HARD SCI-FI

A SECOND DELVE INTO 'MAGIC: THE GATHERING' SET DESIGN

Some four months ago, I tried brewing my own custom magic set. It was a fun month of just brewing interesting and mildly cool cards, but after a few rounds of playtesting in modern, there was a clear unbalancing between the Eldrazi / non-Eldrazi interactions. They were supposed to be polar opposites in strategy, but there isn't much room left for cards from other actual sets to slide in and make them better or exploit their abilities. Hence I have started revisiting all 317 cards I have so far.

ZENDIKAR BESIEGED SET FOLDER CAN BE FOUND HERE

WHAT CHANGED

Old keyword reminder:

Rift (For each generic mana in this spell’s total cost, you may tap an untapped Eldrazi you control rather than pay that mana.)

New keyword reminder:

Rift (This spell costs (1) less to cast for each Eldrazi you tap as you cast this spell.)

This small change not only gives Rift a more original wording but also makes reminders shorter on the cards that it appear.

Rift will also be found nearly exclusively in colorless cards, it also appears in multicolored Sultai colors and is accompanied by devoid, but does not appear in monocolored black, blue, and green. This will also increase the mana cost and shift the color of some spells to a more universal use, not only blue and black. Some very specific card effects or conditions were generalized and/or nerfed. For example, Blazing Repercusion's was a 4 mana enchantment that used to have Landfall for 1 damage to all creatures your opponents control, which in this set means a very strong control. It was then modified to still offer such a threat but at the expense of slow mana, and it only triggers when you play lands, not when they enter the battlefield by other means.

This also meant rebalancing cards such as Darksteel Chicken, halving the amount of mana it generates.

Red Eldrazi cards are now Elementals instead. Embermaw Harbinger has been particularly buffed, instead of Eldrazi, it now cares about all things red.

After revising Rift, and taking a look at the cards of this set, I'd consider it an okay/mediocre set, it has a couple of interesting interactions and loops but nothing necessarily crazy.

I would also rank Rift a Storm out of 10 on the Storm scale. Cool, rather strong, but not nearly relevant enough as other keywords. Special thanks to Vamp for helping me along the card brewing adventure.