.5 for flavor text) and the assign them based on a scale like the following.

1.5: all good here.

1: minor problems.

0.5: major problems.

0: either not present (for flavor text) or so bad that it makes me go "WTF did you think when writing this?"

Then I might adjust the score to prize a particularly brilliant card concept or penalize a very bad one. Typos might also influence the judgment here if they are serious or too many, even if they are also kept into account in Quality. If the typos are only one, maximum two minor ones, I only punish them in Quality and not here.

Quality

Subchallenges

These two sections are exactly the same as before. See my "Mark of Quality" articles for further information.

Main Challenge

And here we finally come to the main reason for this update of the rubric. This is the biggest innovation that's been introduced, and one I am particularly glad to have both as judge and as organizer. Here we judge how well the card fits the main challenge. I normally use the following scale.

2: all good here.

1.5: minor problems.

1: major problems.

I'm unlikely to go under 1 personally. The only case where it's required is when the main challenge is not met for any reason. In that case, the score here would be a zero, and the card is disqualifed (aka DQ'ed).

This section is particularly useful in the case of rounds that don't have a binary challenge (yes/no), but have more of a grey area. This usually happens with challenges about flavor, but may also happen in other cases. As organizer, the presence of this section allows me to come up with more creative challenges instead of being forced to have a yes/no main challenge and put all the nuances in the subchallenges. As a judge, this section allows me to prize cards that fit particularly well the main challenge while still being able to avoid some meaningless DQs.

State of the Union

I have some word count left, so I'll also touch on how I think the MCC is doing. A kind of "State of the MCC" speech if you wish, of course with the same premise I made at the beginning of this article. Actually, I think this was the original idea by Tilwin, but I just couldn't ignore the update of the rubric.

I think that the MCC is in good health right now, but that of course doesn't mean there are no problems. The first thing that makes me say this is that I've noticed an upward trend in participation lately, both in judges and players. Since last December, I've personally mentored two new judges, one of which also became organizer. Now in July we also have two additional new judges who are doing good enough so far and I hope to see again judging soon. A third new person signed up to judge but failed the test with the sample card, he/she probably knows I'm talking about him/her so I invite him/her to try again. For two months in a row, we've had five judges, which is a thing that had not been seen for at least some months, even if now we may find ourselves with four in July, but that doesn't cancel the point I'm trying to make. On the players' side, I've also noticed more participation in June and July compared to a few months ago. I've also seen new people posting with a low post count, which means they have joined us in the CCC community very recently, in a few cases even specifically to participate in the MCC, as I remember seeing at least one contestant who explicitly mentioned his/her submission to be his/her first post. Having all these new people joining is great for the community and if you're one of them I really hope you have a good fun experience around here. For what it's worth I'll definitely make my part to make sure it's so. If you're a new custom card designer and you need advice, feel free to check the rest of my articles, they've been written for you. If instead you're an experienced designer, you won't find anything new here, but if you like it you can read them anyway. Just be aware that you're not the target.

These are the good things, and I'm not undervaluing them in any way, but I said earlier I'm also seeing a few problems. Let me explain.

First, in recent months I've seen at least two times discussions that degenerated quickly. I'd like to avoid such things, and unfortunately a competitive contest where cards are judged as strictly as possible is a perfect ground for them to happen. It's our responsibility, of each one of us, players, judges, and hosts, everyone really, to keep things serene and civil. I don't really like judge signups threads turning into arguing threads, for example. I'm more than willing to take my part of the fault, but we all must be willing, for the good of the community. I want, and I hope we all want a community that feels like a good place to be part of, where we're having fun, and respecting all others while also being able to recognize your own mistakes (which we all do, we're just human after all, we'd be machines otherwise, and I don't want to be a heartless machine) is the first step in the right direction. Our attitude should never be like the one of a famous (at least here in Italy) Italian old movie, that in Italian goes "Io sono io e voi non siete un c***o" (the last word is a bad word) and could be translated as "I am me and you all are s**t". You should never assume, even involuntarily, that you know everything and that you're right just because you say it. That attitude will take you nowhere, here and also in real life. The default attitude should be instead "I think I may be right, but maybe I'm wrong, and anyway I respect you". Don't assume you're perfect, but of course don't either assume others are perfect. Always give people the benefit of doubt, yourself included.

Another problem I saw is being late, and this applies to both players and judges, but mostly judges: if you don't post a card as a player you're simply removed from the brackets and nothing bad happens, but if you're a judge and you're late or, even worse, absent, you put the host and/or other judges in a bad position. For example, I had to do another judge's bracket myself in July round 1 because of this. To me, the problem wasn't that I had to do more judging, I like that, otherwise I wouldn't be doing that, but it was that I had to do them in a rush because I wanted to post round 2 as soon as possible as it was already late. I was able to judge eight cards in just two hours in the end, but I think I've broken all my previous records and I was exhausted at the end. Now I've prepared in advance and I already know what to do if the missing judge is still missing in round 2 (I'm writing this a few hours before the players deadline). Now, the fact is not that you should give up real life things or that unexpected things can't happen in one's life, of course real life takes precedence. But if you know you won't have the time needed to judge adequately, you should not sign up as a judge that month. As simple as that. You can play, no problem, but signing up as a judge also means implicitly saying "I will be able to do my work on time at the best of my possibilities, I have both the will and the actual time to do that". Of course, if a problem comes up later, just let the host know. Let the host know! Private messages exist! I can't say how important it is! You don't have to explain private things of your life to your host if you don't want to, but just let him/her know that for this time you can't make it! And let him/her know if you expect to be able to return the following round or if you're dropping completely. If the host doesn't know, how can he/she plan how to make up for it?

And this gets even worse when the same judge keeps doing that month after month. He/she keeps signing up almost every month and he/she is always late by at least one day or two with his/her judgments. That's a problem, and one I've actually seen happening quite recently. I won't make names, but I noticed it (and I know for certain that I'm not alone in having noticed this) and this is a problem. Again, if you're always late you're putting the host in a very bad position, and you cause the contest to go late. If you don't have the time or will to judge, for whatever reason, and you see that this repeats every month, please don't sign up for judging. Just play instead, that takes way less time. Make room for more reliable people to judge.

Finally, I want to say that uniformity of judgment is still a problem, even with the new rubric. I'm not saying the new rubric hasn't improved the situation, because it has in some areas, as I mentioned before. It's still an improvement over the old one, but it's not perfect. You can see what I mean in the final round of June, where the disparity in scores among judges is evident. This is a problem mostly in the final round, which unfortunately is the determining one for the month's winner, because all judges are judging the same cards, so huge differences in judging and scoring will be clearly visible. In rounds 1 and 2 it's not a problem as judges have separate brackets, so uniformity within each single bracket is enough, and that is expected as it's always the same person that judges all of the bracket. In round 3 it may appear as a problem, because two judges are judging the same cards, but it's in round 4 that this problem is both more visible and has the worst consequences. Obviously I'm not saying some judges wait to see the other judges' scores and then adjust their own scores to let who they want to be the winner win, and by the way if you're always late as a judge you may raise this suspect, but technically it's not impossible. I want to trust the community and the judges in believing that this is not the case, but when you see differences of about ten points in the same card's scores it makes you think, I can't deny that. What I know is that I've never done that as a judge and I don't want to, for me the integrity of the contest and that of myself as a judge are way more important than deciding who must win. I hope that this applies to all judges.

Well, these are the main problems the MCC has as of now, in my opinion. As you can see, they pertain more to the judging side of things, but that doesn't mean players shouldn't be aware of them. I hope the next time I write about this will be to say that there has been some progress in those areas.

Signing out

Please don't misunderstand me and don't think the problems I just talked about are bigger than they are. The positive things are greatly outweighing the negative ones, and the MCC is an amazing contest to play in, to judge for, or to organize! Definitely join us there if you haven't already!

Until next time,

bravelion83

This page is outdated and won't be updated anymore.

See all the changes in real time in the EXT spreadsheet database.

I've been assigned the RG and WU archetypes to design. This page will present them and keep track of my progress.

Last updated on 7/17.

Status: assignment #2 done. See the notes at the end of each archetype.

R/G: Ramp/fight/Beast tribal with predator and ferocious.

This deck wants to spend the first few turns of the game developing the board with a little ramp and mana creatures. Then, in the mid game, it wants to cast big Beasts one or two turns earlier than it normally would, and use them to clear the way through fighting (which triggers predator, that makes them bigger, thus even better for fighting some more). Finally, when the way is clear enough, the same Beasts go for the opponent's head, while taking advantage of a few tribal interactions. The Beasts are also very good at turning on ferocious, which will be on some cards this archetype can use.

COMMONS

Anger of the Beast 4R
Instant (C)
Target creature you control on the battlefield deals damage equal to its power to target creature. If the first creature is a Beast, it also deals that much damage to the other creature’s controller.

Obviously inspired by Soul's Fire, it's meant to take advantage of the size that this deck's creatures will reach thanks to predator to dispose of opposing creatures and free the way in a way that's similar to fight. In fact, in the end it might just be better to use fight here instead, even if I'm using it already on more cards than normal (but as it's supposed to be a subtheme of the set it should be fine). The Beast bonus obviously plays into the Beast tribal synergy.

Instigator Pest 3R
Creature — Insect (U)
When Instigator Pest enters the battlefield, you may have target creature you control fight another target creature. (Each deals damage equal to its power to the other.)
A single sting is enough for a sleeping beast to suddenly wake up and fight.
2/2

I wanted to put fight on a creature and this is what I came up with. It doesn't fight itself because I meant the ideal gameplay to be: cast a predator, then cast this and have the predator (and not the pest) fight another creature, so that the predator will get the counter at end of turn even if it doesn't attack or block.

7/17: pushed to uncommon. This will be substituted by an additional common.

Kreksor Lion 1R
Creature — Cat (C)

First strike

Predator (At the beginning of each end step, if this creature dealt damage this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
It made its lair in those glowing tunnels reaching the Kreksor Mountains from below.
1/1

I wanted a red predator creature with high power and low toughness, and here it is. I thought the tension between predator, encouraging you to attack, and its low toughness, discouraging you instead, might be interesting.

7/17: changed completely, from 3/1 predator to 1/1 first strike predator. Hopefully this is fine at two mana, if not it can be pushed to three.

Tunnel Predator 3R
Creature — Beast (C)
Haste
Predator (At the beginning of each end step, if this creature dealt damage this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Its diet based on glowing fungi gives it an unnatural energy.
2/2

Haste is another keyword that I thought to pair nicely with predator, so I made this.

7/11: changed cost from 1RR to 3R.

Underground Escape 1R
Sorcery (C)
Target creature can’t block this turn.
Ferocious — If you control a creature with power 4 or greater, instead creatures your opponents control can’t block this turn.
Creatures living in the Cindersprout Tunnels instinctively know that the most efficient way to escape predators is underneath.

This came up because I wanted a red card with ferocious (which I hadn't used yet in red), and the flavor of the tunnels made me think of this. I love the flavor here by the way: if you know the predator is waiting for you on the ground, just pass underneath!

Cindersprout Beast 2G
Creature — Beast (C)
Predator (At the beginning of each end step, if this creature dealt damage this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)

The beasts living near the Tunnels enter them only for food. If they have a prey, they bring it there to eat it safely. If their hunt was unsuccessful, they can still eat some glowing fungi.
2/2

I wanted a generic French vanilla predator, and here it is. I would have liked to cost this as a bear, but the potential of growing turn after turn kept me from doing so.

Glowing Fungus G
Creature — Fungus (C)
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.

In the Cindersprout Tunnels, natural fungi can be found that are glowing because of all the mana and geothermal energy they absorb. All forms of life in the Tunnels have adapted to use them as their primary food source.
0/1

This is a must have flavorfully. Mechanically, it's halfway between Druid of the Anima and Elvish Mystic. It's one of the two ramp cards I included in the archetype.

Pack Beast 4G
Creature — Beast (C)
When Pack Beast enters the battlefield, if you control another Beast, put a +1/+1 counter on Pack Beast.
Predator (At the beginning of each end step, if this creature dealt damage this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
3/3

This plays the double role of a predator and a useful card in Beast tribal. This being a 3/3 is purely intentional: if you have another Beast you immediately turn on Ferocious, but otherwise you'll have to wait until the first counter from predator. This difference is the main reason this card exists.

Spiked Baloth 3G
Creature — Beast (C)
Trample

Its spikes are glowing as the fungi it eats, and they inadvertently warn its preys when it gets closer to them.
4/2

I wanted at least one reprint and I found it in this (from M13): simple, generic flavor that works on Extinctia, turns on ferocious, it's a Beast. What can I ask more? The flavor text is new and it's mine.

Territory Marking 1G
Sorcery (C)
Search your library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
Ferocious — If you control a creature with power 4 or greater, untap that land.

Here is the second ramp card. I had yet to use ferocious on a green card, and so I looked on Gatherer searching for effects ferocious didn't have in KTK block. I found that no ramp card with ferocious exists, and I wanted another one to go with the Fungus. Add ferocious + ramp and you've got this. This is a card that has slightly different uses in the early and late game. In the early game, it's just a Rampant Growth. In the late game, you can take advantage of one additional mana.

I don't think I have anything particularly overpowered here, but if there is there should be nothing that can't be solved adjusting the costs. In fact, I decided to change the cost of the haste/predator creature from 1RR to 3R because of this.

MSE renders here. (old versions)

Further notes

7/17: need to come up with a new red common to make up for the Pest and an additional card for the second assignment. EDIT: done.

In substitution of the Pest

In Ryder's recap, I see that tokens are completely missing both in red and green. Might this card fill that niche, while also giving Beast tribal a new toy to play with?

Beast’s Hideout 3R
Sorcery (C)
Put a green 3/3 Beast creature token with haste onto the battlefield.
Beasts are rarely the prey, but when they are, the rocks of the Cindersprout Tunnels give them a perfect place to hide.


For the second assignment

For RG, I realized that bumping the Pest up to uncommon means I no longer have any fight effects at common. Thus I propose this variation on Hunt the Weak and Savage Punch as my additional card:

Feral Hunt 2G
Sorcery (C)
Target creature you control gets +1/+1 until end of turn. Then that creature fights target creature you don’t control. (Each deals damage equal to its power to the other.)
Raw — If only green mana was spent to cast Feral Hunt, the creature you control also gains indestructible until end of turn before it fights.

W/U: Control with flying and Big Butt Combo. Flying aggro as secondary archetype.

This deck wants to use creatures with high toughness to stabilize the board, then win with some kind of build-around-me enchantment that takes advantage of that high toughness (my current idea is using an ability similar to Doran, the Siege Tower's one: creatures you control assign combat damage equal to their toughness rather than their power). Some of those high toughness creatures will be fliers, so that when the Doran-like enchantment kicks in they can transform into very good evasive finishers. Some of the fliers will be smaller though, and those should be able to play a double role: help stabilize the board in the early game for the control archetype while also enabling a possible aggro variant for when you don't open the Doran-like enchantment or enough high toughness creatures to take advantage of it.

COMMONS

Mutating Bird 2W
Creature — Bird Mutant (C)
Adaptive 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, you may put a +1/+1 counters on it. Otherwise, you may remove all +1/+1 counters from it.)
Mutating Bird has flying as long as it has no +1/+1 counters on it.
2/2

I just liked this enough from my mechanics page, and I thought that it might work here. I think it will be the only card with adaptive I'm going to use, and I figured that it shouldn't be a problem, also because this card will overlap with the GW archetype, by chance based right on adaptive.

7/12: Added the Mutant subtype.

7/17: Looks like I can keep this and the Variable Drake gets changed. Either way is fine to me. For now this stands.

Sun Pegasus 1W
Creature — Pegasus (C)
Flying

2W: Sun Pegasus gains vigilance until end of turn.

The sun can’t even melt the ice of the Frostflat Ice Sheets, but it still sends its envoys nonetheless.
2/1

7/17: Too much lifegain, so this changed from a 2/1 flying etb, gain 1 life to 2/1 flying 2W: this gains vigilance uet.

Vaporkin 1U
Creature — Elemental (C)
Flying
Vaporkin can block only creatures with flying.

The cold in the Frostflat Ice Sheets is so intense that the vapor from the waterfalls condenses immediately, forming elementals capable of reaching the highest skies with their vapor arms.
2/1

These are meant to be played mostly by the more aggro version. The Pegasus is strictly better than Stormfront Pegasus, but I don't think that it's a problem. If it is, the cost can change to WW. The point of it is being a two-mana 2/1 that has a little use in the control version too (it can block and gain you a little life there). Welkin Tern was included because I was accidentally redesigning it. Thinking about what kind of ability could make sense for an aggro two-mana 2/1 in blue, I thought of high flying and I wrote it, but then I thought "Didn't I already see this somewhere?", I went to check Gatherer and I found this, so I included it. This was originally Welkin Tern, but now it's Vaporkin to avoid having too many Birds when such a tribal interaction is not supposed to be there.

Flight Companion 2W
Creature — Bird (C)
Flight Companion has flying as long as you control another creature with flying.

The Frostflat Ice Sheets are so cold that it never flies alone. It just needs the warmth of another body near its own to survive.
2/3

Sky-Watching Dolphin 2U
Creature — Fish (C)
Sky-Watching Dolphin enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it if you control a creature with flying.

Its dream has always been to fly like a bird. Each time it sees birds migrating through the Frostflat sky, it tries to join them by jumping out of the water as high as it can.
2/1

These are meant to be halfway between the aggro and control versions. Something both could play. The former should be easy enough to play in the aggro version (you should already have a flying creature when you cast this there) and the fact that it has a higher toughness than power should appeal to the control version more. The same goes for the latter in the aggro version, while the control version can still use it to block something and gain time to arrive to the following.

Majestic Eagle 3W
Creature — Bird (C)
Flying

Its resilience to predators and the cold environment makes it the undisputed king of the Frostflat sky.
1/5

Frostflat Drake 4U
Creature — Drake (C)
Flying
When Frostflat Drake enters the battlefield, draw a card.

The trajectories of drakes and other fliers in the Frostflat sky are highlighted by the dancing mana trails they leave behind themselves.
1/4

These are meant to be played by the control version and to interact heavily with the uncommon Doran-like enchantment (which I think I will cost at 4W). The Eagle is a functional reprint of Tormented Angel, because the Angel creature type doesn't really make sense on Extinctia.

Blinded by the Sun 1W
Enchantment — Aura (C)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature can’t attack or block.

When Blinded by the Sun enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with flying, you gain 1 life.

Birds are the first to catch the sun rays, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time.

The control version will need some removal, and that's why this is in. This is a Pacifism variant with a trigger that plays in the archetype's theme. The lifegain is very small and also conditional, so I think it still can cost 1W. As with the Pegasus, if being strictly better than Pacifism proves a problem, we can make this cost WW or 2W (even though there are already other two white cards at common costing 2W here).

7/17: Urge to Graze is getting changed, so I'll keep this.

Counterflight 1U
Instant (C)
Counter target spell if you control a creature with flying.

The Frostflat Ice Sheets are a quite inhospitable environment, both because of the very low temperature and of its highly territorial birds, that never let strangers pass through their territory unpunished.

Spell Freezing 2U
Instant (C)
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2.

Raw — If only blue mana was spent to cast Spell Freezing, counter that spell instead.

The summoned bird was hit by a freezing ray even before it was completely formed.

This are just two counterspells I thought of, as a control deck will need them. In the first one I was trying to make a conditional counterspell with a restriction connected specifically to this archetype, in the second one I had the idea of making a Mana Leak that turned into a Cancel with raw. It sounded an interesting idea to me, so I made it. I costed it three mana because I didn't want it to be Counterspell if cast with raw.

7/17: United this and the Blast in a single card. The Blast should leave now.

I don't think I have anything particularly overpowered here, but if there is there should be nothing that can't be solved adjusting the costs.

MSE renders here. (old versions)

Further notes

7/17: need to come up with a new additional card for the second assignment. EDIT: done.

For WU, I noticed we're pretty covered in blue, while we're missing quite some things in white, so I wanted to make a white card trying to hit something we haven't already done. Then I thought we're very light on combat tricks, if we have any. So I thought to make a combat trick that could interact with my WU archetype based on flying, and here it is. Inspired by Seize the Initiative and Aerial Maneuver.

Enlarging Claws 1W
Instant (C)
Target creature gets +1/+1 and gains first strike until end of turn. If that creature has flying, it gets an additional +1/+1 until end of turn.
When you're dealing with Frostflat birds of prey, you realize that claws alone can hurt, but claws and beaks hurt more.

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Card Cycle: Parasites (will probably be pushed to the second set)

TacticalCelebrant proposed a cycle of cards to represent Extinctian parasites. It goes as follows.

White Parasite W
Creature - Insect (U)
t, Remove a +1/+1 counter from another creature you control: Gain 2 life.
1/1

Blue Parasite 1U
Creature - Remora (U)
t, Remove a +1/+1 counter from another creature you control: Draw a card, then discard a card.
1/1

Black Parasite 2B
Creature - Leech (U)
t: Remove a +1/+1 counter from target creature.
1/1

Red Parasite 1R
Creature - Lizard (U)
t, Remove a +1/+1 counter from another creature you control: Red Parasite deals 1 damage to target player.
1/1

Green Parasite 1G
Creature - Plant (U)
t, Remove a +1/+1 counter from another creature you control: Put a +1/+1 counter on Green Parasite.
1/1

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New creature type: Sandbugs

Our new race living in the Glassdunes looks like Sandshrew, with chieftains similar to Sandslash:

The following has been proposed by Jimmy Groove:

These desert creatures, called Sandbugs, have some insectoid characteristics, for example they have a set of powerful digging chitinous forelimbs, then a hybrid mammalian-insect appearance for the rest of they body. This way we can also easily have different casts and it allow us to add things like flying to them as needed.

Thinking about Sandbugs and trying to find a good mechanical identity for them, we decided to go with the following (proposed by Piar):

Whenever this creature becomes blocked, you may return it to its owner's hand.

Not all Sandbugs are meant to have this ability, but it should appear on multiple ones (now supposed to be just a vertical cycle), and the others should interact with it someway.

Having this ability matter in combat makes sense in red and returning creatures to your hand is white, so this fits in the intended flavor of them being red/white creatures living in the Glassdunes (red/white desert). No need to change their original flavor identity or the red/white environment.

A particular kind of Sandbugs, called "Glasskippers", while not particularly gifted for fighting, have the ability to travel through the Glassdunes at great pace. They are taught to put the lives of others before those of theirselves. They patrol vast desert areas around the nests and look for any signs of danger, be them hellions, winged invaders, or anything else.

Creature types
Jimmy Groove proposed the following.

What if we make the role that would normally be filled by "class" in most sets fulfilled by a modifier that represents ecological niche instead, with these based on the way the plane is affecting the growth of the creatures.

No modifier: This is a creature that is very similar to something we might see on Earth (a 3/3 Trampling elephant as just an Elephant)

Elemental: This is a creature that has developed a purely magical ability, but otherwise has a fairly normal form (a 1/1 fireabreathing lizard might be an Elemental Lizard)

Beast: This is a creature that has developed along lines that are at least theoretically possible, but unlikely (a 4/4 frog with reach might be a Beast Frog). Creatures like Baloths with no real-world counterparts might just be Beasts.

Spirit: This is a creature that has died, but still maintains basically the same motivations as in life, but possibly expanded. A wolf that can support any creature by providing a +1/+1 bonus by tapping might be a Spirit Wolf.

Mutant: These are creatures that are are either both magical and hyper-evolved, or totally bizarre, like giant, scrying insects or creatures with abilities that are hard to imagine any real world creature having.

Horror: Creatures emerged from the Sphere. Fusions of multiple creatures might just be Horror without a subtype.

Doing it this way, environments with a lot of elemental magic affecting creatures (like the Crackling Reefs) might have more Elementals and be the environments that might support any theoretical Elemental tribal elements. Environments that are just hyper-versions of normal environments would favor Beasts. Environments where creatures die a great deal might favor Spirits, and environments tied to the Sphere in some way would have Horrors associated with them. And "Beast Tribal" represents creatures that have developed to fit the current ecosystem amazingly well, reinforcing the "wild, but different" nature.

List of creature types

Here is the whole list of existing creature types from the Comprehensive Rules (DTK Edition, the latest available at this time, Rule 205.3m), along with my opinion on whether I can see them living on Extinctia or not. In spoiler because it's very long.

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