[Assorted] Venedrex's Villa

[Venedrex]

Inspired by SecretInfiltrator's SecretBase, this is where I will be putting all my crazy ideas for mechanics and cards. I'll probably throw out a card or mechanic here every once
in a while, so if you find anything here interesting, check back occasionally for updates.

[Venedrex]

First up, some ideas for Alara mechanics:

Bant:




Naya:




Esper:




Grixis:

[void_nothing]

I'll mostly critique the mechanics here rather than the specific cards.

Hierarchy - Sure, this is much less broken than affinity. The name fits Bant of course and I like the "hit your curve matters" gameplay. Bant Tempo is a sensible archetype to promote.

Challenge - I'm not actually sure what the unchanging/unifying part of this ability word is. Is it "ETB, choose target creature, its controller may have it fight this"? At least this is a punisher mechanic but that looks like a worrying amount of removal for Limited.

Upgrade: Oh hell yeah. I don't even care that this is a parasitic mechanic, upgrading just seems like so much damn fun. (And of course at least it has internal synergy. It's just the broader interactions that are parasitic.)

Conscript - Very very reasonable. The least flashy of these but that's fine. Good Limited stuff.

Still no Jund one yet?

[Venedrex]

I'll mostly critique the mechanics here rather than the specific cards.

Hierarchy - Sure, this is much less broken than affinity. The name fits Bant of course and I like the "hit your curve matters" gameplay. Bant Tempo is a sensible archetype to promote.

Challenge - I'm not actually sure what the unchanging/unifying part of this ability word is. Is it "ETB, choose target creature, its controller may have it fight this"? At least this is a punisher mechanic but that looks like a worrying amount of removal for Limited.

Upgrade: Oh hell yeah. I don't even care that this is a parasitic mechanic, upgrading just seems like so much damn fun. (And of course at least it has internal synergy. It's just the broader interactions that are parasitic.)

Conscript - Very very reasonable. The least flashy of these but that's fine. Good Limited stuff.

Still no Jund one yet?

Thanks for the feedback! Sorry it took so long to reply, today's been a super busy day. The current text I have for challenge is this: Challenge — Choose a creature an opponent controls. That player may choose to have that creature fight this creature. If they don't, [effect]. It definitely still needs work, and you make a good point about it being too much removal.

When I came up with it I had been thinking about how Naya is all about big creatures, and that led me to think, if you have the biggest creatures, they would always be wanting to challenge your opponents creatures to a fight to determine who the alpha is. I liked it flavor wise because the fact that it is an honorable 1v1 fight made it feel both gruul and white at the same time to me, as your opponent has the opportunity to fight by the rules, but if they disagree to the challenge, all bets are off. The actual execution of that in the mechanic I may have bungled a bit, and that much fighting could just be too powerful as you previously mentioned.

The Jund mechanic has been giving me trouble as well, I'm gonna try to work on it some more in the coming weeks, and I might have a rough prototype of it soon. What I'm mulling over in my head is predators, sacrifices, and savagery, but since that is a lot of what we already know about the Jund, I'm trying to think of a fun avenue to explore that feels similar to Devour in some ways, but goes in a new direction as well. Thanks for taking a look at it, and for the kind words.

[SecretInfiltrator]

IV. Always Post Text Cards. A lot of custom designers like to post renders of their cards, but for one reason or another some viewers may not be able to see an image. For this reason, please make sure to post the card text as well.

See above.

---

Hierarchy is weird in that it does wonky things to your curve e. g. skipping your two-drop (which is ironically the example you provide), but then again you want to hit your two-drop to get more out of hierarchy. I feel making it always cost reduction is in error. You probably want it to be like domain or party i. e. an ability word that marks any kind of effect done "for mana values among creatures you control" or a game term that allows "equal to your hierarchy" wording with much more diverse effects.

Hydra Alpha really wants to use "When they don't" over "If they don't". Mechanics that give an opponent a choice are problematic enough in that you usually get the worse option. I think at least leaving them to guess what you do with the option they grant you is a small saving grace.

I don't like how freely upgrade throws around counters without inherent rules. You might even feel the need to do that just in case. Could your Esper just care about any type of counter and instead pass around fewer but more rewarding ability counters?

Conscript is fine. I'd consider making it a flashback/escape variant since you'd naturally want to self-mill for the creature fodder i. e. "(<cost>, Exile this card and another creature card from your graveyard: Create a tapped Walker token.)"

Neat watermarks.

[Venedrex]

IV. Always Post Text Cards. A lot of custom designers like to post renders of their cards, but for one reason or another some viewers may not be able to see an image. For this reason, please make sure to post the card text as well.

See above.

---

Hierarchy is weird in that it does wonky things to your curve e. g. skipping your two-drop (which is ironically the example you provide), but then again you want to hit your two-drop to get more out of hierarchy. I feel making it always cost reduction is in error. You probably want it to be like domain or party i. e. an ability word that marks any kind of effect done "for mana values among creatures you control" or a game term that allows "equal to your hierarchy" wording with much more diverse effects.

Hydra Alpha really wants to use "When they don't" over "If they don't". Mechanics that give an opponent a choice are problematic enough in that you usually get the worse option. I think at least leaving them to guess what you do with the option they grant you is a small saving grace.

I don't like how freely upgrade throws around counters without inherent rules. You might even feel the need to do that just in case. Could your Esper just care about any type of counter and instead pass around fewer but more rewarding ability counters?

Conscript is fine. I'd consider making it a flashback/escape variant since you'd naturally want to self-mill for the creature fodder i. e. "(<cost>, Exile this card and another creature card from your graveyard: Create a tapped Walker token.)"

Neat watermarks.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll post the text versions of the card today. I agree that challenge has a lot of... challenges (I'll see myself out) associated with it, and I may just rework it entirely. You're right about it being wonky. I also agree that hierarchy has the potential to do something other than just cost reduction, but I'm OK with keeping it simple.

As far as upgrade is concerned, I don't necessarily feel that upgrade counters have to have rules associated with them. For instance, page counters don't really mean anything rules wise, as they are flavorfully and mechanically representing knowledge in a book as seen in cards such as Tome of Legends and Mazemind Tome in which the individual artifacts say they can be removed from them to draw cards.

[Venedrex]

Text versions of the cards:

Bant:

Forward Cleric
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
Lifelink
Hierarchy (This spell costs less to cast for each different mana value among creatures you control.)
Although many in number, the armies of Bant have a singular chain of command.
1/2

Naya:

Hydra Alpha
Creature - Hydra (R)
Trample
Challenge — When Hydra Alpha enters the battlefield, choose target creature an opponent controls. That player may have that creature fight Hydra Alpha. If they don't, destroy target noncreature permanent that player controls.

EDIT: WIP will change soon especially since the Jund mechanic is now an ability word.

Esper:

Etherium Sentinel
Artifact Creature - Sphinx (U)
Flying, vigilance
3WU: Upgrade 2 (Distribute two upgrade counters among any number of target creatures or artifacts you control.)
Spells your opponents cast that target Etherium Sentinel cost 1 more to cast for each upgrade counter on it.

Grixis:

Forbidden Writings
Instant (U)
Discard a card at random, then draw three cards. You lose 2 life.
Conscript B (When you cast this spell, you may pay and exile a creature card from your graveyard. If you do, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.)

Jund:

Earthripper Shaman
Creature — Human Shaman (R)
When Earthripper Shaman enters the battlefield, destroy target land an opponent controls.
Territory — : Earthripper Shaman deals 2 damage to each creature without flying and each player. Activate this ability only if you control more lands than an opponent,
3/3

[spacemonaut]

All of these are very cool.

Hierarchy will make costs not what they seem which is cool as hell for one-offs and a sign of caution for set design. If I cards in my hand that cost W, 1W (with Hierarchy), and 2W (also with Hierarchy), I can drop the first one turn one for and then the next two on turn two for WW total. I now have a hierarchy discount of , assuming I can keep my board state. This seems like a great tempo payoff. I'd be conscious how higher-MV hierarchy cards get costed in set deisgn, and bear in mind they might have a guaranteed discount of 3+ assuming I'm not on an empty board.

Conscript: makes me want to create spells that interact with the zombie token.

Amulet of Strength 1R
Artifact — Amulet
Conscript (When you cast this spell, you may pay and exile a creature card from your graveyard. If you do, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.)
When Amulet of Strength enters the battlefield, target creature you control gets +3/+1 until end of turn.
When a creature you control dies, you may return Amulet of Strength to your hand.

(probably needs a different trigger but anyway)

Conscripting for is a very fair price. Would it make sense to bake that in to the ability and use a different parameter for Conscript {something}?

[Venedrex]

All of these are very cool.

Hierarchy will make costs not what they seem which is cool as hell for one-offs and a sign of caution for set design. If I cards in my hand that cost W, 1W (with Hierarchy), and 2W (also with Hierarchy), I can drop the first one turn one for and then the next two on turn two for WW total. I now have a hierarchy discount of , assuming I can keep my board state. This seems like a great tempo payoff. I'd be conscious how higher-MV hierarchy cards get costed in set deisgn, and bear in mind they might have a guaranteed discount of 3+ assuming I'm not on an empty board.

Conscript: makes me want to create spells that interact with the zombie token.

Amulet of Strength 1R
Artifact — Amulet
Conscript (When you cast this spell, you may pay and exile a creature card from your graveyard. If you do, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.)
When Amulet of Strength enters the battlefield, target creature you control gets +3/+1 until end of turn.
When a creature you control dies, you may return Amulet of Strength to your hand.

(probably needs a different trigger but anyway)

Conscripting for is a very fair price. Would it make sense to bake that in to the ability and use a different parameter for Conscript {something}?

Sorry for the long delay in responding! Thanks for commenting on the mechanics. I like the design of the amulet, and I definitely agree with you about having to be cautious with cost reduction effects. Using a different parameter for Conscript could also be really cool.

[Venedrex]

Not sure if it's any good or not, but I have my first stab at the Jund mechanic, and it might encourage some bad gameplay, but I still really like it on the surface.

Territory — "If you control more lands than an opponent, [effect]." I know that it seems like it encourages unfun land destruction. but hear me out. Red is primary in land destruction, and black and green are secondary so that is the obvious way of enabling this mechanic. However, green is of course the best color at land ramp, which is a fun way to enable this mechanic, and all colors can get their own basic land to hand if I'm not mistaken.

For the limited environment, rather than making the focus primarily on land destruction, you could just have a bunch of cards that find lands to hand or battlefield in Jund colors, and make Jund a rampy lands matter archetype for the set.

So yes, you would have a couple land destruction spells or creatures, but they would be at higher rarities and balanced with high mana costs, as you would be leaning on more creative ways of getting more lands than your opponent, such as a gruul spell that returns lands from the graveyard, or creatures that can put lands onto the field, but still supplementing these with a couple of balanced land destruction effects that we have seen are possible at higher mana values, similar to cards such as Casualties of War and Waking the Trolls.

[Venedrex]

Testing ideas with Territory:

Merciless Tribe
Creature — Human Warrior
When Merciless Tribe enters the battlefield, destroy target land an opponent controls.
Territory — At the beginning of your end step, if you control more lands than an opponent, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
"Room enough for the both of us? You must be new here."
3/3

[spacemonaut]

Territory might also make sense in Naya, being centered on green. Green gets ramp, red gets land destruction, and white gets balance effects as well as plains fetching. Flavor-wise you get the aggression of red, the structure ("this is our space, not your space") of white, and, well, territorialism from green. There's been a few green-white cards recently for finding forests and plains; I could see cards like Yasharn, Implacable Earth, Karametra, God of Harvests, and Flower // Flourish showing up there on the green-white side. Green-red might get a land destruction and fetch two-in-one!

[Venedrex]

Territory might also make sense in Naya, being centered on green. Green gets ramp, red gets land destruction, and white gets balance effects as well as plains fetching. Flavor-wise you get the aggression of red, the structure ("this is our space, not your space") of white, and, well, territorialism from green. There's been a few green-white cards recently for finding forests and plains; I could see cards like Yasharn, Implacable Earth, Karametra, God of Harvests, and Flower // Flourish showing up there on the green-white side. Green-red might get a land destruction and fetch two-in-one!

That's a great point, I think you might right about it fitting better in Naya. I'll make some more cards to experiment with it in those colors instead.

[Venedrex]

Where my crazy brain has been today in a nutshell:

Lately I have been wondering what the optimal breakdown of the ten races and ten (including death knights) classes of WoW (Wrath of the Lich King) would be.
My initial distribution is below, but a couple races and classes don't seem to fit as well as I'd like.

Note: this is not necessarily suggesting that these races would all be in one set, just what colors suit them best.

I don't know if Gnomes should be Temur, since green hates artifacts, but I don't know if there is a way to finagle them into a three color combo that fits them better without taking from another race. Jeskai seems ideal, but Humans really want to be Jeskai I feel. Death Knights are a little odd in Golgari, but I think a case could be made for it, and I think it's the best remaining spot for them. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Alliance:

EDIT: The first five of these are more like Ikoria triomes than Khans wedges, i.e the focus color for humans would be . This allows for Gnomes to make more sense as their three color pair will be blue focused rather than green focused, allowing more reason to care about artifacts.

Humans:
Dwarves:
Gnomes:
Night Elves:
Trolls:

Horde:

Orcs:
Tauren:
Forsaken:
Blood Elves:
Draenei:

Classes:

T: Tertiary

Warriors: T
Mages: T
Rouges: T
Priests: T

As established in Zendikar Rising.

Shamans: T
Druids: T
Hunters: T
Monks: T

Paladins:
Warlocks:

Simic will be left out. (what a shame)

EDIT: Deciding not to do DK's as they are a hero class anyway, and druids fit better into Golgari then Simic.

[Venedrex]

Aggressive Moltenhorn
Creature — Beast (R)
Territory — When Aggressive Moltenhorn attacks, if you control more lands than an opponent, creatures you control gain trample and get +X/+X and until end of turn, where X is equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
4/4

Experimenting with Naya "Territory" mechanic.

Gonna leave this here as a timestamp for a prediction. Maro recently mentioned a new experiment for white card draw, and I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it is delayed draw. Something like:

Meditative Enlightenment
Sorcery — (U)
Draw two cards at the beginning of your next upkeep.

Curious to see what happens.

[Venedrex]

HAYO, it's my day off, so time to subject you poor souls to a barrage of designs from my pretend Commander product!

The first couple of ideas are the three commander options for an Abzan Commander deck with the unifying theme of Nobility/Royalty:
The face commander would be themed around Exalted, and the backups would focus on Sagas and Grandeur. So here's my ideas so far.

Yaljog, Historian of the Houses
Legendary Creature — Orc Advisor
: Exile a creature card from your graveyard, then reveal the top X cards of your library, where X is equal to that creature's mana value. You may put an enchantment card from among them into your hand, then put the rest into your graveyard. If that enchantment was a Saga, you may put it onto the battlefield instead.
4/4

Beonae, Royalty's Reflection
Legendary Creature — Gorgon Wizard
Deathtouch
: Reveal a nonland card from your hand. Until end of turn, that card becomes a copy of Beonae, Royalty's Reflection.
Grandeur — Discard another card named Benonae, Royalty's Reflection: Each opponent loses X life and you gain X life, where X is equal to half the number of cards in your graveyard, rounded down.
3/3

Honestly I'm not sure if the rules let you turn cards in hand into copies of other cards but hey, maybe it could happen.

[Venedrex]

I went through a lot of crazy ideas this last week trying to come up with a submission for the MCC. Figured I'd share some of them here since I didn't want to fill up the MCC discussion thread with my ramblings. Not sure if anyone cares, but here's a short (incredibly dry and long) recounting of my thought process for coming up with a mechanic.

At first I started with Selesnya, which strange I know considering where I ended up, but I struggled to connect flavor with gameplay and vice versa. I was thinking about making a sort of weird take on lifegain where you give opponents life in exchange for making your spell better or cheaper. The problem I had was it didn't actually play to Green and White's biggest point of overlap, creatures. Lifegain is definitely in pie for Selesnya, but it felt like a dumb idea to make a mechanic that doesn't reference creatures for THE creature color pair.

The inspiration for it was goodie goodie does nice things for others, but also me despising lifegain being touted as some incredible effect that white has compared to other colors (even though green shares it) and wanting to say, what if there was a mechanic that gave white's opponents all that "overpowered" lifegain in exchange for a real effect like discounted mana costs.

It would've looked something like this: Generosity 3. When you cast this spell, you may have target opponent gain 3 life. If BLANKS generosity cost was paid, effect. In the end, felt bad about it, nixed it.

Next up I thought long and hard about the Simic. Oh boy did I have trouble with the Simic. The issue being, the Simic are a guild that have three mechanics, all involving +1/+1 counters. So, make a new mechanic that doens't use +1/+1 counters. OK no problem I said brazenly, *cracks knuckles* *Reads about simic* *Realizes the entire core of the guild is growth and creatures* *Searches desperately for a way to make creatures grow without using +1/+1 counters* *Gives up rather than make a 4th Simic +1/+1 counter mechanic*

But wait you say, Venedrex you fool, just exile something under the creature to represent it getting stronger. Then I realized that was just bestow but weirder. So no on that. What about transforming it? Sure but then you have a whole can of worms you've just opened if you want to still pretend this is a real Ravnica set. Does this set have DFCs? Do they transform, is it the thing all factions are using and so and so on. So it turns out designing for Simic is, imho, difficult. I'm sure others could think of something, but I was stumped.

Dimir comes next. What about fear/dread counters to represent growing danger and horror from the spookiest of guilds. Sure, ok, but dread counters? The only thing scary about them is how bad the name is. Dread counters..... yeah no that sounds completely stupid. So then what about Objectives. There like sagas but you do certain things to get the counters.

AKA. Silence the Opposition 1. Destroy a creature an opponent controls. 2. Counter target spell an opponent controls. etc etc. Whenever you did one of those things you'd slap an objective counter on the enchantment and if you got all three you'd get a nice reward. Maybe the reward would happen as you completed the objective as well. Then in my brilliance I remember Quests exist. Whoops. I'm so inventive I developed Quests decades after they came out.

You'd think I'd know when I was beat, and maybe this came about earlier in the Dimir train of thought, but I had one last idea. What about a mechanic that tucked itself in your library, OR let you cast a spell you had already tucked. I'd call it Ciphe.. I mean Encrypt, I mean something cool and original. I gave up on this for some reason, most likely because it broke my already steaming brain.

So, if you made it past this pile of pontification, congrats. Now you know what I was thinking. So yeah, that's what this weirdo was doing in the week(s) leading up to submitting for the MCC.

[Venedrex]

Random musings.

I don't think this will or should ever happen because it wans't meant to be a cycle and it doesn't make sense to make it one with color pie breaks and all, but what would three other versions of these cards look like? The land one is painfully horrible design, so maybe it gets skipped and replaced with instants and sorceries?
Scrap Mastery
Living Death



Restructured Authority
Sorcery — (R)
Each player exiles all enchantment cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all enchantments they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield.

Huh. This seems to work just fine. White can destroy and recur enchantments so, we're good.

This could also work for planeswalkers.

The issue comes when we get to green and blue. Green could maybe do enchantments, but it seems like a strong bend. (although Maro says yawgs will is a green card so what do I know.)

Which leads us to the fifth permanent type. Lands. As written the card wouldn't break the color pie, but it would be arguably one of the most toxic and evil cards ever designed. As well as incredibly overpowered. Behold the pure evil of MLD on a mono green card.

Broken Earth
Sorcery — (R)
Each player exiles all land cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all lands they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield.

NOPE NOPE NOPE I'M OUT.

And as far as making the cycle what does blue do? It can't recur anything other than instants and sorceries in pie, so...

So maybe just make the white card in this vein and let green and blue not get anything.




Next: What about making a cycle out of Archmage's Charm
You know you want to see it!

Archfiend's Charm
Instant — (R)
Choose one —
• Archfiend's Charm deals 3 damage to any target.
• Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn.
• Create two 1/1 red Devil creature tokens with: "When this creature dies, it deals 1 damage to any target."

Speaking of red spells (Oh yeah I can do this all day something something captain america...)

Mono Red struggles a bit in EDH when up against enchantment heavy strategies like Tuvasa the Sunlit or Sythis, Harvest's Hand.
Obviously destroying enchantments is a no go so what about this: (print it in a Commander precon, not standard legal)

Arcane Backlash
Sorcery — (R)
Arcane Backlash does X damage to each opponent, where X is equal to the number of enchantments your opponents control.

Something like that anyway.


TRIBAL BATCHING.
You could even have two batched tribal EDH precons
Such as:
Simian Savagery (Apes+Monkeys)
Unholy Umbra (Spirits+Shades+Specters+Wraiths)


Two mechanics on the same Commander. Ahem. Explore + Adventure with synergies for both.

Devour should be changed to devour creature or artifact so you can always devour the grub.

They should make an Abzan Insect and an Abzan enchantment commander.

[Venedrex]

Will of the People
Instant (R)
Convoke (Your creatures can help cast this spell. Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for or one mana of that creature's color.)
Counter target spell unless its controller pays .

Quick idea I had posting while I still remember.

[Venedrex]

A set idea I've had germinating since I came to this forum just got a big kick in the pants after today's reveal.

With the 40K precons, Squad was revealed as a mechanic, and it basically coalesces all my (and others) attempts at making a mechanic to represent a group of soldiers. Which is super useful for me personally because of a set idea I had that spurred me to join this forum in the first place:

Ulreon. Basically this set is meant to be a homage to RTS games, with epic battles, and vast armies going toe to toe with each other. For more than I'd like to admit I had been struggling to find a suitable mechanic to represent hordes of creatures, but now we have Squad. Super stoked.

The set would be a three color faction set because, cmon, would you want it any other way? Just like SNC and KTK before it, players would be heavily encouraged to choose and identify with their favorite of the five factions, which are imho a great way to convey the usual factions found in rts games into magic. You'd have mechanics such as Territory, (NOTE: I don't know what these do or if they would end up in the set, just names that come to mind off the top of my head) maybe new card type like Tactic, perhaps Energy would be brought back, depending on the tech level of the setting.

Each faction would be super unique as usual, but the main feel of the set would try to make you feel as if though you are the commander (hehe, perfect theming for the precons that would accompany the main set.) of a vast army. Which, again is why Squad is so cool to help build that force under your control. Some factions might be low-tech, others could be high-tech, or they could all be low tech or high tech or a blend.

[Venedrex]

Capable Captain
Creature — Human Soldier (U)
Enlist (As this creature attacks, you may tap a nonattacking creature you control without summoning sickness. When you do, add its power to this creature's until end of turn.)
Mentor (Whenever this creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on target attacking creature with lesser power.)
2/3

[Venedrex]

Coalesce:

Basically, I don't know exactly how this would be worded, but the idea is to make a mechanic that allows a player to combine abilities they control into a more powerful effect.

So for instance, I might have Coalesce, exile up to four abilities you control. For each two abilities exiled this way, draw a card. Basically this ability was me wondering if you could make a mechanic that condenses in some ways the nature of spellslinger decks. I cast opt, triggering both my guttersnipe, thermo-alchemist, and monastery mentor.

Well with this mechanic, you can choose to essentially convert those triggers into something better, which has the benefit of hopefully saving some time. I cast a spell, which generates six triggers on my board? I'll just coalesce all of them into drawing three cards, one for each two abilities I exiled (or countered). Rather than going through and resolving six different effects, you merely turn those six effects into one more powerful effect, which hopefully speeds up the solitaire nature of these decks while still being fun and powerful.

A card with this idea

Combination Mage
Creature — Human Wizard (R)
Prowess
Coalesce — , Exile each ability you control: For each two abilities exiled this way, draw a card.
1/1

Theoretically this guy could be a 3/3 with two spells, or he turn every second cantrip into a draw spell.

[Venedrex]

Does anyone even read these? Lol, that's never stopped me before mwahaha.

Anyways, here's my take on a Simic mechanic.

Latent. It does what it says on the tin.

You know the prototype border thing they use? Imagine that, but with a small power + toughness in the left. On the right of this number is the abilities your creature gets when it's power and toughness become that number:

Bioplasmic Stomper
Elf Ooze
Latent —
4/4 Whenever Bioplasmic Stomper attacks, you may destroy up to one target artifact or enchantment you don't control.
6/6 Hexproof, Whenever Bioplasmic Stomper attacks, you may destroy up to one target artifact or enchantment you don't control.
2/2

The idea is, the Simic are making their... fabrications, but they have hidden abilities that reveal themselves when the creature reaches a certain point, in this case, power and toughness. The fun is, blue and green are great at shifting power and toughness, whether through the ol'reliable +1/+1 counters, Giant Growth type effects, or Weird-esque stat changing, so you can cheat this by using external methods. Some creatures with latent might grow themselves, but some might need you to do the work.

Triggers could be made to be on off static effects, or "the first time this creature becomes X/X each turn, for etb style triggers. Or both! Basically this mechanic wants you to find a way to grow your creatures, like a good Simic player, but it doesn't tell you how.

[user_938036]

Latent is neat but it shouldn't be a specific p/t. It should be a single number that is either the power it needs or the total p/t so you don't get questions about holy strength.

I imagine it would look like level up with 8+ instead of the level required. Showing it needs combined p/t of 8 or more to get that effect.

[Venedrex]

Latent is neat but it shouldn't be a specific p/t. It should be a single number that is either the power it needs or the total p/t so you don't get questions about holy strength.

I imagine it would look like level up with 8+ instead of the level required. Showing it needs combined p/t of 8 or more to get that effect.

Thanks for the feedback, that's a great call about changing it to a single number. I will do that. You're right about it looking like level up as well, that is a bit of the image I had in my head.

So
Gelatinous Mass
Creature — Ooze (U)
: Gelatinous Mass gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Latent —
6+ When Gelatinous Mass's combined power and toughness becomes 6 or greater for the first time each turn, create a token that's a copy of Gelatinous Mass.
8+ When Gelatinous Mass's combined power and toughness becomes 8 or greater for the first time each turn, create two tokens that are copies of Gelatinous Mass.
1/1