John and I had briefly discussed the idea of designing our own set as a group and then drafting with it. While this usually wouldn't be possible in the real world due to not having physical versions of the cards, we could actually, with a good bit of help, and probably a weekend or two slowly working at it, create a good collection of "permanent proxies". I know Don knows how to make fake foils, and I feel like the same process could be applied to non-foil cards. There'd be an initial investment cost of course, a crap ton of basic lands and commons and money for ink and transparency sheets.

Though there'd be a good bit of time involved in the process of putting our designs on paper, the biggest chunk of time would go into designing the set itself. We'd need enough designers and some people to search for or make art for the set too. The hardest part would be making a set that is actually fun to draft, is balanced, and is worth our time.

I'm mainly posting this topic to see what interest there is in actually going about this whole process, so if you are interested in either a position as a designer or an artist -no clue if there are any artists in the club- go ahead and post here.

i want in as a designer, an i will throw in a metric ton of awful commons for proxies. You guys need to figure out the world that it takes place in and the general themes of the set. also do we want it top down like scars and innistrad or more mechanics focused like original mirrodin?

Well, since this is going to be a limited set, the best way I can think of to do it would be to go for bottom-up mechanics focus. In addition, staying away from creating new mechanics would be great.

I love the simplicity of drafting M12, even if I do kind of suck at it, but it almost loses some of the potential fun in the pure simplicity of it. I really would love a good number of mono-colored cards with a fair number of multicolored ones too. Either allied or enemy colors, avoiding tricolors as much as possible since that makes drafting damn hard.

new mechanics really are a must imho, with that said a simple format is also nice, i think we could probably do both

Well, okay. New mechanics may require some top-down flavor basis then.

Any ideas for the plane we base the set on? I kind of like the potential idea of something based loosely on America and the different regions of the United States, like Americana, or something, though getting art for that would be fucking hard.

Chris, Noah, Rob and I did this two years ago. I think I found the set .doc on an old hard drive if you want to take a look at what we came up with.

If this project begins to manifest, then plan to include me. It'd be a great way for me to stay involved in the club during my hiatus in Pittsburgh.

I wouldn't mind helping find art to match cards made by the design team. I also don't mind helping bring the cards to life on Magic Set Editor.

If this does happen, I would definitely plan a trip back to State College for the weekend that we plan to cut out proxies/draft our set.

Great Idea! :metal

Well, anyone have any fantasy ideas for a plane? It'd be great to have some basis to make stuff off of, otherwise we'd just be making random crap.

In addition, TheDarkFuzz (since I'm not sure what your name is...), that'd be great.

americana sounds fantastic, political undertones abound.

Other than that, a prehistoric meets ancient civilization style set may not be bad. Dinosaurs vs aztec style cat warriors(think nacatl)vs egyptian mummies sounds too good not to do.

Or just prehistoric/aztec/egyptian by themselves

norse block may not be bad(ice age kinda did it, but not wholeheartedly imho)

PLANESUHHHHHWALKUUUUUHHHHHH block begs to be done, it could be set on multiple planes or the non planes walkers could be some kind of interplanar beings.

also an enchantment block has not been done, (and if you count urza's i call bullshit)

you should make a poll with your 5 or so favorite ideas and let people vote for multiple ideas

Theme Ideas

Outer Space: Aliens, Space Ships, Planets, Robots, etc.

Super Hero/Villain Universe: Super Powers, Villain Traps, etc.

Underwater Universe: Merfolk main tribe, Off-Colored Tribes (Similar to Innistrad)

A set based on another story/cartoon/movie/game: Zelda, Lord of the Rings, etc.

I like the Ancient Egypt Idea too, but may come off too Yugioh-like.

A world where Dragons are romanticized and plentiful in all 5 colors. Where all the dragons are in power and status of Nicol Bolas and can speak, walk, etc. I dunno. I'm running out of ideas.

as long as we avoid "blue eyed- three armed dark pharoh" or "mega buster pyramid lizard" i think we'll be fine.

ALSO WE CAN ASSEMBLE SOME CONTRAPTIONS!

in all serious though, i really want americana to fire off.

Some possible "tribes"

natives-maybe human, maybe elf. Probably in green(greatest tie to the land). The story will likely mirror our founding in some way with them getting fairly screwed. Maybe have the peaceful/helpful tribes bleed into white, and the more aggressive/territorial tribes bleed into red

Colonist- likely humans, probably all colors because while they do have their philosophies for the most part they are all their own people. Puritans in white. Gold seekers in black/red(mostly red). Seafarers and slave traders in blue and black(THE RACE JOKES STOP RIGHT FUCKING NOW, im no political correctness nazi, but the jokes will get real fucking old real fucking fast)

The British equivalent- Same race as colonists, maybe some demonic/contract based overtones. Will likely end up in U/B

Other european equivalents- a mixed bag with identity depending on a handful of factors, potentially all colors.

This set will likely stretch up until US history becomes too modern for an effective fantasy setting, this was just me spitballing the 1700-1800 era

Tracked down the MSE file (also the txt, which is basically a pile of confusing garbage). Not sure how to attach things to post here though...is there a good site for upload/downloading?

Have Dropbox? If not, http://db.tt/zDYdUlv

Okay, so what about an underground themed block? Everything happens underground on the world because the sun(s) above are so oppressive that everything just dies. Could be some neat flavor. Art may be hard to find, but we could try.

Hey, TheDarkFuzz (since I still don't know your name somehow...), if you want to right click on the file once you've dropped it in your Public folder in Dropbox and click "Copy public link" you can paste that link here and everyone'll be able to download it.

That is the information I was looking for!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40737548/Rivening/...0MASTER.mse-set

That's openable with Magic Set Editor. Otherwise, there's this confusing .txt document.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40737548/Rivening/Rivening.txt

Enjoy!

ps since you don't know my name you may address me as Sir or Your Eminence.

double ps we made this in 2008 so we actually came up with Chain Reaction before it was a card. Also, Skinchanger.

this set definitely has josh's touch

"hoo boy flavortext" classic

That is a very interesting set.

lol xkcd today, sooooo relevant

I like the idea of Fortifactions. The silly land equipment. The set's going to be about exploring and settling the unknown, so why the hell not?

So, I'm totally willing to help gear the progression of this project. If everyone agrees that we build our set starting with these cards, I wouldn't mind trying to find pictures.

All I need is the "Okay" and I'll spend the week finding pics for most of the cards. I'll save them and post the Magic Set Editor doc.

Sounds great, it looks like we have our heart set on young america. In other words revolutionary through cowboys(focusing mostly on the aspects of manifest destiny).

Try not to make it overtly american, as this is not america but a set that is based on early american ideals.

Native american elves, train barons, forts, and the beautiful forest areas of america are among the art pieces i foresee needing.

Americana doesn't really excite me. Throw some steampunk in there, maybe we'll talk.

That said, the other thing you need is the card slot charts. This many colored cards, this many multicolored, this many artifact, this many land. And then under each of those, this many cards at CMC 1, 2, 3 etc and then this many removal, utility, aggro, control, combo.

Noah worked them out last time. I might have them in an old notebook somewhere but more likely you'll just have to figure them out again.

I vote we go all laissez faire on the card slots and let the free market work it out, y'know to fit the theme.

(isn't that what they did with m12 anyway?)

Okay, ignoring the laissez faire idea, I propose the following.

Each color:
2 Mythics of any type

5 Rare creatures
3 Rare non-creature spells
1 Rare land
1 Rare, colored fortification

7 Uncommon creatures
7 Uncommon non-creature spells

9 Common creatures
6 Common non-creature spells
1 Common Land

Artifacts:
8 Equipment
8 Fortifications
7 Creatures
11 Non-creature artifacts

Extra: 5 cards for wiggle

potential design flaw for fortifications: they dont really feel any different than a normal artifact that needs to be activated to start doing things. Why would we ever want to move a fortification around? Equipment are cool because they are switched from creature to creature with a purpose. Would we ever bother doing that with a fortification?

Just a thought.

Well, shit then. You are quite right. Hm...

oh cmon, dont give up, all we need to do is make them do different things on different lands, or "deplete" lands resources.

Such as a mine fortification that get two gold every time a mountain taps for mana(and one for each other type of land) but puts a depletion counter on it and when it has a certain number the land no longer provides gold