The Shattered Realm: Mechanical

[void_nothing]

Cutting the knot would be "Enchantment Artifact - Favor Equipment", but that's a cramped typeline and also dilutes the identity of what we're trying to go for. This is an enchantments-themed set, not an Auras and Equipment-themed one.

[Venedrex]

Gotcha, sounds good. I figured sticking to enchantments was the way to go, but I brought up the equipment just in case it was useful. Equipment are usually better than auras anyway so no worries from me on that front. And I didn't realize that there would have to be a separate subtype so, that's the only reason I suggested it, I was still laboring under the delusion that enchantments and artifacts could have the same subtype, so without that being the case, it doesn't make sense to dilute the mechanic.

I do really like the fact that Glorify will enable having draft archetypes like auras without having the A + B problem in limited. Speaking of which, the other day I was thinking of limited archetypes, and I had a radical idea. What if, we made UW... fliers. I was thinking, it is literally the most obvious archetype, but I think of all planes, sky plane should have a flying matters archetype.

I think as the lore develops, archetypes will start to appear as we go on as well.

To sum things up, I think all we need to focus on at this point is, figure out our last mechanic, then start exploring what we want limited archetypes to be if that sounds good to everyone.

I also think that gameplay wise the mechanics we have encourage good things. Glorify rewards players for playing with auras and ups our as-fan of enchantments, Rift rewards players for playing with enchantments in general, and Exalted encourages players to attack and not just sit back all game. So like slimytrout said, if we just had maybe one more filtering mechanic we have lot's of great incentives for players to hopefully foster good games of limited.

I also wanted to say thank you to slimytrout. Today I took some time to really dig into Glorify as a mechanic and run through some scenarios with it. and... all I can say is, I have become convinced that it is a banger of a mechanic. I think players will have a really fun time with it, and the sheer versatility it affords is exactly what this set needs. I myself am excited to play with it from a player's perspective.

So thank you for the awesome suggestion. Also thank you to silver_skeleton and void_nothing for your equally awesome contributions, with exalted and fleshing out the lore and submitting a bunch of great ideas.

[slimytrout]

I also wanted to say thank you to slimytrout. Today I took some time to really dig into Glorify as a mechanic and run through some scenarios with it. and... all I can say is, I have become convinced that it is a banger of a mechanic. I think players will have a really fun time with it, and the sheer versatility it affords is exactly what this set needs. I myself am excited to play with it from a player's perspective.

I've been traveling recently so haven't had much free time to engage here, but I very much appreciate your kind words and also am excited to make glorify (or whatever name we come up with) work. The ability to "make your own creature" feels like it will be fun and novel in a way that mutate never quite captured (at least for me).

[Venedrex]

So, I have been mulling over draft archetypes, and I'm curious what everyone is thinking? The standard 10 two color draft archetypes?












I figure we most likely don't want to do Streets of New Capenna/Khans of Tarkir three color focus, we probably don't want to have a monocolor focus like Theros, which leaves us with the standard ten two color archetypes if I am not mistaken. Especially since we presumably have the five main kingdoms in enemy colors, which would point towards not being in three color for that reason alone.

[void_nothing]

Yup, ten bicolor is what we should be going for based on the set structure.

[void_nothing]

Okay, quick mechanical check-in:
- Exalted
- Rift
- Glorify/Favors (pending a name change to be less similar in connotation to exalted?)
- Non-Aura-related enchantment mechanic?
- Non-enchantment mechanic?

[Venedrex]

Okay, quick mechanical check-in:
- Exalted
- Rift
- Glorify/Favors (pending a name change to be less similar in connotation to exalted?)
- Non-Aura-related enchantment mechanic?
- Non-enchantment mechanic?

I have to go for work so I won't be posting but I'll try to respond tonight.

[slimytrout]

I feel like two enchantment-based mechanics are probably sufficient, and the main thing we're missing is some sort of filtering mechanic. I personally would love to match said mechanic with the feeling of the "depths."

I also did have another idea (one which hopefully hasn't already been suggested) which is for an exalted enchantment token which could come as a bonus on spells and abilities.

[void_nothing]

Predefined tokens don't actually come with that much baggage as far as mechanics go - I would say maybe half that of a keyword - so I'm more than fine with that. Actually, it's a design tool I'd love to have for this set. (Maybe the token could be a generic Favor/whatever type replaces Favor? Or would that cause confusion because the cards are Auras and the token's a non-Aura enchantment?)

[Venedrex]

Yeah, I kind of agree with slimy, I think we should probably stick with two enchantment-based mechanics, whatever they are. I do really like aura tokens as mechanic, but I think we may need to hold off on them for this set unless we restructure things significantly.

I think we could make them work, but in my mind it would involve getting rid of both rift and glorify and designing a new mechanic that cares less about the total number of enchantments you control and is not also competing for slots such as instant or sorcery spell that also produces an aura, which I figure is taken right now by glorify,

IMHO if we made an enchantment token in the vein of power stones or food, it would be too much synergy with rift, and compete for the same card slots as glorify. As far I can tell, sets that focus on either artifacts or enchantments seem to follow a consistent pattern of having two mechanics to support the main type.

To be completely honest, rift might be on the chopping block regardless of aura tokens, simply because I'm not sure what the right metrics are. AER is only real set I have to reference in terms of how much additional support Rift should or shouldn't have so, it might be something we end up cutting due to not playing well with just about everything.

AER had 45 artifacts, but, it was a small expansion so that messes with the math big time. STX had 128 (paraphrasing) or so some odd instant and sorceries but it was a normal set. However, when I calculated the percentages of lessons to total instants and sorceries compared to the percentages of vehicles to AER's total artifacts the percentages were eerily close.



BRO had Powerstones and Prototype
STX had Learn/Lesson and Magecraft
TBD had Sagas and Constellation
Theros had Constellation and Bestow
AER had Vehicles and Improvise

All that to say, I do love enchantment tokens, but I think we may be better served just making a small non-keyworded cycle of them, or going back to the drawing board if we want to get them in the set. Of course, I could be totally out of my mind, but from the patterns I can observe, Wotc seems to think this system of twos works, with one mechanic being the setup and the other being the payoff. But hey, maybe we shake things up and do three as an experiment.

Now I just realized this is literally me right now:

[void_nothing]

Just to be clear, I don't think slimytrout or myself is suggesting Aura tokens at all, but predefined enchantment tokens with "just" exalted. (This is borrowing from a common custom card idea, Sigil artifact tokens - I think our own JovialJovian is one of the people who independently came up with this idea, if not the first.)

I love rift, I think it'd be a great hook, and it's this set's major Spike mechanic. If you think enchantment tokens would make rift too dominant/"this spell always costs the minimum" a la the worst brokenness of delve, I definitely hear that concern, and I'm not married to any nonkeyworded themes at all, to say nothing of enchantment tokens.

[Venedrex]

Just to be clear, I don't think slimytrout or myself is suggesting Aura tokens at all, but predefined enchantment tokens with "just" exalted. (This is borrowing from a common custom card idea, Sigil artifact tokens - I think our own JovialJovian is one of the people who independently came up with this idea, if not the first.)

I love rift, I think it'd be a great hook, and it's this set's major Spike mechanic. If you think enchantment tokens would make rift too dominant/"this spell always costs the minimum" a la the worst brokenness of delve, I definitely hear that concern, and I'm not married to any nonkeyworded themes at all, to say nothing of enchantment tokens.

Oh for sure, I gotcha. I just feel like if you make a predefined token with something, you use it in bulk. So for me anyway, if you wanted like five or so enchantments with exalted, you'd just make it a regular cycle. But if you keyword it, then it becomes something like food or treasures. The way my lizard brain processes things is, you give something a keyword you go whole hog. I mean, you could do like runes and just make five of them I suppose.

[void_nothing]

Sure, totally valid point! We can easily hash it out.

[slimytrout]

Yeah, I am by no means married to the idea of exalted tokens, just figured it might provide two benefits a) allow greater synergy between enchantment themes and exalted and b) allow us to effectively put exalted on instants/sorceries in a way that wasn't previously possible. The one other thing is that there doesn't necessarily need to be a predefined token, you could just have some number of cards that say "create a white enchantment token named Praise with exalted" or something like that.

Separately regarding rift, I think it's a great mechanic but my one concern is about how we can make it not play like a once-per-turn version of affinity for enchantments, especially if we're not having a lot of (or any) enchantment creatures. With improvise or convoke there's a bit more of a cost of tapping your artifacts or creatures because then you can't use them for other purposes, but I worry that for rift the tendency will be for folks to just use rift in their second main phase after attacking at which point the auras or other enchantments have already "done their job." I don't think that's a reason to get rid of the mechanic, but it is something I wanted to bring up.

[void_nothing]

Alright, if we theoretically cut rift, what would we replace it with? Something with a similar concept? Most likely another directly enchantment-related mechanic, right?

[Venedrex]

Alright, if we theoretically cut rift, what would we replace it with? Something with a similar concept? Most likely another directly enchantment-related mechanic, right?

I'd imagine something like this. Not in terms of the effect itself, but in terms of being a mechanic that rewards you for playing with enchantments. Just some sort of of something that goes on enchantments to spice them up.
Hulking Metamorph

As far as the tokens go, I think my main question is regarding double dipping. IMHO glorify is the mechanic that you would put on an instant or sorcery if you wanted to bring a friend enchantment. So I'm not sure if we really need two mechanics that occupy such similar space. Regarding cross-synergy with exalted, I was always under the impression that we would just have enchantments in the set that have exalted.

I guess what I am trying to convey is, it seems weird to me to have exalted enchantment tokens if we also have glorify that brings a new subtype of aura. Especially because, as a player, if I see a mechanic that is as cool and exciting as glorify is, I'm not going to be nearly as impressed with a mechanic in the same set that only gets me a plain predefined token versus one of 15 cool auras in my sideboard. I was under the impression that if we wanted to make an instant or sorcery that brings an enchantment, we'd make:
Giant Growth Growth
Instant — (C)
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn. Glorify it.

Giant Growth Growth
Instant — (C)
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn. Create a Sigil token.

That's my concern in a nutshell. I feel like we should pick one or the other instead of doubling down on a role that has already been filled.

If we didn't have glorify, I'd be totally down for a mechanic like:

When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, create a Sigil token.

But I just feel like the two mechanics would eat other rather then help each other because both mechanics occupy the same space.

When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, glorify.

P.S. Regarding enchantment creatures in the set, I figured we'd have them regardless just because in my mind just like every artifact focused set has artifact creatures, we'd have enchantment creatures. I'm still totally on board for yoinking rift, but I think even if we do yeet it, we should still have enchantment creatures.

[slimytrout]

(Started this before seeing Venedrex's post and have to go do something else now, so just going to post it as is.)

Yeah, I do like the space of a Spike-y mechanic that rewards you for playing enchantments. Right now rift is performing more of a tempo role, but potentially we could move the rift slot to be more of a filtering mechanic, which is something we don't have right now? One simple version is something like:

Riftwatch (At the beginning your upkeep, you may phase out an enchantment you control. If you do, scry 1)

If we want to stay with tempo, we could try something like:

Glamour (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may phase out an enchantment you control. If you, this creature gets +1/+1 and gains haste until end of turn.)

Obviously it's a bit awkward that it only goes on creatures, but maybe there's a way to broaden it somehow?

[Venedrex]

Interesting interesting. Yeah, I guess I'm of the persuasion that if we want a tempo mechanic, we can just start from the ground up. silver_skeleton brought up a shifted version of metal craft which I think could be interesting.

Radiant Vanguard
Creature — (U)
Enchantmentcraft If you control three or more enchantments, Radiant Vanguard gets +1/+1 and has vigilance.
1/1

Or we could do a bunch of mechanics.

I'm cool with a lot of different takes, but here's my general stance right now:

I don't think we should have three enchantment mechanics. I don't think we should have a mechanic that makes enchantment tokens + glorify in the same set. I'm cool with doing something like Glorify + New mechanic, or Predefined token + New Mechanic, Or Rift + Glorify.

To be clear, I really like predefined tokens. But the closest example is BRO. And in bro, they didn't have invent/invention + powerstones, + Prototype. So, to me, we don't want to add mechanics to fill holes in the set that have already been filled. I think players will get the message with just two mechanics, and even if we only use the third in small doses, I feel like at that point why not just make it a cycle of cards in the set.

To be perfectly honest, I think we would be fine just having Glorify and Rift. Or we could do Glorify and new mechanic. Or Sigil tokens and new mechanic. So we have a ton of options. The challenge is making sure we pick the right one. But I'm sure we can figure something out.

And this is where playtesting comes in. Maybe we playtest, and rift is bad gameplay, so we yeet it out of the set make a new mechanic, which I think would work fine. Maybe glorify is great and we decide we really want it no matter what we have to shift. (which, if my initial thoughts are correct, might be the case.)

Right now, I think glorify is our most exciting mechanic. We might need to get rid of rift, but I don't think that is an issue. I think there lots of potential mechanics that could fill in for rift. Honestly, I think what were encountering is the favorite toy conundrum. We like all these mechanics, but we have to narrow it down, and we get the task of finding combos.

For instance, Enchantmentcraft doesn't work well with Sigil tokens, but it would probably be OK with a different mechanic.
And sigil tokens might work well with Enchantmentprototype, but not with Glorify.

So that's where I feel like we are at right now, and I think our focus should really digging in and crunching the numbers to try and choose IMHO 2 enchantments that mesh well together and reinforce the set and it's themes. And maybe this is an incredibly enchantment focused set where we jack up the mechanics to 3. Since theros was a wishy washy enchantment set, maybe we dial it up and go with three enchantment mechanics. But they all have to help each other, and not be filling the same slot as the other.

Maybe we do Glorify, and new mechanic, and another new mechanic.

[Venedrex]

Got a new idea everybody! *Audible groans* (Yeah I know, but this is what I do don't ya love it)

I've been thinking. *I know I know thank you I do it on occasion*

What do you think about making enchantments (or really any permanent) a little more flexible?

Underspire Shrouds
Enchantment — (R)
Whenever X or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, you may pay X life. If you do, draw X cards, where X is equal to the number of strand counters on Underspire Shrouds.
: reweave. (You may add or remove a strand counter from a permanent you control.)

The basic idea is you have permanent mostly enchantments in this case with a certain type of counter. But the neat thing is, all these permanents have a way, maybe it doesn't cost any mana, to tune themselves. I thought about calling this frequency counters, but that sounded too modern. So basically just oil or charge counters, but you can go up or down depending on the situation. I don't know, might be a garbage idea.

Right now I'm just exploring ideas for making enchantments more flexible. I think my biggest gripe against enchantments is that they just sit on the battlefield. I wonder if we can come up with something to make more interactive, however that looks. The more I think about it, the more this just feels like bargain bin oil counters. Dang it back to the drawing board.

In my head I just wish we could have some sort of a mechanic that makes you play a bit of a subgame when your enchantments that keeps them exciting and different every turn rather than just CREATURES YOU CONTROL GET +1+1. The end.

I thought about the idea of unlocking new features, but that just starts to feel like classes. I also considered the idea of enchantments that link up for extra benefit, but that becomes shrines pretty quickly. One idea I had is probably really crazy but it basically involves making patterns with your enchantments to get rewards. So you, connect them somehow? I'm probably going off the deep end here.

Hmm, so far I haven't been able to come up with anything that is better than what we've already discussed I feel. Maybe the focus should be designing a mechanic that goes well with Glorify to replace rift and go from there?

[Venedrex]

Hang on a minute. What about a simple counting mechanic?

Mystical X effect, where X is equal to the number of enchantments you control.

Arcane Mage
Creature — Human Wizard (C)
Mystical — When Arcane Mage enters the battlefield, scry X, where X is equal to the number of enchantments you control.
2/2

It would go well with the favors we have from Glorify, and it could go on all our non enchantment cards in the set to reward people for playing enchantments.

Arcane Bolt
Instant (U)
Mystical — Arcane Bolt deals X+2 damage to target creature or planeswalker, where X is equal to the number of enchantments you control.

Dark Revelations
Sorcery — (U)
Mystical — You draw two cards and lose 2 life. Each opponent loses X life, where X is equal to the number of enchantments you control.

Shaman of the Depths
Creature — Elf Shaman (U)
Mystical — When Shaman of the depths enters the battlefield, mill X cards, where X is equal to the number of enchantments you control. then you may return a permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/4

Just a version of Acolyte of Affliction to showcase how the mechanic could be used.

Yeah, right now, I guess I kind of lean towards maybe exploring something like an enchantment version of metalcraft + glorify.

[Venedrex]

So anyone have any new thoughts?

Is mystical any good or is it just dumb?

Is enchantmentcraft worth considering?

Do we want to make predefined enchantment tokens?

Is rift getting the boot?

Find out on the next episode of the SHATTERED REALM...

[void_nothing]

I like reweave/strand counters a lot in terms of flavor and design space, but it's really A+B - well, actually just regular parasitic, mostly, and dependent upon having multiple cards using strand counters - and we already have favors/glorify taking up that space with what I think is a stronger hook and a stronger solution.

[Venedrex]

I like reweave/strand counters a lot in terms of flavor and design space, but it's really A+B - well, actually just regular parasitic, mostly, and dependent upon having multiple cards using strand counters - and we already have favors/glorify taking up that space with what I think is a stronger hook and a stronger solution.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too, I like glorify the best out of all the mechanics so far. I think reweave is just another version of oil counters too. So I guess we just need to figure out what mechanic to go with favors.

So I'm thinking:

Rift
Mystical
Enchantmentcraft.
Or a new mechanic

Something like that, whichever fits the best.

[slimytrout]

Kind of fell off the map for a bit while I was preparing for a job interview this morning, but now I'm back.

Mystical has the advantage of being simple but the disadvantage of being a scaling mechanic, which has some inherent limitations especially since it will be one with no cap (unlike Party or Converge, two recent examples).

Enchantment-craft would be the easiest to make work but also the least original.

I don't know that I have any more ideas to contribute, other than to notice that Kaladesh was a very artifact-focused set that nevertheless had no explicit artifact synergy mechanic. I don't think we can make do without at least some third mechanic, but it is possible to just build in enchantment synergies without having a named keyword or ability word.

[Venedrex]

Kind of fell off the map for a bit while I was preparing for a job interview this morning, but now I'm back.

Mystical has the advantage of being simple but the disadvantage of being a scaling mechanic, which has some inherent limitations especially since it will be one with no cap (unlike Party or Converge, two recent examples).

Enchantment-craft would be the easiest to make work but also the least original.

I don't know that I have any more ideas to contribute, other than to notice that Kaladesh was a very artifact-focused set that nevertheless had no explicit artifact synergy mechanic. I don't think we can make do without at least some third mechanic, but it is possible to just build in enchantment synergies without having a named keyword or ability word.

Well, Kaladesh didn't but Aether Revolt did. Whir of Invention

Yeah the no upper limit on mystical does concern me a bit.

I mean, I kind of just like the idea of rolling with rift and glorify. I mean, I think we can balance it if were careful. To me we just have to treat it like Magecraft and Lessons.