Just a thing I've been working on. I've got more progress than this, especially at common, but here's the overview. Looking for any and all kinds of feedback.
Idoline: Era of Nightmares
Idoline is a plane where the astral realm and reality overlap, allowing dreams to merge with the material world. Its denizens have struck a balance, harnessing this unique power mostly for the greater good. The "dream world" is a haven for many and a bountiful place, a renewable source of resources, where those with imaginations can slumber and create all sorts of miraculous wonders. Naturally, upon hearing such a place existed, Ashiok had to go ruin it. What had been a paradise became a literal nightmare, as new dark manifestations within the astral realm began razing not only the dreamscape, but reality itself. As a result, Idolinians fight a war on two fronts: one in reality, and one in their dreams.
THEMES
Tapping/Untapping Matters
Cards Getting Exiled Matters
MECHANICS
Toil — [effect] if you control more tapped nonland permanents than untapped nonland permanents.
Dreamer (If this creature would untap, you may put a dream counter on it instead.)
Torment (To torment a player, exile a card at random from their hand until your next upkeep.)
STORY AND SPOTLIGHT CARDS
Astral Accord
Instant (U)
As an additional cost to cast Astral Accord, exile a creature you control until your next upkeep.
Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to two other target creatures.
You gain 1 life for each creature you control.
Each player draws a card.
The peoples and clans of Idoline exist in balance, having come to an agreement to use the astral realm, a dreamworld that overlaps in unique ways with the physical world of the plane, for their mutual good.
Ashiok's Awareness
Instant (U)
Draw two cards, then exile the top two cards of your library. If the exiled cards share a card type, draw two additional cards.
Having heard of a realm deeply tied to dreams, Ashiok cannot help but investigate deeper. The more Ashiok learns, the more Ashiok is drawn to the place before deciding to pay it a little visit.
Corrupted Dreams
Enchantment (R)
Whenever an opponent draws a card, if you control a tapped nonland permanent, torment that player and Corrupted Dreams deals 1 damage to them. (To torment a player, exile a card at random from their hand until your next upkeep.)
The dream world, once a haven for its people, begins to turn wretched and corrupted as Ashiok lets loose an arsenal of dark, nightmarish powers.
Dreamfield War
Instant (R)
Dreamfield War deals X damage divided as you choose among any number of target tapped creatures, where X is the total power of tapped creatures you control as you cast Dreamfield War. If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.
Dreamers among the Idolinian people take to arms in the astral realm, attempting to fight the nightmares back and reclaim their paradise once and for all.
Garruk's Scouring
Sorcery (U)
When you cast Garruk's Scouring, you may exile the top two cards of your library.
Look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal up to one creature or land card and any number of additional creature or land cards that share a name with an exiled card you own from among them. Put all cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
As the war wages on and the tide seems out of the Idolinians' favor, Garruk, who has come to Idoline to meditate on his soul and reflect on his deeds, searches both of Idoline's worlds for someone with the knowhow to turn the tide of this struggle.
Mildana's Revelation
Sorcery (R)
Untap target tapped creature you control.
Scry 1.
Draw two cards, then discard a card.
Mildana, a scholar and tactician recruited by Garruk, hatches a plan to defeat Ashiok.
Cleanse the Fields
Sorcery (R)
Cleanse the Fields costs less to cast for each tapped creature on the battlefield.
Destroy all creatures.
First, the astral fields must be cleansed entirely. With no life there to feed Ashiok's will, temptation will lead Ashiok to the material world. But this deed will come at a great cost.
Nightmares Made Real
Sorcery (R)
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It becomes a black Nightmare in addition to its other types and colors.
Toil — : Return Nightmares Made Real from your graveyard to your hand. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only if you control more tapped nonland permanents than untapped nonland permanents.
Ashiok is displeased at a barren dreamworld, and as predicted, begins leading an army of nightmares back from the dead out of the astral realm and into the physical world of Idoline.
Zayel's Awakening
Instant (U)
Untap each of up to two target creatures. Those creatures gain lifelink and indestructible until end of turn.
Zayel, a warrior monk turned serene meditant, awakens, sensing the emergence of nightmares into reality. He knows it is time for him to do battle once more.
Wrath of the Awoken
Enchantment (R)
Creatures you control get +1/+0 and have haste.
Whenever a creature you control becomes untapped, Wrath of the Awoken deals 1 damage to any target.
Zayel serves as a ruthless general of the forces of Idoline, leading the war against the living nightmares.
Banish to Visions
Sorcery (R)
Exile target nonland permanent. Its controller draws a card.
As the nightmares suffer losses, Ashiok makes an appearance into battle to strike down the Idolinian armies, but in so doing, enters Mildana's trap. Mildana and a cadre of dream-mages work to banish Ashiok and Ashiok alone back to the astral realm.
Ritual at the Allspire
Sorcery (U)
Create a tapped 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature token.
Up to two target creatures can't block this turn.
Zayel heads to Idoline's holiest place, the Allspire. It is said that this was the place where, long ago, a ritual melded the astral and physical realms. Now it is time to conduct a ritual of a different sort, activating this arcane machine for its final time.
Astral Severance
Enchantment (R)
When you cast Astral Severance, each player exiles their hand, then draws three cards.
Cards and permanents can't be exiled or leave exile.
By completing the ritual, Mildana and Zayel sever the astral and physical realms of Idoline from one another forever. Ashiok, tethered to dreams and nightmares, is left with only a barren dreamscape to rule over, no longer able to make a breach to the living. And then, feeling bored, Ashiok departs.
A SAMPLE OF SOME COMMONS SO FAR
Astral Warden
Creature - Spirit Cleric (C)
Whenever one or more other cards you own become exiled, you may exile Astral Warden. If you do, at the beginning of your next upkeep, return it to the battlefield, gain 2 life, and scry 1.
2/2
Oranite Blade
Artifact - Equipment (C)
Equipped creature gets +1/+0 and has lifelink as long as it's tapped.
Equipped creature gets +0/+3 as long as it's untapped.
Equip
Rebuffing Assault
Sorcery (C)
Destroy target tapped creature.
Toil — You gain 4 life if you control more tapped nonland permanents than untapped nonland permanents.
Not In Your Dreams
Instant (C)
Counter target spell, then exile the top X cards of its controller's library, where X is that spell's converted mana cost.
Slumbermage Scholar
Creature - Human Wizard (C)
Dreamer (If this creature would untap, you may put a dream counter on it instead.)
: Remove a dream counter from a creature you control: Draw a card, then discard a card.
2/3
Wisp of Fortune
Creature - Spirit (C)
Flying
Exile Wisp of Fortune from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if two or more spells have been cast this turn.
1/2
Dreamer's Edict
Instant (C)
Choose one —
-Target player sacrifices a tapped creature.
-Target player sacrifices an untapped creature.
Haunting Chimera
Creature - Nightmare Chimera (C)
Flying
When Haunting Chimera enters the battlefield, torment target player, then target opponent discards a card. (To torment a player, exile a card at random from their hand until your next upkeep.)
2/2
Nightmare Grazer
Creature - Nightmare (C)
Nightmare Grazer gets +1/+1 and has lifelink as long as one or more cards were exiled this turn.
2/3
Bearer of the Astral Torch
Creature - Human Shaman (C)
Abilities of Bearer of the Astral Torch cost less to activate as long as one or more cards have been exiled this turn.
: Bearer of the Astral Torch gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
1/3
Immersive Flame
Sorcery (C)
Immersive Flame deals 1 damage to each creature.
Exile the top card of your library. You may play it until the end of your next turn.
Grazing Harkodon
Creature - Nightmare Beast (C)
When Grazing Harkodon enters the battlefield or dies, torment target player. (To torment a player, exile a card at random from their hand until your next upkeep.)
3/3
Aggressive Effort
Sorcery (C)
Target tapped creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature.
Novum Spider
Creature - Spider (C)
Reach
Toil — Creature spells with flying cost your opponents 2 more to cast as long as you control more tapped nonland permanents than untapped nonland permanents.
1/4
Varka Seed-Seer
Creature - Elf Shaman (C)
Dreamer (If this creature would untap, you may put a dream counter on it instead.)
, Remove a dream counter from a creature you control: Look at the top card of your library. If it's a land card, you may reveal it and put it into your hand.
2/4
[IDO] Idoline: Era of Nightmares
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RattingRots
Pathological Scryer - Posts: 703
- Joined: 4 years ago
- Pronoun: he / him
I'm going to try to start commenting on some of these, since Custom Set Creation seems a little dead.
I tend to be more into mechanics than flavor, so I might not be the best person to judge a set like this, but I think you have one great mechanic to reinforce the flavor themes, and two others that I think both have potential gameplay issues run the risk of not feeling very dreamlike/nightmarish.
I think Dreamer is an awesome mechanic and really reinforces the theme in a unique way. I really like that in a game where these cards get played, it seems like it will feel as though player decisions in the game will have a lot to do with the "do I want to keep dreaming or wake up" and will feel like the players are agents in the set storylines.
I think Toil has a problem in the context of your set that it naturally pays off aggressive decks that attack with all their guys and spend mana on their own turn. It may be possible but I think it would take a ton of work to make mechanics like Dreamer and other tap effects so powerful that it's better to play synergy mechanics to get Toil payoffs than to just try to make your deck as aggressive as possible. It looks like your initial examples of Toil cards are defensive-oriented cards to compensate for this, but I'm worried about how much that can scale and how much strain it would put on the rest of your set. If you manage to put Toil on all of your more defense-oriented cards, but then you're trying to finish off the set and it makes sense to change things around to solve another problem, it might hamstring you that you have very little flexibility with Toil without making it devolve back into aggressive strategies. There is also the option to make a Rise of the Eldrazi-style set where traditional aggro just doesn't exist in the set, but I personally don't think going that drastic is the right move.
Torment has the problem of both enabling a lot of random feel-bad moments as well as being another aggressive mechanic that I don't think is well suited to interact with Dreamer. On the randomness, I personally have a much higher tolerance for random effects than most players, but I think this pretty firmly on the bad side of randomness. The problem with it is that the card you take will either not matter at all, enable some exile synergy (which can happen for either player) or screw up your opponent's next turn. If the former or the latter occurs, someone is going to feel bad, and there's not a lot either player could have done to mitigate the risk. It's great to hit synergy with it, but it's still going to randomly come up where you help your opponent and don't get any real benefit from it. Toil has the additional problem that toil effects are either going to happen on a trigger which you don't have complete control over, in the moment you cast an expensive card where you can't follow it up with a payoff, or on a cheap card that makes it too easy to screw with your opponent's hand. I think if you can make the synergies with exile cards powerful enough, it might be better to just let your opponent choose and make them guess what type of card you want them to exile. Another thing I think would improve the mechanic is to exile the card until the end of your next turn, instead of the beginning of your next upkeep - in conjunction with letting them choose, this means that you can play a Torment card on one turn, then on your next turn you can play a separate card that generates some kind of payoff depending on what the card is, or you can punish them for exiling something like a Disenchant by playing a card they now can't respond to immediately.
I tend to be more into mechanics than flavor, so I might not be the best person to judge a set like this, but I think you have one great mechanic to reinforce the flavor themes, and two others that I think both have potential gameplay issues run the risk of not feeling very dreamlike/nightmarish.
I think Dreamer is an awesome mechanic and really reinforces the theme in a unique way. I really like that in a game where these cards get played, it seems like it will feel as though player decisions in the game will have a lot to do with the "do I want to keep dreaming or wake up" and will feel like the players are agents in the set storylines.
I think Toil has a problem in the context of your set that it naturally pays off aggressive decks that attack with all their guys and spend mana on their own turn. It may be possible but I think it would take a ton of work to make mechanics like Dreamer and other tap effects so powerful that it's better to play synergy mechanics to get Toil payoffs than to just try to make your deck as aggressive as possible. It looks like your initial examples of Toil cards are defensive-oriented cards to compensate for this, but I'm worried about how much that can scale and how much strain it would put on the rest of your set. If you manage to put Toil on all of your more defense-oriented cards, but then you're trying to finish off the set and it makes sense to change things around to solve another problem, it might hamstring you that you have very little flexibility with Toil without making it devolve back into aggressive strategies. There is also the option to make a Rise of the Eldrazi-style set where traditional aggro just doesn't exist in the set, but I personally don't think going that drastic is the right move.
Torment has the problem of both enabling a lot of random feel-bad moments as well as being another aggressive mechanic that I don't think is well suited to interact with Dreamer. On the randomness, I personally have a much higher tolerance for random effects than most players, but I think this pretty firmly on the bad side of randomness. The problem with it is that the card you take will either not matter at all, enable some exile synergy (which can happen for either player) or screw up your opponent's next turn. If the former or the latter occurs, someone is going to feel bad, and there's not a lot either player could have done to mitigate the risk. It's great to hit synergy with it, but it's still going to randomly come up where you help your opponent and don't get any real benefit from it. Toil has the additional problem that toil effects are either going to happen on a trigger which you don't have complete control over, in the moment you cast an expensive card where you can't follow it up with a payoff, or on a cheap card that makes it too easy to screw with your opponent's hand. I think if you can make the synergies with exile cards powerful enough, it might be better to just let your opponent choose and make them guess what type of card you want them to exile. Another thing I think would improve the mechanic is to exile the card until the end of your next turn, instead of the beginning of your next upkeep - in conjunction with letting them choose, this means that you can play a Torment card on one turn, then on your next turn you can play a separate card that generates some kind of payoff depending on what the card is, or you can punish them for exiling something like a Disenchant by playing a card they now can't respond to immediately.
For Sale: Boots of +2 intellect. Never worn.
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RattingRots Pathological Scryer
- Posts: 703
- Joined: 4 years ago
- Pronoun: he / him
An additional thing about Torment I forgot to mention:
Torment is another example of a mechanic that encourages aggressive decks, especially if the effect is random. Ignoring synergy, the most likely result of losing a random card from your hand is that you either miss a land drop, or miss an on-curve play. If the person playing the torment cards is playing an aggressive deck, this could absolutely swing a game because the opponent might need the tempo in order to recover from the aggro player's opening. If the player using the torment cards is a slower more value-oriented deck, the opponent doesn't have quite the same urgency to make tempo plays. I think this could be another issue if you want to make the environment slow enough that people can take advantage of mechanics like Dreamer.
Torment is another example of a mechanic that encourages aggressive decks, especially if the effect is random. Ignoring synergy, the most likely result of losing a random card from your hand is that you either miss a land drop, or miss an on-curve play. If the person playing the torment cards is playing an aggressive deck, this could absolutely swing a game because the opponent might need the tempo in order to recover from the aggro player's opening. If the player using the torment cards is a slower more value-oriented deck, the opponent doesn't have quite the same urgency to make tempo plays. I think this could be another issue if you want to make the environment slow enough that people can take advantage of mechanics like Dreamer.
For Sale: Boots of +2 intellect. Never worn.
