The Shattered Realm: Mechanical

[Venedrex]

Straight out of the Mothership!

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/makin ... al-support

Once you figure out which of these components you want in your set, you'll want to make sure to include them in your design skeleton. For mechanics, named and unnamed, figure out how many you'll want of each rarity and label slots to hold them. If you're unsure how many you need, I would recommend thinking of a mechanic that fills a similar void in an existing set and copying that.

For "__________ matters," you'll want to make sure you have enough of that item in your design skeleton. Again, pick an existing set that is similar in quality (look at Theros if your set cares about enchantments, for instance) and copy those numbers. Getting the as-fan is tricky, and we spend a lot of time playtesting to get it right. As I said above, you might have to change elements of your set structure to fit in enough of the cards that have the quality you care about. In particular, the theme will have to exist on some number of creatures to be relevant enough of the time in Limited formats.

[Venedrex]

Hang on a second. I think I might have just had an idea that will solve our issue.

I was thinking about what slimytrout said about Mystical, and how it had no upper limit like party, and I agreed and thought, how would fix that. My first thought was to try and make it go by mana value, but that seemed meh. Then I thought, what if it just had a limit, like 6. But now, I might have a workable idea. It may be absolutely crazy but bear with me. Party, but for enchantments. The reason I say this is, maybe we don't want to do this, but this set is probably the only set where we could realistically bring back every enchantment type if we wanted to.

This might be too crazy, but I figured it's worth a shot. The downside is we'd have to have a lot of enchantment types in the set, but I don't think it would be the end of world necessarily. The upside is, I think this would be a little more reliable than regular party because enchantments are harder to kill than creatures. The other neat thing is, we don't even have to bring back sagas either. If I'm correct, we could use this as an excuse to make a new subtype of enchantment to go with favors to fill out the mechanic, but we don't have to.

A predefined token if you will


This mechanic would have greater backwards compatibility if cared about things like sagas and shrines.


Lots of different options:

Arcanum (Your arcanum consists of up to one of each of Saga, Sigil, Aura, and Favor.)
Arcanum (Your arcanum consists of up to one of each of Sigil, Shrine, Aura, and Favor.)

What if it was like this?

Soltari Mage
Creature — Soltari Wizard (C)
Vigilance
Whenever Soltari Mage attacks, it gets +1/+0 until end of turn for each enchantment in your arcanum.
Arcanum (Your arcanum consists of up to one of each of Saga, Shrine, Aura, and Favor.)
1/2

[slimytrout]

Ooh, that's a super fun idea, but one issue I see with the example you give is that all favors would have to be auras, which is a bit weird if we include both. Since it also feels odd to lump auras (>1000 in all of magic) in with sagas (87) and shrines (17), maybe it could be saga, shrine, favor, and curse? I don't think we want to introduce two different enchantment subtypes in one set (ie favor and one other), but it would definitely be fun to have sagas, shrines, and curses in the set. Could also leave out shrine which has more limited design space, and some tension in that most shrine decks want to be all in on shrines, and just do saga, favor, curse.

[void_nothing]

I love love love batching as a solution. Here, though, I think we need to go a bit... more universal, for both flavor and compatibility reasons. "For each enchantment type, up to one enchantment of that type you control is in your arcanum."

[slimytrout]

If we go with void's idea, is that an argument for having a version of the mystical archive? There are two strikes against it: 1) flavor has to be justified somehow and 2) feels a bit like rehashing strixhaven if we have a bonus sheet and glorify/favor, but there's also the fact that it would allow us to include things like Cartouches in the draft environment in a way that we otherwise would not be able to.

[void_nothing]

A bonus sheet is generic enough that it's not something that should make anyone say "oof, shades of Strixhaven much?" I would LOVE to get specifically Shrines and Curses in there for Draft... and Sagas? Or are Sagas something we could have in the main set? As much as I love them I'd lean against using them, but I'd love to hear your opinions.

[Venedrex]

If we go with void's idea, is that an argument for having a version of the mystical archive? There are two strikes against it: 1) flavor has to be justified somehow and 2) feels a bit like rehashing strixhaven if we have a bonus sheet and glorify/favor, but there's also the fact that it would allow us to include things like Cartouches in the draft environment in a way that we otherwise would not be able to.

Yeah that is a good thing to consider. Personally I'd be down for whatever you and void think. I'd be good either way. I don't think we have to have it per se, but it would be kind of cool to be able to reprint a bunch of classic enchantments from the past. Having things like Cartouches for draft would also be great.

[slimytrout]

I'm for it, personally, I just figured I'd also lay out the arguments against as well as for. And I'm inclined to say that if we do it this way we need to have at least one other enchantment type (i.e., other than auras and favors) that has a major presence in the set. This could be sagas or curses, although I suppose it could also be a new subtype that goes on "normal" enchantments? Right now there's kind of no reason to play non-aura enchantments in the set, which is something to think about.

[Venedrex]

Yeah, I'm game. I quite like the idea of the bonus sheet. I think it will make the set pretty exciting to be able to draft and open a Cartouche of Ambition, which now that I think about it fits the Dauthi pretty well lol. We could flavor in a bunch of different ways too, like maybe the bonus sheet represents alternate realities where magic developed in a different way on the plane, or experiments with enchantments or planar travel or all sorts of things.

Cartouche of Ambition

The desire for power on the harsh world of Amonkhet resonated with the stratified society of the Dauthi.

Cartouche of Knowledge

The desire to learn resonated with the inquisitive minds of the Thalakos

Cartouche of Strength

The desire to survive resonated with the fierce ways of the Elves

Cartouche of Solidarity

The desire for unity resonated with the customs of the Soltari

Cartouche of Zeal

The desire to be passionate resonated with the boldness of the Viashino

[slimytrout]

If we're all game for the idea of a bonus sheet, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here when it comes to flavor? Whatever shattered the shattered realm also gave it some kind of magical connection to planes across the multiverse, so now when threads of magic are woven together in other places, that tugs on the threads here. These threads cause the realm to stay afloat and not collapse on itself and also cause reflections of other enchantments across the multiverse to manifest themselves.

Edit: just occurred to me that it's really three birds with one stone because it also works great with how the dauthi etc. became shadow versions of themselves on Rath

[Venedrex]

If we're all game for the idea of a bonus sheet, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here when it comes to flavor? Whatever shattered the shattered realm also gave it some kind of magical connection to planes across the multiverse, so now when threads of magic are woven together in other places, that tugs on the threads here. These threads cause the realm to stay afloat and not collapse on itself and also cause reflections of other enchantments across the multiverse to manifest themselves.

Edit: just occurred to me that it's really three birds with one stone because it also works great with how the dauthi etc. became shadow versions of themselves on Rath

Yeah yeah yeah. That's what I'm talking about! The shattered realm is a plane that is fundamentally connected to enchantments, almost like one big enchantment that is tied to all the enchantments in the multiverse

[slimytrout]

This is probably also the direction we want to go for glorify -- somehow relating it to being a manifestation of "enchantment threads" or the like. Maybe weave/threads or something like that? I'd love to somehow use the double meaning of 'warp' (ie, distortion vs. direction of cloth weaving) but don't have a fully fleshed out concept yet.

[Venedrex]

OK, as of now, I think we can lock in 3 things for the set:

Glorify/Favors
Exalted
A bonus sheet of enchantments that is draftable but not standard legal.

At the risk of pulling the rug out, I kind of want to experiment with rift a little bit. I've doing a lot of research and theory crafting, and I think it might be easier to balance than I first considered. If no one minds I would like to try testing it out a little bit with our current set up. I've been comparing it to similar mechanics, and I think it might really work well with what we have right now as a payoff. I really like arcanum, but I think rift may actually fit better here.

When I compared it to Magecraft for instance, magecraft has more potential to trigger and more cards in the set that would trigger it. Of course rift only reduces cost, so it is slightly less flexible, but it also can't trigger over and over again. What I am belaboring to say is, I think rift might work out really well here, better than I thought at first. But I'd be down to test out both further. It also is a smoothing mechanic which I think will be helpful, and I think we can use it reward players for playing a density of enchantments.

My first reservations with rift were that we have too many enchantments, but I think that the very nature of phasing out helps keep things balanced allowing you to only get effect once per turn, unlike something like affinity of course. Additionally, I did some research into batching, and I'm not quite sure the rules allow for Arcanum working the way we want it to, in regards to not actually listing everything that is a part of the batch.

Regardless of where we land on that area, I do think we need a very original mechanic to round things out for the set. I think we should do what slimeytrout suggested and develop a new unique mechanic perhaps one that filters to round out the set.

[slimytrout]

Not a problem at all -- my concern with rift is actually not that it is unbalanced, but rather that the phasing out of enchantments will (often) not have a great deal of tension. Basically, the main play pattern that I'm expecting is:

*play auras and enchantment creatures (if we're still planning on using those)
*attack with enchanted/enchantment creatures
*play cards with rift in the second main phase and phase out the enchantments, which doesn't cost anything because the creatures are already tapped

In this case, rift looks something more like a once-per-turn affinity for artifacts, which is not necessarily a bad thing but isn't quite like improvise, where, in many cases, you actually cost yourself blockers/attackers/activations by having to tap your artifacts. Obviously there were some "free" improvisers (static artifacts like Panharmonicon or Equipment being big ones), but they were the exception rather than the rule. So I just think we have to keep in mind that rift probably won't have quite as good play patterns as improvise.

[Venedrex]

Not a problem at all -- my concern with rift is actually not that it is unbalanced, but rather that the phasing out of enchantments will (often) not have a great deal of tension. Basically, the main play pattern that I'm expecting is:

*play auras and enchantment creatures (if we're still planning on using those)
*attack with enchanted/enchantment creatures
*play cards with rift in the second main phase and phase out the enchantments, which doesn't cost anything because the creatures are already tapped

In this case, rift looks something more like a once-per-turn affinity for artifacts, which is not necessarily a bad thing but isn't quite like improvise, where, in many cases, you actually cost yourself blockers/attackers/activations by having to tap your artifacts. Obviously there were some "free" improvisers (static artifacts like Panharmonicon or Equipment being big ones), but they were the exception rather than the rule. So I just think we have to keep in mind that rift probably won't have quite as good play patterns as improvise.

Oh OK that makes sense. Do you think we could tweak things a little to solve it?

(Your enchantments can help cast this spell. Each untapped enchantment you phase out after you're done activating mana abilities pays for or one mana of that enchantment's color.) You would then have to choose between attacking with enchantment creatures or leaving them to block. Auras would still function like equipment.

[void_nothing]

I like rift for its elegance and Spike appeal. I do recognize it tends to lack tension. I don't think adding the word "untapped" is somehow a solution even if we have enchantment creatures.

[Venedrex]

I think slimytrout does bring up a good point though about the value. Maybe we could go through and basically account for the extra value by pricing rift costs a little more than improvise because it "costs" less than improvise does in terms of boardstate? In other words, we just say, ok Metallic Rebuke was three mana, so maybe we make the rift version 4 because it is less of a drawback to cast it with your enchantments.

I think we could search around for another mechanic, but I can't shake the feeling that rift might work for what we are doing here. I've been really trying to come up with alternatives but so far I can't think of many other options we can go with. I know rift has its problems, but I'm not sure we have a better solution at the moment. I'd definitely be willing to swap it out with a different mechanic if we think of one as time goes on but for now I think it might be our best bet.

I'd love to windmill slam something like constellation into the set, but I think staying away from Theros is a definite factor. I think rift isn't particularly exiting, but I think it will work pretty well with Glorify, especially if we cost it approximately. I think the set just needs a kind of "boring" mechanic that rewards the player having lot's of enchantments and I don't think there are too many good options in that space. Without something like constellation or improvise, there is no real incentive to build enchantment matters decks imho.

Where I think we can make up ground is with the fourth mechanic. It can be the unique and cool mechanic, that also smooths out the bumps of the set. To be honest, I tried my best to come up with a replacement for rift, but, and maybe this is just because I'm not particularly inventive, so far I don't think I've had any better ideas. That might just mean we need a fresh perspective, but I think testing it out might yield some good results.

As far as the fourth mechanic goes, I think we want something really really original. To me, I think this set's mechanics so far score really high so far on fun, balance, and practicality, but very low on originality. Which is kind of my fault for pushing a version of improvise. But, I do think if we go big with the fourth mechanic, and do something very different and unorthodox, that will shore up the set nicely.

I think this set might play out really well. I'm going to try and make a bunch of test cards like the crazy guy I am and do some goldfish drafts with them to try and get a feel of how things might shake out in games of limited with these mechanics combined.

To back up my claim, I think Kaldheim is a good example.

Kaldheim had
MDFCS
Snow
Sagas
Foretell
Boast
(Runes, but it was only five cards so...)
Changeling

Changeling is a return
Snow is a return
Sagas is a return
Foretell is new, but it combines morph and suspend.
Boast is new, but is basically tweaked Raid.
MDFCs were new but were a return by the time they showed up on Kaldheim.

So if we use rift we have

Glorify/Favors, is new but has aspects of learn/lesson
Rift, is new, but is tweaked version of Convoke/Improvise
Exalted is a return.
????? One new mechanic that hopefully brings some spice to the set and makes it really stand out.

[slimytrout]

Yeah I don't think we want it to say untapped, I think if we were going to change it we would have to do so in such a large way that it wouldn't really be the same mechanic. And I definitely don't have an issue with including it in the set as-is -- once-per-turn affinity actually has an advantage over affinity of being a much more balanced mechanic -- I just wanted to explain why I don't think it's a home run. If we've run through possible replacements and are dissatisfied with all of them then that's fine, not every mechanic in a set has to be a home run as long as it's doing the best it can do for its slot.

And yes, I think we will have to be more careful on costs than improvise was, although it's also true that if we have very few or zero enchantment tokens there will be overall fewer enchantments.

[void_nothing]

I think arcanum (or whatever the batching word's final name will be) ought to be a big help. Simple batching punches above its weight as a design tool imo: It adds relatively plenty of thematic texture for not a lot of mindshare. I am still attached to my weather concept and I think there's more mechanical space left for us...

[Venedrex]

I think arcanum (or whatever the batching word's final name will be) ought to be a big help. Simple batching punches above its weight as a design tool imo: It adds relatively plenty of thematic texture for not a lot of mindshare. I am still attached to my weather concept and I think there's more mechanical space left for us...

Absolutely.

[slimytrout]

Plays in some of the same space as the weather concept, but what about something that represents climbing? Maybe you can climb up or down, and depending on where you are certain things happen? (There probably has to be some sort of external game piece that says what happens at each level.) You could have some color identity where black mostly climbs down, white mostly climbs up, and green can climb in either direction.

[void_nothing]

We've had this conversation in this thread before! I think the parameter was being called height. Ultimately, anything that provides a flavor grounding and that type of mechanical variance is good.

[slimytrout]

Ah yes, once again it becomes evident that I came to this project late. Anyway, the main difference between my idea and the previous version that was proposed is that you have the built-in effect from the external game piece that adds a consistent reason to build your deck around it. Maybe some cards could have inherent effects like "As long as you're at the apex, X" or "When you climb down to the depths, do Y" but for commons it could just be "when ~ enters the battlefield, climb down" and then this would also give us a filtering mechanic because some of the options could be scry or surveil.

Here's a (very rough) sketch of what it might look like:

Gain 3 life, scry 2, and create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token. (Heights)
--
Gain 2 life and scry 1.
--
Gain 1 life.
--
(Center)
--
Mill a card.
--
Mill two cards and create a Treasure token.
--
Mill three cards, create two Treasure tokens, and target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn. (Depths)

[Levin]

Just my own two cents, but it might be possible to tie the weather cycle to altitude, then link weather to battlefield effects. Also, would it be possible to create an effect that cares about enchantments entering or leaving the battlefield, or making ally/enemy color race/faction interactions... Might add more on here…

[Venedrex]

Whelp. Like a certain someone on a certain social media platform, I stand corrected. I just realized something about AER. The set doesn't have equipment. We may need to toss rift after all, this set might be the wrong set for it. Since we have a mechanic that literally increases the amount of auras we have, I think the fact that AER had no equipment says something. Also I want enchantment creatures.

Back to the drawing board!

I'll drop another crazy idea because why not. The idea is to once again try and reward players for having lots of enchantments, and in this case, enchantments with different mana values. Small creatures want you to have small enchantments, and hopefully by the time you play the big creatures/spells you have big enchantments out. So it encourages choosing between playing on curve, or trying to set up for a better payoff by waiting a turn to play your three drop spell with Resound afterwards.

So I guess the aspect of the play pattern that is hopefully good is similar to things like kicker, where you choose between taking a turn off or spending more mana to get greater value versus just casting spells as normal.

However, all the permanents with the mechanic could still be played before you have the necessary enchantment, allowing you to still get the value by playing the right enchantment on a later turn.

Fingers crossed it interacts favorably with glorify. It does count the auras, but it should see them just like any other enchantment, not really being too synergistic hopefully. By its very nature it couldn't go on enchantments, but I think that is kind of a good thing, as it would theoretically serve as a reward for playing enchantments and go on everything that isn't an enchantment.

Could be hot garbage, but hey I figure there isn't any harm in throwing it out there to see if it has any potential.

It doesn't scale to infinity and beyond like mystical did, it's not a rehash, it seems like it doesn't have any problems with the set having lots of auras like rift did. Maybe it's worth checking out?

Resound — If you control an enchantment with the same mana value as this spell/permanent, [effect].

Other names include but not limited too: (Especially since Rebound exists)
Parallel
Mirrored
Reflected
Empower(ed)
Mystical

Dauthi Paladin
Creature — Dauthi Knight (R)
Resound — At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you control an enchantment with the same mana value as Dauthi Paladin, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.
1/1

Echoing Blast
Instant — (U)
Echoing Blast deals 3 damage to any target.
Resound — If you control an enchantment with the same mana value as Echoing Blast, it deals 4 damage instead.

Dual Destinies
Sorcery — (M)
Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Dual Destinies.
Resound — If you control an enchantment with the same mana value as Dual Destinies, take two extra turns instead, *however this would be worded, you get it*

Wormhole Crawler
Creature — Spider (R)
Vigilance
Parallel — , : Put a +1/+1 counter on Wormhole Crawler. Activate this ability only if you control an enchantment with the same mana value as Wormhole Crawler.
3/3



Also, flavor wise, we could use it as an excuse to make enchantment creatures that represent alternate versions the normal creatures, and trigger this effect, which is represents the alternate versions linking with the original ones. So if this plane is kind of a nexus (hehe) if you will of branching realities of enchantment magic, maybe this represents a link between Creature A from Reality/Plane A with Creature B from Reality/Plane B? Too crazy? Like the enchantment magic is a thread that is connecting multiple realities/planes together by nature of appearing in both?

So

Regular Spider Elf Dude
Creature — Elf Warrior (C)
Resound — Some effect blah blah
1/1

Alternate reality version of Spider Elf Dude that just so happens to be a flavorful way of triggering Resound
Enchantment Creature — Elf Warrior (C)
Some text blah blah
1/1