If you had been in charge of the whole Return to Ravnica block, both mechanics and flavor...

I think a Commander story with Teysa confirmed the original Ravnica block was less than a century ago. And like you said, Agents of Artifice still has the guilds dissolved and citizens trying to lynch what's left of Selesnya, for example.

I don't think it was that long, more like 50-100 at most. Enough for Simic to move away from their really esoteric bioshaping and suddenly have mermaids and fish as a theme.

Still, having more nods to the history of the plane and what caused some of the changes would have been nice, especially in place of some of the more bland guildless cards that they didn't do much with.

A good example is Zarichi tiger. It's a random creature that mentions some sort of priesthood of the same name that's never mentioned before and never heard from again.

That sort of space would be better used tying in to the earlier set or answering questions.

Don't know why I thought it was a long time ago. I must be conflating it with Kamigawa or something

>Fucking WoTC making the game less interactive

10 different cards that can't be countered and have maddeningly high ceilings

>How to break modern the post

The only part of RtR that was shit was the Azorius detain mechanic. An entire guild comprised of cards that blew their load right away and stopped being useful past the turn you cast them. While Orzhov is extorting you for days. What a fucking joke.

>There's 16 guys that play mono-blue control in my meta: the post

Niv-Mizzet eats Jace and that's pretty much it.
Jace tries his usual smug smirking bullshit, Niv pushes his shit it and then eats him for good measure.

simic was garbage with evolve having no real payoff in most scenarios.

golgari were likewise ass raped by poor planning
scavenge costs were all over the map.
some costing more than the creature being scavenged CMC and P/T combined.
at least corpsejack menace was a blast to play with, too bad he wasn't simic.
rakdos had arguably the worst mechanic.
jace needs to stay dead.

To fix:
GOLGARI
scavenge costs should be cheaper and creatures with it shouldn't cost large amounts to cast

SIMIC:
Evolve should work both ways, playing a creature smaller than an existing one should increase the existing ones power, where as playing a larger one should increase toughness.
creatures should get abilities when they get hit a certain P/T threshold.
E.G. trample/vigilance, even losing some would be neat E.G. losing flying if toughness gets too big but gaining trample if power is great enough.
have it work when enemies play creatures as well.

RAKDOS:
have unleash either give haste or first strike.
maybe double strike for some of the pricier mobs.
play fast, play hard, play risky.
as it stands a 1/1 counter is kind of shit.

honestly, MTG needs to stop wanking burn and control.

>wanking control
DrawGo is literally unviable in every format now. What do you casuals want?

Playable in pauper :^)

I don't mind it in conjunction with interesting creatures, artifacts and lands.
I guess I'm more interested in characters, objects and places.
struggling battles and quick decisions instead of
>lose life spell
>lose life spell
>lose life spell
>lose life spell
>now watch as I bring the pace of the game to a halt or make it a game of solitaire with control
I get that people enjoy different playstyles but the games rarely feels balanced in favor of other tactics. try playing mono blue versus mono green in most sets.
I had no idea things had changed, I haven't been into magic much since theros.
And you are correct I am pretty casual, mostly EDH with very little competitive experience outside of pre-release events.

So how bad are my ideas? I'm curious, feel free to trash them.

I hope people have learned by now that Return blocks are a mistake.

>feel free to trash them
Do you even know where you are?

I liked the RTR mechanics. The only one that I didn't like even in block constructed was Dimir. Spamming detain by self bouncing was neat for a little while at least.
I guess have a solid conclusion to the maze, because all I remember is that there was one but nothing really happened other than Ral getting booty blasted that he wasn't the runner.

>golgari
>raped

>Abrupt Decay
>Troll
>the 0 cost scavenge
>gravecrawler carrying through from last set

3rd set needed 3-color fixing for limited

Other than that, I liked RTR block.

But yeah maybe that Niv walker woulda been cool.

Where did blue touch you?

Jace and all the nuwalkers die within the first 10 words of the story.

Scrap the Guild Maze thing, that was utterly uninteresting. Go back to guild politics. Scrap the "oh hey merfolk are here suddenly and now run this shit" too. If we need merfolk have them be the result of Simic experimentation. Reformed Simic and semi-reformed Orzhov would have been cool. Referencing the characters that mattered in Ravnica instead of just jerking off Jace & co + the obligatory dragon would have been cool.

Basically anything but what they did.

Looking back, RTR the set was okay, The next two sets in the block were shit, though. Or maybe all the shit we get shovelled now is giving me rose-tinted glasses.

>mechanics
Make keywords less creature-centric.

You got how many card types in the game and the majority of the RTR block keywords either are mostly found on creatures or mostly interact only with creatures?

>lore
It was a complete trainwreck that retconned previous parts of Ravnica lore. Total do-over.

Is this like a weird vore thing?

Most likely, just ignore his magical realm suggestions.

>Scrap the Guild Maze thing, that was utterly uninteresting. Go back to guild politics.
Well something needs to HAPPEN, otherwise you're not telling a story, you're describing a setting. The maze was poorly handled though.

Yeah, ignore all things vaugly fetishy. People are obsessed with taking you to their magicl realm.

Half those cards make Esper and Grixis drastically better, fucking DrawGo cucks drop that persecution complex already.

Sure, absolutely, but the maze didn't need to happen. Dimir makes the Boros angels go crazy, Golgari uncovers a temple to Ravnica's sleeping worldsoul deep under the earth, Azorius accidentally Wraths a Selesnya convocation resulting in civil war, there's any number of stories to be told on that plane and none of them should have been JACE BELEREN -IS- THE GUILDPACT!!!!!

>JACE BELEREN -IS- THE GUILDPACT!!!!!
I would have been totally fine with that if it meant that Jace was trapped on Ravnica and we wouldn't have to see his fucking face in

Every.
Single.
Block.

Maybe now though we can have a RTRTR block where everything's gone to shit because Jace has been off fucking around on other planes, and then the Azorius trap him on Ravnica or something.

I hate the gatewatch as much as anybody else, but Jace is really exaggerated. He's had one PW card since since BFZ and it was in Shadows. Detective Jace I could see getting on people's nerves because Innistrad shouldn't be about him and everyone was more interested on what was going on with Avacyn anyways.

Nissa's the real problem. She was the KLD gameday mat for no reason.

Baby jace is a flipwalker and counts. Hes also the 2nd best jace to ever exist.

That was before BFZ.

Woops i need to get my brain checked

I wasn't specifically talking about planeswalker cards, just appearances and involvement in the storyline. I suppose we did get a merciful break from him for Theros and Khans blocks, but then he was in BFZ, SOI, KLD, and AKH blocks back to back. And we've seen him fucking spoiled in Ixalan too, because there is no escape from angsty blue-hooded hell.

Oh yeah, and Origins.

Am I a monster for designing a Wild West artifact based set?

>wild west
nice
>artifact
fuck off

Wild West should be all about instants and interrupting each other's instants.

He's directly involved in the stories of
>Zendikar
>Innistrad
>Return to Ravnica
>Origins
>Battle for Zendikar
>Shadows Over Innistrad
>Kaladesh
>Amonkhet
>Ixalan
In 11 years of fiction we have only been spared his presence three times and never for more than one set. People are justly burnt out on him.

As long as you have a Will Smith expy it should be fine

Tell us about it user!

Ravnica sucked, so i would definitely not do it.

I just noticed I only play mtg when jace is not in the block.

I never realized how,much I wanted a spell-slinging wild west block now.

Hell, it's the absolute perfect place to reprint Wild Richochet, and that basically sets the whole tone of the block right there.

SOM and SOI were good returns though.

Ive actually been brainstormig my own wild west type thing but I havent been able to really conceptualize how gunslinging would be characterized. People say spellslinging, but how exactly do you portray that in a visually cool way? Its weird visually imagining a one on one magic duels where the mages are at a standoff. I thought about just having guns but magic and sort of fantastical looking, maybe kinda like a focus or conduit for actual magic, but meh.

Step 1: Differentiate "imprinting" from "exile", with the stipulation that imprinted cards return to the hand after the card they imprint onto leaves play.

Step 2: Redesign mechanics around imprinting cards; Detain becomes Detain X, where the imprinted card returns to play after X turns. Cipher cards cost 1 less mana (Paranoid Delusions becomes U/B split instead of one of each). Bloodrush cards imprint instead of being one-time buffs, and gain the added stipulation of moving wherever the host does. Scavenge imprints, and can confer abilities as well, with the stipulation of being exiled instead of returning to the hand.

Step 3: Buff other mechanics. Extort becomes "Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay X [B/W], where X is the number of Extort triggers already paid for on this spell. If you paid this cost, drain life from each other player equal to the number of permanents with Extort you control". Populate doubles the number of a certain type of token, encouraging wider playstyles and giving it more relevance. Unleash creatures gain haste when they unleash.

Step 4: Give the mechanics a way of "leaving the block". Cards that give your spells Cipher or Overload, give your creatures Bloodrush, Evolve, or Detain, and so on.

Step 5: Turn the Implicit Maze into something planted by the Yore or the Nephilim, and end with the Guildpact breaking and the Nephilim getting loose.

Well, recall that spells in MtG don't always represent axtual magic. Sometimes they represent a physical act. Fling is a good example in many iterations.

Mtg does try and avoid depicting guns a lot of the time, though you might be able to squeeze by with having repeater crossbows. Alternatively, you could also focus on other thrown weapons and have people tossing knives, darts, playing cards, boomerangs, or whatever else. Cannons or more primitive gunpowder rockets could get a pass. Wands of course are an easy solution

The key is to have a lot of short ranged weapons that can still be used from a distance, but also in rapid succession. Have it so people are slinging all kinds of different weapons, but you still have showdowns.

Gunslinger creatures/gun artifacts that enable bullet spells and add different properties to them, based on who is firing the bullet.

I'm mostly a limited player, but I thought shadows+eldrazi moon was one of the better limited environments in recent history. Pretty deep, lots of angles, every color pair was at least possibly competitive.

maybe you are judging on OP's "mechanics and flavor", cuz I don't give a fuck about flavor.

Outside of shadows/eldrazi moon, I agree entirely

put this guy in charge, mtg will be yugioh in 3 years.

That would be an improvement.

Wizards doesnt like to do guns, and while I can do anything I want, I think "how can i conceptually portray gunslinging/spellslinging without actual bulleylt shooting guns" is an interestig limitation to think about.
Well yeah, but on that stand off card, for example, what would actually be a
shown? I never thought about having a variety of of weapons. That could work but I feel like it doesnt quite capture the idea of a certain kind of fighting being the way problems are solved, and the two people are on even grounds and have to use that method to take out the other. But its an idea.

I would say it could be anything the two people like to personally use, and,then perhaps the common rules of the land are thay such showdowns are done with weapons sheathed at 20 paces.

Perhaps the intent was to be done with swords and ensure nobody went for a surprise attack, but then somebody tossed a knife, it was declares valid, and everyone went over to this new fighting style. Those who coulsnt use knives practiced quickdrawing crossbows instead.

It fits well, as the Wild West has quite a mishmash of different individuals along with an emphasis on freedom. That gives the plane some Red leanings, so having everyone use a more individualistic fighting style rather than one uniform standard works, even if they go for it in the same way.

White and Blue would trend more towards being uniform with crossbows and wands, while Red would use most anything. Black would probably try to cheat the system by using something that didn't look like a weapon, and enhancing it with magic or poison.

>Green would be good-old fisticuffs
>GW martial artists
>GB brawlers who sucker punch people or use nailed gloves/brass knuckles
>GU mages that Jeckyll-and-Hyde for fights

I was personally thinking that green would be survivalists or natives who used bows and didn't bother with duels, though I think both fit.

Mainly because the idea of someone bringing a fist to a 'gunfight' and winning is amazing. Also allows for a bit of Shanghai Noon

Thats funny, the current conceit of my world is that somehow many people were transported, maybe all at once, maybe theyre still coming over time, to the plane that was at one point only inhabited by beastfolk. Not married to it and I dont exactly know how or what would be the cause or causing that, but its where Ive started. That would sort of justify the wild frontier feel and also gives the indians to the cowboys, but that would also work well with your idea if the allowance of different weapon types over time. People would be still trying to figure things out. In other words it kinda fits.

The martial arts/bare hands fighting styles could have originated from the natives and been taught to survivalists, hermits, etc.

Yeah. Perhaps as well Green could include traditionalists who still dueled with swords, assuming the 'rule change' happened within tue last century and certain groups disagreed with it

Yeah, it all depends a bit in what you've set up so far, but all you really need to do is justify why almost everyone is running around with little to no armor and using ranged weapons almost exclusively.

Zendikar and Innistrad and Return to Ravnica happened two years apart each buddy.

Every single member of the Gatewatch has been present for the other sets you've mentioned. Well done.

I touched on the fact that they had a few great cards(E.G. corpsejack menace) but that doesn't change the fact that they're mostly bad because, as I also stated, costs were all over the place and inconsistent, as confirmed by 0 cost scavenge and cards like
magiccards.info/rtr/en/122.html
magiccards.info/rtr/en/129.html
magiccards.info/rtr/en/80.html
magiccards.info/rtr/en/84.html
you pretty much have to have varolz/troll early or you're too slow to keep up. heaven forbid all that work goes to waste when someone bounces your creature to drop the scavenge buffs and all your exiles are gone.
Those over cheap cards are almost an apology for the rest being trash.

I remember something placing it long ago, too.

Remove Jace.

Bloodrush is amazingly fun and Ghor-Clan Rampager is an amazingly fun card.

That's gotta be one of the better cycles to. 5 fringe or better modern playables.

I loved the whole control plus unblockable thing they had, plus the recurring wheel was fun.

My take at wild west plane theming

Major focus/minor focus for each color

W - Law men, priests
U - Inventors, engineers
B - Outlaws, hangmen
R - Indians, desperados
G - Cowboys, miners

UW - Politicians
UB - Undertakers
UR - Snakeoil salesmen types
UG - Wildmen, living off the land in the wilderness
WG - Cattle drivers
WB - Ghosts
WR - Feds, soldiers
BR - Cannibals
GR - Wild beasts
BG - Cultists

I personally would have gone with Indians as Green instead, having R cover the more neutral gunslingers between the W sheriffs and B outlaws. U being aligned with some sort of big monolithic rail company could be interesting, especially if they're constantly researching other methods of travel.

It feels like a block that wouldn't lend itself as well to 10 dual colored factions though. A lot of the things you listed feel like they could just be one-off cards, like having a few green and red cards to cover wildlife in general instead of needing a specific group.

>A lot of the things you listed feel like they could just be one-off cards, like having a few green and red cards to cover wildlife in general instead of needing a specific group.

That was exactly my intention

Ah, my bad then. I am really liking the sound of a wild west set though.

To be honest how I've been concepting it, I haven't really coded in factions or anything. There's gonna be gangs and stuff but I think each is gonna be on a flavor basis. Lawmen are obviously white and such and red are the vigilantes and such and those are clear but I think in general for me it's gonna be a trope per trope, card by card basis. Ixalan also seems to be color faction based though in a different way than Alara for example. Maybe you could get inspired by that. Ialan seems to have four Rivals of Ixalan, with the Naya natives, the catholic WB. Make sure the number of instances is balanced in the end, but the factions can be any combination of colors. That way I think they can feel more organic and you aren't pigeonholed into making each faction work in specific colors.

Really like your idea of "the company" trying to control things. Think mining towns where all the stores were owned by the same people who owned the mines and they'd be making profit off of you twice.

Maybe some kind of central set mechanic of law/disorder with the obvious cards like sheriffs being stronger when there's more order and other cards like bandits being stronger when there's less order.

A mechanic called DRAW that decided duels....when you DRAW a card. Maybe comparing the two you reveal?

Clint Eastwood legendary.

Clash is actually fucking perfect for a wild west theme world. Except for the part that Wizards thinks Clash is shit. Fuck.

>Maro puts Clash and Threshold on the same level as fucking phasing
JUST

Artifacts as guns tho.

Litereally equip 5 Guns onto your Grizzly Bear

I feel like the colors could be focused quite cleanly. White is the government and their order of Knight-sheriffs, who try and keep the peace and stop troublemakers. Blue is the rail company maintaining the transportation tech, but aren't too concerned with the populace as long as they can turn a profit for their mysterious research. Black is the outright lawbreakers, murderers, and notorious outlaws. Red is the more vigilante style outlaws, bounty hunters, and more good-hearted crooks, those who'll happily mess with the company to get on their badside but aren't as bad as the outright killers. Green is the natives and ranchers who prefer the wide open space of the land. While they don't get along well, they like the expansion and exploitation of the other colors less.

A law/chaos mechanic might be a bit clunky to include on a grand scale. Best way I could see would be to have it work in a similar way to Devotion, with White mana counting for law and Black counting for lawbreaking, though that constricts things by making big swathes of cards not matter if nobody is running either color.

As for duels, I really prefer the idea that the set is focused around spellslinging as a whole. I feel like there should be a lot of cheap, instant speed cantrips and redirect effects that can result in pretty extended 'shootouts' of both players trying to counteract what their opponent is doing.

Clash would work well for the cards that are designed to be a strict showdown, but I think part of the reason it wasn't a very good mechanic is that they're very boring cards if you don't win. I feel they would work better if the cards were 'clash, if you win, X, if you lose, Y'. That might cause the cards to be a bit wordy, but it could work by having winning be a strong combo effect while losing results in a more generic bonus. Like a card that gives a creature +3/+3 by default, trample if you win, and has you draw a card if you lose, for example.

I think the raiding/scalping aspect would better fit R than G. Unless they're riding giant buffalos or something.

I was thinking a nice fix would be something like parley where you/both/all players actually draw the card. Parley would almost work but it isnt really a "competition" then and the flavor is wrong anyway.

I disagree. Green is all about that sort of tribalism. While there might be some bleedover with Red, I see it as being more about trying to stop these outsiders from building these huge railways over their land, rather than just angrily attacking because they're goblins and feel like it.

I guess your take on it is going all-in on the Spirit Tracks plane.

Eh, not so much. There are the railways, but there's also mines, towns, settlers, farmers, and other people they wouldn't like suddenly trying to build on their land.

I just feel Green fits better if you want to go for indians over Red, unless you want them to basically be cartoonish barbarians. Either way, Red also feels like it fits better for the stereotypical Cowboy or Bounty Hunter who isn't working for the law though also isn't a remorseless killer.

I don't think emphasizing the raiding makes them cartoony

Nice digits. Having each player draw a card helps a little, but I still think it would feel like you're getting shafted and letting your opponent get ahead when you play one of those cards.

I mean, just look at most of the list and you see a lot of cards that range from mediocre to good if you win, but are just awful if you lose. I think making it more of a win/win would help a lot in that respect.

To use pic related as an example, there's obviously a strong combo if you win. You get two tokens at instant speed that'll kill off two attackers with ease. If you don't though? You just chump-blocked a couple things in exchange for holding up 3 mana instead of trying to advance your boardstate.

But say instead, if gave you some extra life if you lost? While it wouldn't have been the kill combo you were hoping for, it does mean that your chump blocking card might have bought you more than just that one turn. Even if it's not too useful, it would still feel better because at least you'd get -something-

I think it does, at least in the sense that it boils them down to being about raiding and nothing else. Red isn't the only color that can go up to someone they dislike and take their things by force.

Green better gets across they motivations of why they're choosing to raid these people to begin with. Having them be Red feels like it implies that before the settlers showed up, they were just constantly raiding eachother because there was nobody else present. Green would still imply the possibility for that if there were multiple tribes, since things probably weren't perfectly peaceful before, but defining them as Red feels like it's angling them as overly aggressive and warlike.

Im trying to see if I can find an explanation for why clash was considered so bad to try and fix that that its about as low as modern mechanics go on the storm scale go but the only explanation I can find from the horses mouth is that it was a timmy mechanic timmy didnt like, and spike hated the randomness but liked that it deck smoothed. So it wasnt exciting enough and the good point of it was too subtle and obscured.

I guess I could see that. Timmy wouldn't like it because if they loaded up their deck with fat creatures, they would get annoyed when they 'drew' one, but had to shuffle it back in, even if it gave them a bonus on some other card.

Perhaps instead, an alternative Clash mechanic could be each player putting a card from their hand face down, and then revealing and comparing those before getting them back? That gives each player a bit more control and also adds in a bit of strategy to it if you're willing to lose on the effect but keep a stronger card concealed.

Even so, I do feel like these 'duel' cards should be more sparse, maybe make them a cycle or two with one in each color

Google also found me a post about how maro thinks its a lot of busy work. Not exactly sure what that means.

Probably the fact that you have to play it, both players draw, both players show off and compare, and then both players have to shuffle.

For some of the enchantments that made you clash every turn, I could see that being tedious, especially if you were building a deck around clashing as often as possible.

Maro hates everything good and likes dumb bullshit so that sounds about right.

Reminder that Jace is _REALLY_ good at chess.

Isn't it cheating when you can read your opponent's mind though?

Are you inferring that a blue mage would cheat, friend?

>very little competitive
>pre-release

Pre-release is literally the most casual sanctioned event

Nice reading comprehension.
Did you miss the line just below
>I had no idea things had changed, I haven't been into magic much since theros?