Give Yourself a License

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do, Too

I wonder when I'll get to the point where I'll feel like Mark Rosewater whenever he mentions the book A Whack on the Side of the Head and references his own repeated mentions of the book. Well, actually, I'm doing that right now, but it's not the same. I'm sure there are a good chunk of readers reading this saying, "Hey, I've never experienced you mentioning the oddly-titled A Whack on the Side of the Head before. I've never read you!" The reason why I'm bringing up the book yet again is because of one lesson in the book that I hold to be very important life lesson. And in light of my recent activity, I wanted to share that lesson with you.

Whack tells you that if you want to be creative, you have to start by giving yourself a license to be creative. This means no holding any thoughts in your head that say, "I'm not creative." followed by "I never will be creative." or "I'll be creative some day." Nay, you have to let yourself accept the fact that you are creative. When you rid yourself of yourself holding you back, you can start pushing yourself forward.

While Whack talks about creativity when referring to giving yourself a license, I find that you can apply this to anything you'd ever want to be. For example, if you want to be a Magic designer, it must first start with letting yourself accept the fact that you are one. Whether or not you're the head of Magic design doesn't matter. However, this doesn't mean you've already got what it takes to be the head of Magic design.

You Can Do It All Night Long

I assure you that I'm not advocating that you improve in your area of expertise. If you want to design Magic cards and are comfortable at the level you're designing them at, then you're fine. If you don't want to get "better" at baseball and simply play catch with your brother or only participate in the softball leagues, then that's O.K., too. You're enjoying what you're doing is the point.

However, let's say you do aspire to work at Wizards of the Coast. You can do it, and you first have to let yourself know, truly, that you can do such things. Then, you'd have to identify what you've gotta do to get there. Get yourself into that mode, and don't let anything stop you. Including yourself.

That brings me to your arch nemesis: you. At first, your arch nemesis was trying to convince you that you weren't a Magic designer and that you could never be one. You don't have the skills, after all. You don't know what the "real designers" know. But, then you sliced your arch nemesis in half with a sword and never looked back since. But, like a Dragonball-Z-reference Frieza, your arch nemesis came back and keeps trying to defeat you with powerful obstacles such as excuses and distractions.

Do or Die

I used to tell myself that I couldn't do things because I just wasn't qualified for it. I didn't have the skills or talent to pull it off. I never did take drama in high school, even though I had entertained the thought of taking drama. I didn't do art projects that a lot of people would see because I didn't think I was good enough for that. I was holding myself back. I was missing the point that doing something a lot will make you better to some degree.

One of my roommates strives to do things that interest her as if nothing is going to stop her. It's really inspirational. She has a notebook she's writing rough drafts in because she wants to write a book. She painted a Rajah (the tiger in Disney's Aladdin) on the wall of inside the pantry because she's practicing for her planned mural business. She's taking classes to prepare her for a family business in the future. She's also seriously planning to do a live-action play reenactment of A Goofy Movie.

What was I doing?

And then The Great Designer Search 2 came along. All of a sudden, I found myself starting that blog I've been wanting to do. I also did a journal comic intending to continually update with them until I realized just how long it was taking me to finish them, which was pulling my focus away from preparing for the competition. I started designing Magic cards before and during the competition. And during my preparation, I had read A Whack on the Side of the head and decided to write on Magic design. If it weren't for GDS2 and the revelation that I can do anything I want just by letting myself do that very thing no matter what, I might never had decided to do Magic design and writing on that design regularly.

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do

I wrote this post because I was in the middle of typing a Facebook status update about my National Novel Writing Month fling. I was trying to explain about how, despite my "not being a writer," I was going to do it, anyway. I was going to dive headfirst into my writing career with fifty-thousand words in thirty days. Actually, I waded around in the shallow end for a little while with updating this blog. But, you get my point.

So, my plan is: writing that novel will help my writing skill, which will help my blog posts be more interesting and garner more attention, which will attract possibly Wizards of the Coast employees' eyes, which will possibly lead to a phone call for an interview for a design position.Hey, it could happen. I'm giving myself a license to be able to make it happen.

Cheers,

Brad

Neapolitan Needs Vanilla, Too

Here's a spreadsheet intended to help you in designing a Magic set that I can't guarantee is completely correct but I believe is in the general ballpark of accuracy: Vanilla Creatures spreadsheet. The rest of this blog post is dedicated to talking about things related to this spreadsheet. And, yeah, I accept the possibility that the data on that spreadsheet is all wrong. But, you'll get the point I'm trying to make, right?

Canyon Minotaur by Steve Prescott

Canyon Minotaur! *Shakes Fist*

Today, I'm going to discuss what's contained in Question #48 of the multiple-choice test answers of The Great Designer Search 2. However, this isn't about griping about how the question was worded or any such nonsense. There's something much more valuable to be gained from that question. It mentions a term that Magic R&D has for creatures that function as vanilla creatures after the first turn they enter the battlefield. They call these creatures "virtual vanillas," and these creatures help alleviate board complexity, something that any Magic designer should be aware of.

There are two things to note: First, you have to care about the number of creatures in your set contributing toward the overall board complexity. Second, there are tools at your disposal to create creatures that are virtually vanillas. But, that brings these questions: How many creatures need to be some kind of vanilla (virtual vanilla or French vanilla), and what techniques are there to create varied cards that are actually still vanillas?

Virtual Fries

For virtual vanilla creatures, you can put any of these in its text box:

• Flash
• Haste
• "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield" effects
• Effects that trigger when you cast the creature itself (e.g. "When you cast CARDNAME", Cascade)
• Abilities that only matter when the creature is in your hand (e.g. Cycling, Reinforce)
• Alternate or additional costs (e.g. Suspend, text on Flamekin Bladewhirl)
• Other abilities I missed

And for French vanillas, they just need to only have creature keywords. However, what I'm not sure about is whether a non-evergreen keyword such as infect would be able to count when determining a French vanilla creature. (I could have asked @maro254 in a tweet, but I didn't want to bother him with something not-as-important right now during the time of choosing Great Designer Search 2 finalists.) For me, I've decided that, yes, a creature with just infect would count as a French vanilla. Also, ability words like landfall and chroma aren't actually keywords, and as such, a creature such as Steppe Lynx with its landfall ability don't count.

One more thing: Sometimes, a creature can be both a Virtual Vanilla and a French Vanilla (e.g. Raging Goblin). That's if the creature has only keyword mechanics that follow the rules according to the above bullet point list. Flash and haste are evergreen keywords you'll see on creatures from time to time by themselves (especially haste). Sometimes, a keyword mechanic in a set will lend itself toward potential virtual vanilla creatures such as cascade.

Count Vanillula

O.K., so how many virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures do there need to be in a set? Well, that's what I was wondering, too, and what prompted me to write this post. I don't know Wizards' internal magical formula for determining just how many of these vanilla-type creatures to have in a set, so I looked at recent Magic sets to see if I could find a pattern. And what resulted was the spreadsheet I linked to at the beginning of this post, which you can also find right here. I'll explain what's going on. 

I decided to count all the virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures in each set to see what the common number was. I only counted cards from a number of sets starting with the most recent set, Scars of Mirrodin, since Magic design standards change over time. I didn't want an older set to skew with the numbers in case Magic design wasn't even caring about the number of virtual vanillas and/or French vanillas in a set. I decided to only go as far back as Tenth Edition.(I realize Magic could have started caring a LONG time ago. Maybe even right from the start. I didn't check since my goal isn't to try to deduce when they started caring about virtual vanillas. Anyway, I counted creatures from Tenth Edition to Scars of Mirrodin. Additionally, I only counted common and uncommon creatures.

As seen on the spreadsheet with color-coding, I divided each set with one of three types: core set, large expansion, and small expansion. Of course, the core set will have a higher ratio of vanilla creatures because it's the entry-point set for new players. However, I was curious as to whether there would be a different ratio in vanilla creatures between the large and small set. It would certainly make sense if R&D did do it this way since, in Limited, the large set is always included with any small sets that are released. The large expansion could act as the foundation that supports the small sets with any imbalance in complexity. ...But, this isn't the case, as you'll see below. It's the same ratio for any non-Core set.

So, after the counting of common/uncommon creatures of each of the selected sets, I have found that, depending on a set's themes/mechanics, the amount of vanilla-ish creatures can vary greatly. For example, Lorwyn had creatures with the keyword mechanic evoke. Because of how the mechanic works, every single creature with evoke (without an additional ability like fear on Shriekmaw) is a virtual vanilla. Conversely, every single creature with evoke can't be a French vanilla because an evoke creature always has a non-keyword ability in addition to evoke. Also, in Morningtide, because of the mechanical twist on evoke creatures' ability triggering when leaving the battlefield, it meant that every single evoke creature in Morningtide couldn't be a virtual vanilla. I think you get the point: themes/mechanics affect the ratio of virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures.

A Core Set is Like a Vanilla Swirl/Chocolate Swirl Cone and a Block is Like a Neapolitan Sundae

So, what I've found is that when designing a core set, you'll want just under fifty percent of your creatures to be virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures. For all other sets, both large and small expansions, there are somewhere average-ing between twenty and forty percent of such creatures. The ratio of virtual vanilla to French vanilla is around 50/50 for every set. This can vary with the specific set you're working on, of course. So, it goes like this:

• Core Set: ~45-50% virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures.
• Large/Small Expansion: ~30%, give or take up to 10%, virtual vanilla and French vanilla creatures
• Virtual vanillas to French vanillas: ~50% virtual vanilla and ~50% French vanilla.

These are rough numbers taken from the spreadsheet. Forgive me, I'm no mathematician, but the data should at least steer you somewhere in the right direction.

Also, if you're wondering how many of the virtual vanilla creatures should be pure vanilla: If it's a core set, you're going to want at least two pure vanilla creatures per color at common, according to Magic 2011, Magic 2010, and Tenth Edition. For the expert-level expansions, you can have zero if it's a small set (at the very least). If it's a large set, you'll want at least one at common. And, at most, you'll have one per color at common. If artifacts are a major theme of the set, then there can be a sixth vanilla artifact creature at common. I'm getting this data this list of vanillas in Extended.

May your homebrew Magic set be that much closer to the real thing (Assuming what I discussed here isn't wrong!). My next blog post will be existential and slightly Magic-related in that I mention the color pie. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Brad

P.S. You know what I didn't do? Include data that shows the ratio of virtual vanilla and French vanillas when comparing common to uncommon. Oh, well. If you're bent on creating a proper Magic set, then you've got homework! Again, assuming this blog post didn't steer you wrong. =)

Day 21: Mechanics Web

One Shadowmoor Time

Shadowmoor: I'm out! I'm released! Players are playing spells and not yet casting them!

Devin Low: Well, you know what the next step would be?

Shadowmoor: You're going to let Eventide out, too, so we can play together?

Devin Low: Not yet. It's still gotta cook in the oven. No, what I'm talking about is writing an article about all your various insides: themes, mechanics, cycles, etc.

Shadowmoor: Don't! I'd be so embarrassed!

Devin Low: Too late -- by about two-and-a-half years. It's right here.

Shadowmoor: I hate you!

Devin Low: I love you.

Shadowmoor: So, what's the deal, anyway? What'd you write?

Devin Low: Well, I made a web diagram (or had someone make for me) that showed the connections among all the different parts of you, Shadowmoor. It's to show all my readers how there's so much synergy going on in you. You're awesome. Not like Homelands.

Shadowmoor: That doesn't exactly prove how awesome I was. Everybody's more awesome than Homelands. But, you're right. I've got some sweet stuff.

Me: Man, people keep bagging on Homelands when it comes to the subject of "sets that weren't so good." Let's get off its back.

Homelands: It's true. It makes me wish I was never born. ;_;

Shadowmoor: Whoa, hey, what's going on here? Who do you think you are, bustin' all up in here?

Me: Well, I was designing a set, and I remembered Devin Low's mechanics web of you. It helps to visualize just how much synergy there is going on in the set. Synergy among the set's various mechanics is very important in modern Magic design.

Devin Low: My goodness! I'm glad the article was put to good use.

Me: Yeah. ...And, by the way, Shadowmoor: I really like you.

Homelands: I... I thought we had something special, Brad.

Shadowmoor: This is way too weird. I'm getting creeped out.

Devin Low: Don't worry, Shadowmoor. I still love you.

Would You Like Theme with That?

Mark Rosewater: And for everybody in The Great Designer Search 2, you might want to read this column.

Me: Awesome! This describes how I'm starting with the flavor begetting design approach.

Mark Rosewater: I'm always excited to see what you designers have come up with. Though, I'm going to have to not look at what you've got. The lawyers speak of potential lawsuits as people say, "YOU STOLE MY IDEA!" Stuff like that.

Me: Oh, don't worry! You're not the REAL Rosewater! You're just an extension of my mind!

Mark Rosewater: Oh! I'm excited! I could even tell you about all the great Magic product we've designed that's coming up! Though, ...YOU don't know about them. And I'm part of your mind. Therefore, I've got nothing that would delightfully surprise you.

Me: Yeah, I know. Anyway, my world. I'm doing a plane created by and residing within a planeswalker's mind. So, I was thinking of themes, and I was, like, "Hey! The library's like a representation of what spells a player knows." So, a "library" theme.

Mark Rosewater: A library theme? Well, you know that some aspects of the library, like shuffling and searching, slow down the game?

Me: Yeah, I know. But, there's gotta be untapped potential with libraries!

Mark Rosewater: That's what I like to hear. Tell me more.

Aaron Forsythe: CHECK OUT AARON'S RANDOM CARD COMMENT OF THE DAY!

*Aaron Forsythe eats Mark Rosewater

*It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by an AaFo.

use lamp

*You see Devin Low, Shadowmoor, and Homelands

Me: Oh, my goodness.

Mark Rosewater: Hey-o!

Everyone: Whaaat?!

Mark Rosewater: You guys all know, too. We're part of Brad's mind. Anything could happen.

Shadowmoor: Wait, so that means...

*Aaron Forsythe appears even when it is not pitch black.

*Aaron Forsythe unmasks himself. Aaron Forsythe is actually...

Homelands: Mark Gottlieb!

Everyone: *gasp*

Mark Gottlieb: Shut up, Homelands.

Me: Great. My imagination comes up with a MaGo jerk. Well, anyway, as I was saying... In addition to the library theme, I also came up with the "subtype matters" theme. I won't go into detail of how that came to be, but then I took those themes and fleshed out some mechanics! I didn't go so far as to list all the cycles and whatnot for the set like you did with yours, Devin, but yeah, check it out:

Homelands: I can only wish I looked this impressive.

Me: You ARE special, Homelands. In a different way. Look, you're even in this blog post!

Shadowmoor: Yeah, you're not half bad. You're not as bad as Mark Gottlieb's very existence.

Me: You know, I don't actually think this way about Gottlieb.

Mark Gottlieb: Oh, yeah, Shadowmoor? Aura-enhanced wombats, attack!

Devin Low: Noooo! I love Shadowmoor!

Mark Rosewater: Noooo! I love Shadowmoor more!

Homelands: I'm going to fashion a noose around my neck over here.

Familiarity Matters

Me: So, for the subtype matters theme, I've decided to focus only on creature types and basic land types for the first set. Later sets can explore Equipment and Auras as well as any new subtypes, whatever is decided. The important part for Great Designer Search 2 is the first set. For creature types, I brought back Tribal. This will make non-creature cards be able to count as the appropriate creature. 

Homelands: What about the basic land types, then? Do they get anything special?

Me: For sure! For land types, I created a new card type called Terrain. Terrain works just like Tribal does when associating a land type to a non-land card.

Shadowmoor: Terrain? That's not too exciting, man.

Me: Yeah, I know. I don't really like it, either, but I had to choose SOMETHING for sending in with the design test. The three choices I was choosing from were: Terrain, Terra, and Turf.

Shadowmoor: Do better at being creative, man.

Mark Rosewater: I recommend reading my favorite book "A Whack on the Side of the Head." It'll help!

Me: I got it right next to me. Finished it. Once I've read "A Kick in the Seat of the Pants," I'll let you know what I thought of 'em. We should move on to my next point, though.

Me: For the creature types, I chose to do races that would match up to each of the pair of enemy colors. 

Shadowmoor: Why enemy colors? 

Me: Just a personal decision. Here's how it's laid out:

• White/Black: Bird
• Blue/Red: Gnome
• Black/Green: Crocodile
• Red/White: Dwarf
• Green/Blue: Frog

Homelands: So, what if I want to play a pair of ally colors in this set?

Me: Ah! Good question, Homelands.

Homelands: *blushes*

Me: So, for ally color pairs, there would be five prevalent classes for creature types, like in Morningtide. I haven't yet figured that out which ones, though. But, I'm thinking of spreading them out over three colors. For example, there will be a White/Blue/Black class featured prominently, which enables either White/Blue or Blue/Black decks of this class type. And, of course, White/Black decks focused on that type which could also 

Mark Gottlieb: Is that the best you can do for your "Subtype Matters" theme? I'm leaving to do more productive things like sit in a chair and be an arch-nemesis while being an Ex-Rules Manager at the same time. 

*MaGo leaves.

Me: I was just getting to my mechanic... Anyway, for the rest of you, as you've seen from the web diagram above, the ability word Familiarity rewards those for casting spells that share a subtype with a permanent they have on the battlefield with this mechanic. It's like landfall, except for specific spells and basic land. It goes like this:

Familiarity -- Whenever you cast a spell sharing a subtype with CARDNAME, DO THIS.

Me: DO THIS means any effect chosen for that specific card.

Devin Low: I really do love you, Shadowmoor.

Traumatize Me Cap'n!

Me: Next, for the "Library" theme, I used Evan Erwin's Erode mechanic, except I didn't. Here's how it was in its original form:

Erode (This permanent deals damage to players in the form of putting the top card of that player’s library into their graveyard.)

Me: The problem is that the a player's life is 20 and a player's deck is at least 53, to start with. And, of course, over the course of the game, it'll reduce by 1 for each turn you draw a card, so let's assume you gotta mill 40 cards. This means it'd be a viable strategy if you doubled the power of Erode creatures.

Devin Low: But, then, you'd have creatures that completely overpower non-Erode creatures.

Evan Erwin: Yeah, but letting an Erode creature through without blocking would balance this out. At least, not every Erode creature is going to be a 2/2 for U. Not that this was my line of thinking. You're putting words in my mouth, Brad!

Me: Yeah, I know. Anyway, I'm still hesitant. I think playtesting would help solve this problem. But, I just decided to tweak it anyway.

Alexis Janson: Really? Just proxy up a theme deck and test it!

Me: I have a confession... I don't actually have any Magic cards where I'm staying at right now. Let's just say it might be related to this article by Geordie Tait.

Me: Well, anyway, here's my version:

Trauma X (Whenever this creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills NUMBER cards instead.)

Me: NUMBER is just the word version of X (eg. 2 and two). This way, the amount milled can be controlled and not have to be tied with the power of a creature. You could create more interesting creatures like a big creature that does Trauma 1.

Mark Gottlieb: Dude, you can't say "mills". That's slang, not the proper formatting.

Me: Yes, you're right. Except, I'm actually making "mill" a keyword action. Now, instead of "Target player puts X cards from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard," it is "Target player mills X cards."

Mark Rosewater: Gutsy.

Me: Yeah, I know. I figured that proposing this along with my submission, if it goes over well, then it'd be helpful for deciding me in as a finalist.

Mark Rosewater: Hahaha. ...O.K., I don't know. I'm not the real Rosewater.

You're Outta Focus

Devin Low: Yeah, but Trauma isn't interacting with Familiarity.

Me: I'm getting there. Next, I wanted some mechanic that interacted with Trauma. So, I came up with Focus. You want to keep a card with Focus on top all the time and Trauma messes with that. Here's how it's worded:

Focus (Play with the top card of your library revealed. Whenever you would draw a card, you may draw the second card from the top of your library.)

Mark Gottlieb: Again, it's not technically drawing a card since drawing is putting the top card of your library into your hand.

Me: Hey, I was shortening "put the second card from the top of your library into your hand" to "draw the second card from the top of your library". The mechanic's reminder text was already getting wordy. I needed to fit in a second ability that cared about the top card of your library.

Mark Gottlieb: You're just challenging rules left and right. Do you ever just FOLLOW them? And why do I sound like this? This is very un-Dr. Wombat-like. I'm leaving. Again.

*Mark Gottlieb leaves. Again.

Turn on the Flashback

Devin Low: Besides that, about any time, you should be making the bridge between the "Library" theme and "Subtype Matters" theme.

Me: Right. And that brings me to returning Flashback. Flashback is like this super glue for the set.

Shadowmoor: Oh, I see. With Flashback, you can cast twice as much, thus, synergy with Familiarity.

Homelands: And Flashback also provides a way to combat Trauma. Being milled isn't so bad, anymore! Nice one.

Me: But, another important function of Flashback is that it helps smooth the mana curve in Limited. Like Kicker does for Zendikar and Cycling does for Alara.

Aaron Forsythe: Hey, guys, what's going on?

Everyone Else: Gah, he's gonna eat us! Run!

Devin Low: Whatever happens, Shadowmoor, I will always love you.

*Everyone leaves except Me, Aaron Forsythe, and Homelands

Homelands: What's the point to living when you're me? Eat me, Aaron.

Me: Cheers,

Me: Brad

*Me leaves and drags Homelands away

Aaron Forsythe: ...Guys? I just wanted to see if anyone was up for karaoke.

Lee Sharpe: Let's do this!

*AaFo eats Lee Sharpe

Day 19: Design Test Submission

Mopey, the Eighth One

Some of you have certainly noticed my lamentation regarding the highly-likely possibility of me being out of the running for The Great Designer Search 2. If you haven't, well, now you know. And you'll get to know why because I'm posting my design test submission publicly down below. 

What I sent in was not the best that I could have done because I ran out of time. This was my own fault, of course. However, it wasn't a matter of not spending enough time on this third design test -- far from it. This test was the only thing I focused on whenever I could leading up until the time I needed to send my e-mail in. The problem was that I didn't set up milestones for myself for the different requirements. I even let myself focus on parts of design that didn't matter so much for this task (Like constructing a design skeleton with the appropriate card codes. Far from necessary.)

Lesson Than Three

So, what did I learn?

1) When a project is needing to meet a deadline, make a plan with milestones. This will break down a complex task into several simpler tasks. Once this is done, you can divide up the time you have until the deadline among the simpler tasks. So, if you ever find yourself behind in terms of your mini-deadlines for your various tasks, you'll know you won't make it in the end unless you pick up the pace.

(You know, I already know this. I took a Project Management class while I attended DeVry University. Project management skills totally could have been applied here.)

2) Stay focused on what's important to complete your task. As I mentioned with the card skeleton activity before, I was doing things that were related, but they weren't really helping getting my task completed. So, figure out what you need to complete the next part you need to work on, then do that. Don't get distracted. It's easy to get the false sense of being productive by just doing things. But, if it doesn't contribute toward the bigger picture, it's just a distraction.

You can have all the design skills in the world, but if you, personally, aren't able to take a design assignment and do what's necessary to complete it all the way through and on time, then it wouldn't matter much. Sure, designing Magic itself requires various teams of people to care about all the extra "stuff" (But, what do I know? I haven't worked at Wizards.) to ensure success, but this was a condensed soup of ten cards and a description of a world/block.

And that's that. ...I'm no expert on project management and such, though. I could be steering you wrong. I don't want to steer you wrong. So, if you decide to do anything as a result of what I wrote, take caution. For anything. Just to be safe and so my conscience won't bug me as much when I try to sleep tonight.

First Track of Daft Punk's Discovery (2001) Album

One more thing -- I realize I didn't squeeze in humor into this article. Humor can spice up writing, but I don't think it's one of my strong points. I love to laugh, and I'm an easy-going person; but  I couldn't do stand-up comedy. Perhaps I'll learn about comedy from some source sometime. Once I've become funnier, it might help me gain some regular readers, which just helps toward my goal of landing a job in R&D.

Then again, I wonder how many great Magic writers there are that aren't funny. I won't type anything here because one, I don't want to hurt their feelings, and two, I don't remember who hasn't slung some witticisms regularly in their writing. 

Maybe that's a sign of how good they are. That reading their articles or whatnot was just a smooth ride of goodness that you didn't notice anything besides having a great experience. It's kinda like with video game controllers. You should be designing the player input, so that the player doesn't notice the controller during their gameplay experience. Well, except, when it IS part of the experience (Like the Wii controller or playing Mario Party so competitively that you should wear gloves to do your efficient, self-damaging strategy.) But, you catch my drift, right?

I'm getting off track! The text below is what I sent in. Enjoy laughing.

Cheers,

Brad

Submission

Part I - The World

A. Immovale

B. An imaginative plane created by and residing within the mind of a planeswalker.

C. Planeswalker Reena Mreez crafted the world she calls Immovale whose environment and its inhabitants are subject to the memories, thoughts, and stability of her mind. In the mind, the lines of distinction among person, place, and magic are blurred, especially while she dreams. Despite her frequent visits to the plane, its inhabitants do not know of their own origin or their creator -- for the most part.

Immovale consists of an endless ocean and is populated with bobbing islands of forestry and larger pieces of earth known as mount-plateaus. At the top of these amazingly tall mountains are flat stretches of land with kingdoms built upon it. There are wonderful black stream-passages leading away from these plateaus and toward one location. They lead to one murky part of the ocean overgrown with an amalgamation of dead vegetation, live weed-like plants, and a tainted aura.

The vulture tribe, the scavor, is suspicious of the irregularity of these swamps, which they frequent to trade with the gromp. The gromp, a crocodile species, seemingly know of a secret they're protecting from the other inhabitants. Meanwhile, the wibblies, a frog-like people, have long studied the nature of their world and its peculiar behavior and have noticed some patterns. The dwarves, on the other hand, care less about thinking and more about expanding their cities within the bobbing mount-plateaus. The curious and playful gnomes simply live as they wish: living within the moment, exploring unknown regions, and… pulling pranks.

D. The plane is tied to Reena's mind. The world and people blend identities sometimes. She experiences trauma, has flashbacks, has familiar thoughts, and focuses on ideas in her mind.

Themes: library and subtype matters. Mechanics: Trauma, Flashback, Familiarity, Focus. Also, Tribal and land-equivalent Terrain appear.

Trauma X (Whenever this creature would deal damage to a player, that player mills NUMBER cards instead.)

Yes, Trauma is using the word "mill". It's a keyword action now, like scry.

Flashback COST (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. If you do, exile it.)

This mechanic combats the Trauma mechanic. The twist in the large set is that it is also used on creatures with "When you cast CARDNAME" triggered effects.

Familiarity -- Whenever you play a card sharing a subtype with this, DO THIS.

Further supported by flashback's "cast twice" nature, this mechanic rewards those who play a single subtype. For the first set, that means creature types and basic land types. Tribal and Terrain support this by having types on non-creatures and non-lands.

Focus (Play with the top card of your library revealed. Whenever you would draw a card, you may draw the second card from the top of your library instead.)

This keeps a card on top of your library and is further supported by a secondary ability of any kind that cares about the top card of the library. Trauma disrupts this strategy.

Part II - The Cards

1. Chanker, Gromp Spawner (Rare)

[Some Crocodile Guy - http://community.wizards.com/magicthegathering/wiki/Labs:Gds/gds2/rainingcatsdogs/designtest/card01]

4BG

Legendary Creature - Crocodile Shaman

5/4

When Chanker enters the battlefield, put a 1/1 green Crocodile creature token onto the battlefield for each Crocodile card in your graveyard.

B, Exile a Crocodile card from your graveyard: Target Crocodile gains deathtouch until end of turn.

2. Dream Swallower (Mythic Rare)

[Dreameater - http://community.wizards.com/magicthegathering/wiki/Labs:Gds/gds2/rainingcatsdogs/designtest/card02]

3BBB

Creature - Nightmare

4/4

Flying, Trauma 5

Whenever a player mills a nonland card, you may search that player's library for any number of cards with the same name and put them into his or her graveyard. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

3. Gnome Trickery-Pull (Rare)

5RRR

Tribal Instant - Gnome

Until end of turn, you may cast exiled cards you own with a flashback cost without paying its mana cost. Whenever you cast a spell this way this turn, each other player may cast an exiled card without paying its mana cost. (Each spell cast this way is put into the graveyard when it resolves.)

4. Good Dream (Common)

3W

Creature - Dream

2/2

When you cast Good Dream, you gain 2 life.

Focus (Play with the top card of your library revealed. Whenever you would draw a card, you may draw the second card from the top of your library instead.)

As long as the top card of your library is white, Good Dream has flying.

Flashback W

5. Reena Mreez (Mythic Rare)

4UU

Planeswalker - Reena

3 Loyalty

[0]: Choose a subtype. Whenever you cast a card with the chosen subtype, put two loyalty counters on Reena.

[-5] : Choose a subtype. Return all permanents of the chosen subtype to their owners' hands.

[-11]: Choose a subtype. Search your library for any number of cards with the chosen subtype and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

6. Wibblie Forestation (Uncommon)

3GG

Terrain Creature - Frog Forest

3/3

Trample

Familiarity - Whenever you play a card sharing a subtype with Wibblie Forestation, Wibblie Forestation gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

7. Blessing of the Scavor (Rare)

[Glorious Assault - http://community.wizards.com/magicthegathering/wiki/Labs:Gds/gds2/rainingcatsdogs/designtest/card03]

3WW

Tribal Sorcery - Bird

Reveal the top card of your library. Creatures you control that share a creature type with the revealed card get +2/+2 and gain lifelink until end of turn. 

8. Recurring Nightmares (Rare)

[Awaken the Restless - http://community.wizards.com/magicthegathering/wiki/labs:Gds/gds2/NoShoes/CardIdeas]

2BB

Tribal Enchantment - Nightmare

Whenever a creature card is put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile that card and put a 1/1 black Nightmare creature token onto the battlefield under your control.

9. Dwarven Waraxe (Uncommon)

4

Tribal Artifact - Dwarf Equipment

Equipped creature gets +2/+0. If equipped creature shares a subtype with Dwarven Waraxe, equipped creature and each creature sharing a subtype with equipped creature gets +2/+2 instead.

Equip 2

10. Plateau Murkways (Rare)

Land - Plains Swamp

Plateau Murkways enters the battlefield tapped.

Plateau Murkways doesn't untap during your untap step.

T: Add W or B to your mana pool.

Familiarity - Whenever you play a card sharing a subtype with Plateau Murkways, untap it.

Write-up: All the cards in the set have a subtype.