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| "Common Bond" by Raymond Swanland |
I'm at the very beginning of designing a Magic: The Gathering Core Set and have to start somewhere. Since it's a Core Set, instead of what you might find in a Fall expansion, I don't need to begin with a theme or a premise that drives and informs my design. It's just a bunch of individual, classic-fantasy cards with no new mechanics introduced. However, I do know that I'm bringing back the undying keyword mechanic.
Before I jump into exploring undying, I need a design file. And set design begins with commons. So, I'll need a common design skeleton. I'm going to pretty much follow the process as outlined in Mark Rosewater's "Nuts & Bolts: Design Skeleton" article.
First, I need to determine how many commons. Core Sets are large sets. That means 269 cards. Of those number of cards, 101 of them are supposed to be commons.
| Code | Card Description |
| C1 | |
| C2 | |
| C3 | |
| C4 | |
| C5 | |
| C6 | |
| C7 | |
| C8 | |
| C9 | |
| C10 | |
| C11 | |
| C12 | |
| C13 | |
| C14 | |
| C15 | |
| C16 | |
| C17 | |
| C18 | |
| C19 | |
| C20 | |
| C21 | |
| C22 | |
| C23 | |
| C24 | |
| C25 | |
| C26 | |
| C27 | |
| C28 | |
| C29 | |
| C30 | |
| C31 | |
| C32 | |
| C33 | |
| C34 | |
| C35 | |
| C36 | |
| C37 | |
| C38 | |
| C39 | |
| C40 | |
| C41 | |
| C42 | |
| C43 | |
| C44 | |
| C45 | |
| C46 | |
| C47 | |
| C48 | |
| C49 | |
| C50 | |
| C51 | |
| C52 | |
| C53 | |
| C54 | |
| C55 | |
| C56 | |
| C57 | |
| C58 | |
| C59 | |
| C60 | |
| C61 | |
| C62 | |
| C63 | |
| C64 | |
| C65 | |
| C66 | |
| C67 | |
| C68 | |
| C69 | |
| C70 | |
| C71 | |
| C72 | |
| C73 | |
| C74 | |
| C75 | |
| C76 | |
| C77 | |
| C78 | |
| C79 | |
| C80 | |
| C81 | |
| C82 | |
| C83 | |
| C84 | |
| C85 | |
| C86 | |
| C87 | |
| C88 | |
| C89 | |
| C90 | |
| C91 | |
| C92 | |
| C93 | |
| C94 | |
| C95 | |
| C96 | |
| C97 | |
| C98 | |
| C99 | |
| C100 | |
| C101 |
Most Core Sets have 20 cards of each color in common. And then 1 artifact or land.
| Code | Card Description |
| CW01 | |
| CW02 | |
| CW03 | |
| CW04 | |
| CW05 | |
| CW06 | |
| CW07 | |
| CW08 | |
| CW09 | |
| CW10 | |
| CW11 | |
| CW12 | |
| CW13 | |
| CW14 | |
| CW15 | |
| CW16 | |
| CW17 | |
| CW18 | |
| CW19 | |
| CW20 | |
| CU01 | |
| CU02 | |
| CU03 | |
| CU04 | |
| CU05 | |
| CU06 | |
| CU07 | |
| CU08 | |
| CU09 | |
| CU10 | |
| CU11 | |
| CU12 | |
| CU13 | |
| CU14 | |
| CU15 | |
| CU16 | |
| CU17 | |
| CU18 | |
| CU19 | |
| CU20 | |
| CB01 | |
| CB02 | |
| CB03 | |
| CB04 | |
| CB05 | |
| CB06 | |
| CB07 | |
| CB08 | |
| CB09 | |
| CB10 | |
| CB11 | |
| CB12 | |
| CB13 | |
| CB14 | |
| CB15 | |
| CB16 | |
| CB17 | |
| CB18 | |
| CB19 | |
| CB20 | |
| CR01 | |
| CR02 | |
| CR03 | |
| CR04 | |
| CR05 | |
| CR06 | |
| CR07 | |
| CR08 | |
| CR09 | |
| CR10 | |
| CR11 | |
| CR12 | |
| CR13 | |
| CR14 | |
| CR15 | |
| CR16 | |
| CR17 | |
| CR18 | |
| CR19 | |
| CR20 | |
| CG01 | |
| CG02 | |
| CG03 | |
| CG04 | |
| CG05 | |
| CG06 | |
| CG07 | |
| CG08 | |
| CG09 | |
| CG10 | |
| CG11 | |
| CG12 | |
| CG13 | |
| CG14 | |
| CG15 | |
| CG16 | |
| CG17 | |
| CG18 | |
| CG19 | |
| CG20 | |
| C?01 | artifact/land |
Most common cards are of the "creature" card type. Let's start by defining how many creature cards should be in the set. Looking at Magic 2015, Magic 2014, and Magic 2013; there tend to be about 56 common cards that are either creatures or that make creature tokens.
(I chose to look at the three most recent Core Sets because I wanted to be up-to-date with Core Set conventions while also looking at enough sets to form a pattern).
Each color has a certain number of creatures in it, and some colors tend to have more than other colors and vice versa. In priority order of receiving the highest number of creatures per color: white, green, black, red, then blue.
If black is the color that gets the average amount of creatures, let's take the average number for when you take 56 divided by 5. That is 11.2. Let's round down. So, 11. I'm going to give 11 to black. Then, following the convention that Mark describes in his article, I'll accordingly increment or decrement by 1 or 2 for each of the other colors. So, that looks like this: 13 white, 12 green, 11 black, 10 red, 9 blue. That totals 55 creatures. I have one creature remaining. Let's make it an artifact creature for now.
Based off of Magic 2015 and Magic 2014, an artifact creature at common is an opportunity to reflect the mechanical theme of the set. It's also an opportunity to do an artifact-creature twist on a creature mechanic. Like how Stonework Puma is an Ally artifact creature that supports the Ally theme but doesn't actually provide an ability like most Allies do. Sliver Construct is the same way and is a Sliver card that ties into the Slivers that appeared in Magic 2014. Will-Forged Golem became the first artifact creature with convoke when Magic 2015 was the set bringing back convoke.
However, there's still opportunity to do an artifact creature with undying at uncommon. But, for now, let's mark it down with undying.
| Code | Card Description |
| CW01 | creature |
| CW02 | creature |
| CW03 | creature |
| CW04 | creature |
| CW05 | creature |
| CW06 | creature |
| CW07 | creature |
| CW08 | creature |
| CW09 | creature |
| CW10 | creature |
| CW11 | creature |
| CW12 | creature |
| CW13 | creature |
| CW14 | |
| CW15 | |
| CW16 | |
| CW17 | |
| CW18 | |
| CW19 | |
| CW20 | |
| CU01 | creature |
| CU02 | creature |
| CU03 | creature |
| CU04 | creature |
| CU05 | creature |
| CU06 | creature |
| CU07 | creature |
| CU08 | creature |
| CU09 | creature |
| CU10 | |
| CU11 | |
| CU12 | |
| CU13 | |
| CU14 | |
| CU15 | |
| CU16 | |
| CU17 | |
| CU18 | |
| CU19 | |
| CU20 | |
| CB01 | creature |
| CB02 | creature |
| CB03 | creature |
| CB04 | creature |
| CB05 | creature |
| CB06 | creature |
| CB07 | creature |
| CB08 | creature |
| CB09 | creature |
| CB10 | creature |
| CB11 | creature |
| CB12 | |
| CB13 | |
| CB14 | |
| CB15 | |
| CB16 | |
| CB17 | |
| CB18 | |
| CB19 | |
| CB20 | |
| CR01 | creature |
| CR02 | creature |
| CR03 | creature |
| CR04 | creature |
| CR05 | creature |
| CR06 | creature |
| CR07 | creature |
| CR08 | creature |
| CR09 | creature |
| CR10 | creature |
| CR11 | |
| CR12 | |
| CR13 | |
| CR14 | |
| CR15 | |
| CR16 | |
| CR17 | |
| CR18 | |
| CR19 | |
| CR20 | |
| CG01 | creature |
| CG02 | creature |
| CG03 | creature |
| CG04 | creature |
| CG05 | creature |
| CG06 | creature |
| CG07 | creature |
| CG08 | creature |
| CG09 | creature |
| CG10 | creature |
| CG11 | creature |
| CG12 | creature |
| CG13 | |
| CG14 | |
| CG15 | |
| CG16 | |
| CG17 | |
| CG18 | |
| CG19 | |
| CG20 | |
| CA01 | artifact creature, undying |
I want some of my creatures to actually be cards that make tokens. White tends to have 1 to 2 cards that make tokens. As for the rest of the colors, it's up in the air. I'll at least add one instant/sorcery cards that creatures tokens.
While I'm starting to call out other card types, let's fill in the rest of the slots with instants, sorceries, and etc. Most colors have a single Aura enchantment at common, except white most definitely usually has a Pacifism-like Aura card alongside some other Aura that grants a benefit to a creature. White and blue tend to have more instants than sorceries compared to other colors. Green and black tend to have more sorceries than instants compared to other colors. Equipment artifacts or plain vanilla artifacts tend not to be at common.
White has 12 creature cards right now. That leaves 8 noncreature cards, 1 of which being an instant or sorcery that makes a creature token. 2 of the noncreature cards will be an Aura. 6 left. Dividing in half for instants and sorceries, we get 3 and 3. But white gets more instants than sorceries, so I'll put down 4 instants and 2 sorceries. One of these instants/sorceries needs to be a token-maker, so I'll mark that down without committing just yet.
Blue has 11 noncreature cards. 1 will be an Aura. 10 instants/sorceries. 5 and 5. Looking at previous Core Sets, blue usually gets 3 sorceries, leaving 7 instants.
Black gets 11 creature cards and 1 Aura. 8 instants/sorceries divided by 2 is 4 and 4. Adjust for black having more sorceries, and keeping in mind that green is probably more intensely into sorceries, and the final numbers will be 5 sorceries and 3 instants.
Red gets 10 creatures and 1 Aura. Red has an even number of sorceries and instants, but I have an extra slot left over after I determine there should be 4 instants and 4 sorceries. I'll keep it ambiguous for now.
Green is using up 12 slots for creatures and 1 for an Aura. Green gets more sorceries than instants, and it feels right that it should have even more sorceries than instants than black does for itself. 5 sorceries and 2 instants it is.
| Code | Card Description |
| CW01 | creature |
| CW02 | creature |
| CW03 | creature |
| CW04 | creature |
| CW05 | creature |
| CW06 | creature |
| CW07 | creature |
| CW08 | creature |
| CW09 | creature |
| CW10 | creature |
| CW11 | creature |
| CW12 | creature |
| CW13 | creature |
| CW14 | sorcery |
| CW15 | sorcery, token-making? |
| CW16 | instant |
| CW17 | instant |
| CW18 | instant |
| CW19 | instant, token-making? |
| CW20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CU01 | creature |
| CU02 | creature |
| CU03 | creature |
| CU04 | creature |
| CU05 | creature |
| CU06 | creature |
| CU07 | creature |
| CU08 | creature |
| CU09 | creature |
| CU10 | sorcery |
| CU11 | sorcery |
| CU12 | sorcery |
| CU13 | instant |
| CU14 | instant |
| CU15 | instant |
| CU16 | instant |
| CU17 | instant |
| CU18 | instant |
| CU19 | instant |
| CU20 | enchanment, Aura |
| CB01 | creature |
| CB02 | creature |
| CB03 | creature |
| CB04 | creature |
| CB05 | creature |
| CB06 | creature |
| CB07 | creature |
| CB08 | creature |
| CB09 | creature |
| CB10 | creature |
| CB11 | creature |
| CB12 | sorcery |
| CB13 | sorcery |
| CB14 | sorcery |
| CB15 | sorcery |
| CB16 | sorcery |
| CB17 | instant |
| CB18 | instant |
| CB19 | instant |
| CB20 | instant |
| CR01 | creature |
| CR02 | creature |
| CR03 | creature |
| CR04 | creature |
| CR05 | creature |
| CR06 | creature |
| CR07 | creature |
| CR08 | creature |
| CR09 | creature |
| CR10 | creature |
| CR11 | sorcery |
| CR12 | sorcery |
| CR13 | sorcery |
| CR14 | sorcery |
| CR15 | instant |
| CR16 | instant |
| CR17 | instant |
| CR18 | instant |
| CR19 | sorcery/instant |
| CR20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CG01 | creature |
| CG02 | creature |
| CG03 | creature |
| CG04 | creature |
| CG05 | creature |
| CG06 | creature |
| CG07 | creature |
| CG08 | creature |
| CG09 | creature |
| CG10 | creature |
| CG11 | creature |
| CG12 | creature |
| CG13 | sorcery |
| CG14 | sorcery |
| CG15 | sorcery |
| CG16 | sorcery |
| CG17 | sorcery |
| CG18 | instant |
| CG19 | instant |
| CG20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CA01 | artifact creature, undying |
Let's jump back to creatures and define them more. Creatures come in different sizes of power and toughness, but they are generally categorized by Magic R&D into "small," "medium," and "large." And these sizes come in different ratios for each color. Here's the breakdown:
White doesn't get "large" creatures and has most of its creatures as "small."
Blue has mostly small creatures but has a tiny bit of "medium" and usually one "large" creature (usually a Serpent-type of creature).
Black usually gets an even divide of small and medium creatures.
Red has more small creatures than medium creatures but not by much.
Green has one or two "large" with a pretty even divide between small and medium for the others.
Since this is a large set, I decided to give green two large creatures. From the remaining ten creatures, doing an even split between small and medium felt like I was giving too much heavy weight with those two large creatures alongside the mediums. So, I eliminated a creature slot and made an extra slot that would make a creature token and is either sorcery or instant.
| Code | Card Description |
| CW01 | creature, small |
| CW02 | creature, small |
| CW03 | creature, small |
| CW04 | creature, small |
| CW05 | creature, small |
| CW06 | creature, small |
| CW07 | creature, small |
| CW08 | creature, small |
| CW09 | creature, small |
| CW10 | creature, small |
| CW11 | creature, medium |
| CW12 | creature, medium |
| CW13 | creature, medium |
| CW14 | sorcery |
| CW15 | sorcery, token-making? |
| CW16 | instant |
| CW17 | instant |
| CW18 | instant |
| CW19 | instant, token-making? |
| CW20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CU01 | creature, small |
| CU02 | creature, small |
| CU03 | creature, small |
| CU04 | creature, small |
| CU05 | creature, small |
| CU06 | creature, small |
| CU07 | creature, medium |
| CU08 | creature, medium |
| CU09 | creature, large |
| CU10 | sorcery |
| CU11 | sorcery |
| CU12 | sorcery |
| CU13 | instant |
| CU14 | instant |
| CU15 | instant |
| CU16 | instant |
| CU17 | instant |
| CU18 | instant |
| CU19 | instant |
| CU20 | enchanment, Aura |
| CB01 | creature, small |
| CB02 | creature, small |
| CB03 | creature, small |
| CB04 | creature, small |
| CB05 | creature, small |
| CB06 | creature, small/medium |
| CB07 | creature, medium |
| CB08 | creature, medium |
| CB09 | creature, medium |
| CB10 | creature, medium |
| CB11 | creature, medium |
| CB12 | sorcery |
| CB13 | sorcery |
| CB14 | sorcery |
| CB15 | sorcery |
| CB16 | sorcery |
| CB17 | instant |
| CB18 | instant |
| CB19 | instant |
| CB20 | instant |
| CR01 | creature, small |
| CR02 | creature, small |
| CR03 | creature, small |
| CR04 | creature, small |
| CR05 | creature, small |
| CR06 | creature, medium |
| CR07 | creature, medium |
| CR08 | creature, medium |
| CR09 | creature, medium |
| CR10 | creature, medium |
| CR11 | sorcery |
| CR12 | sorcery |
| CR13 | sorcery |
| CR14 | sorcery/instant |
| CR15 | instant |
| CR16 | instant |
| CR17 | instant |
| CR18 | instant |
| CR19 | instant |
| CR20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CG01 | creature, small |
| CG02 | creature, small |
| CG03 | creature, small |
| CG04 | creature, small |
| CG05 | creature, small |
| CG06 | creature, medium |
| CG07 | creature, medium |
| CG08 | creature, medium |
| CG09 | creature, medium |
| CG10 | creature, large |
| CG11 | creature, large |
| CG12 | sorcery |
| CG13 | sorcery |
| CG14 | sorcery |
| CG15 | sorcery |
| CG16 | sorcery |
| CG17 | sorcery/instant, token-making |
| CG18 | instant |
| CG19 | instant |
| CG20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CA01 | artifact creature, undying |
We can define the creatures even further with what kind of creature keywords are supposed to show up. But before I do that, I'm going to focus on including undying. That way, I can design around where undying is supposed to show up.
So, undying premiered in Dark Ascension. In that set, four colors had undying. And, for each color, they generally had one for each rarity. This is good to keep in mind for when we need to not have too MUCH undying.
In Dark Ascension, black had a disproportionately-higher amount of undying cards, including having two black cards at common (1 creature card, 1 non-creature card). That makes sense for black.
So, what of the other colors? Green makes sense to have undying because of regeneration. White has cards that bring creatures back from the graveyard, so that's a possible color. And because white hasn't yet had any cards that have undying, I am absolutely going to choose white to include for this, in the same fashion that black got to have convoke in Magic 2015, exalted in Magic 2013, and bloodthirst in Magic 2012, each for the first time for its color.
That leaves red and blue. I don't want to have undying in every single color for this set, so I'm eliminating blue. And because past returning keywords tended to only have two or three colors have access to a keyworded mechanic, I'll eliminate red. For common, that is. That undying Phoenix dream at rare still lives on (notice that convoke didn't re-appear for many cards in Magic 2015, except on a rare card).
Since that was a small set, and this is a large set; I think I'm O.K. with having two cards at common for a particular color that have undying in this set. Here's a chart of how much the returned keyword showed up, for each rarity:
| M10 - NONE | M11 - Scry | M12 - Bloodthirst | M13 - Exalted | M14 - Slivers | M15 - Convoke | |
| Common | 0 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 9 |
| Uncommon | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 8 |
| Rare | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| Mythic | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 0 | 5 | 10 | 11 | 14 | 22 |
So, if I give black two common undying cards and then give white two common undying cards (because white could use all the undying presence it can get), that'll be four common undying cards, which would be par for everything Magic 2013 and older. Green should have at least one, so that's 5 undying. Seems about fine.
For different-size type of creatures, I'll first look to creature types. There isn't a Skeleton undying creature, yet, so I'm totally making a small black creature have undying. A Skeleton type would be just perfect.
| Code | Card Description |
| CW01 | creature, small, undying |
| CW02 | creature, small |
| CW03 | creature, small |
| CW04 | creature, small |
| CW05 | creature, small |
| CW06 | creature, small |
| CW07 | creature, small |
| CW08 | creature, small |
| CW09 | creature, small |
| CW10 | creature, small |
| CW11 | creature, medium, undying? |
| CW12 | creature, medium |
| CW13 | creature, medium |
| CW14 | sorcery |
| CW15 | sorcery, token-making? |
| CW16 | instant, undying? |
| CW17 | instant |
| CW18 | instant |
| CW19 | instant, token-making? |
| CW20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CU01 | creature, small |
| CU02 | creature, small |
| CU03 | creature, small |
| CU04 | creature, small |
| CU05 | creature, small |
| CU06 | creature, small |
| CU07 | creature, medium |
| CU08 | creature, medium |
| CU09 | creature, large |
| CU10 | sorcery |
| CU11 | sorcery |
| CU12 | sorcery |
| CU13 | instant |
| CU14 | instant |
| CU15 | instant |
| CU16 | instant |
| CU17 | instant |
| CU18 | instant |
| CU19 | instant |
| CU20 | enchanment, Aura |
| CB01 | creature, small, undying, Skeleton |
| CB02 | creature, small |
| CB03 | creature, small |
| CB04 | creature, small |
| CB05 | creature, small |
| CB06 | creature, small/medium |
| CB07 | creature, medium, undying? |
| CB08 | creature, medium |
| CB09 | creature, medium |
| CB10 | creature, medium |
| CB11 | creature, medium |
| CB12 | sorcery |
| CB13 | sorcery |
| CB14 | sorcery |
| CB15 | sorcery |
| CB16 | sorcery |
| CB17 | instant, Undying Evil? |
| CB18 | instant |
| CB19 | instant |
| CB20 | instant |
| CR01 | creature, small |
| CR02 | creature, small |
| CR03 | creature, small |
| CR04 | creature, small |
| CR05 | creature, small |
| CR06 | creature, medium |
| CR07 | creature, medium |
| CR08 | creature, medium |
| CR09 | creature, medium |
| CR10 | creature, medium |
| CR11 | sorcery |
| CR12 | sorcery |
| CR13 | sorcery |
| CR14 | sorcery/instant |
| CR15 | instant |
| CR16 | instant |
| CR17 | instant |
| CR18 | instant |
| CR19 | instant |
| CR20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CG01 | creature, small, undying? |
| CG02 | creature, small |
| CG03 | creature, small |
| CG04 | creature, small |
| CG05 | creature, small |
| CG06 | creature, medium, undying? |
| CG07 | creature, medium |
| CG08 | creature, medium |
| CG09 | creature, medium |
| CG10 | creature, large, undying? |
| CG11 | creature, large |
| CG12 | sorcery |
| CG13 | sorcery |
| CG14 | sorcery |
| CG15 | sorcery |
| CG16 | sorcery |
| CG17 | sorcery/instant, token-making |
| CG18 | instant |
| CG19 | instant |
| CG20 | enchantment, Aura |
| CA01 | artifact creature, undying |
As for the rest of the design skeleton, I've hit my limit for writing today, so I'll have to save posting the rest of filling out this design skeleton for next week! Until then, may your commons make sense.
