Restricted images

Noticed today that some of the images form previous posts have a gray "no entry" preview instead of the real image. Can't quite figure out why.

Well, this blog has been a PITA for a little while now. If it doesn't fix itself or if I can't figure out how to fix it, I'm considering changing the blog provider. I don't really want to use tumblr or image-heavy blog-style sites, so I'll have to do some research. I've got a reddit, hubski, deviantart, and twitter account, so maybe I'll make some kind of swap to one of those.

C'est la vie.

Edit 5/8: Huh. They're all back now. I didn't DO anything!

Sewers Under Kasprah – Gold & Hybrid

The final stretch! Here are all the gold and hybrid cards!

Click to read.

These five hybrids were some of the first I designed. I wanted to make a cycle of cards that show of two of the new mechanics each, and both mechanics had to fit in either color of the hybrid. Each are rare creatures that cost 2CC.

Fading Survivor is unblockable, so the Plunge trigger is inevitable. Spell Fisher is for the Instant & Sorcery deck. Heartening Guide was made for the Enchantment deck.

After coming up with those hybrids, I came up with gold uncommons. Each of these uncommons begins with a V, only costs two mana, and represent the color pairs that were not represented in the first set of hybrids (therefore, the two colors, I think, do not have two mechanics to go with them). Originally, each of these was common, and cost 1 generic mana extra.

Four of them act as removal. I kind wish I had figured out a Simic removal for the last one. Oh, well.

After coming up with all of the previous gold and hybrids, I had some ideas that worked best as gold cards, though they never quite reached a new gold cycle. I've got an extra white and am missing a black. Booooo.

Enraged Humonuculus is kind of the opposite of an Instant/Sorcery archetype, which I might find interesting to try. Imagine if I flipped archetypes on their head, so as to find ways of making them in unlikely color pairs?

Refulgent Armor is another technically colorless artifact, but since both activated abilities require a color, I consider this a gold card. You could use it in a deck that is only one of the colors for only one of the effects, if you like.

Muck Mole goes heavy in the Drain & lifegain decks, and I looked to Dread Presence for inspiration.

The final card is our Planeswalker, Ubrak. I decided for the storyline that he might be a Planeswalker who found himself on Kasprah and decided to wreak havoc, leading a rebellion to sow chaos. I picture him as an orc that looks similar to Dire Fleet Captain in art. His first ability (+1) gives you Flush for free, and fuels his second ability (-3) as removal. His last ability (-4) is simple land destruction, and therefore not particularly an ultimate, per se, but I liked the flavor of Ubrak wanting so much choas and destruction that he's destroying the sewers entirely. Besides, it is flavorfully similar to a mean Burst: instead of blowing up your own lands, you blow up your opponent's (though, of course, they get no value from it).

So that's all the cards I came up with on this first round. Not quite enough for a full set, but now I'll be refining and reworking the concepts and settle on some archtypes. I also have been wanting to make a set with a flavor of old-school Magic (because everything I do is nostalgic, apparently), so the next round of cards will probably have the old style card frame. Which also means I'm probably not going to have new card types, like Planeswalkers, and possibly no equipment or vehicles. We'll see how it all works out. I do like the look of old frame hybrids, though!

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra Red & Blue

Click to read.

The most interesting card here is Divergent Fork, which is like normal Fork, but you must choose new targets if able. I originally called it Fork Off when it was just a complete joke set, but I kind of liked the idea of the card, so now Divergent Fork sounds more like it's a new tunnel in the sewer.

Hostage Negotiation I think is neat. Not only is it a normal threaten effect, but you get to kill the hostage if one of your own creatures takes damage on your next swing. It no longer becomes a simple "I borrow your creature for one turn" effect, and now the sacrifice effect that makes threaten effects more useful is stapled right on the card.

Purger's Saber is a Red artifact to go in the Red/White equipment deck. It doesn't have to go in a red deck, but it just makes the equip cost much cheaper. Also technically it matters that you're in Purger colors (who are all Humans and Dwarves and cover all colors except blue).

Burrow Squad is land destruction on a stick, which makes it a pretty powerful bomb all told, which is why I made it such an expensive card.

Read the Waters is for the Red/Blue Instants & Sorceries deck, though I want to come up with something cooler for those colors, now that I've seen the recent sets with "draw your second card" and "cast a spell on an opponent's turn" as the Izzet archetypes.

Backflow is a huge tempo play, but when you bounce only a token (therefore you do not get to turn off your opponent's next draw step), you get to draw a card yourself, evening out the effect.

Mutating Waters is a blue removal spell, and though in recent sets you make blue frogs instead of green frogs, I already had a green frog theme going before I made this card so I decided it was not important to make another token just for a color change.

Locked Grate is a super slow Millstone, but if you want to make the Esper Mill deck a thing, here's one option. I've seen too many mill decks recently, so the idea has lost its charm, though when you're lost in the sewers you are quite likely to go insane, so it's tough to part with the idea...

Jammed Floodgate works well as both a bounce lock on your opponent, but can also serve as an expensive way to blink your own creatures. The blink deck idea is starting to sound more fun...

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra Black & Green

Extra black cards, with a Rats tribal theme...

Click to read.

I like the idea of Scrabbling Rats as a deathtoucher that can grow bigger, though of course the activation cost is pretty high. Rat Bite acts as straight removal if you want, but you have the ability to make the momentary deathtouch not be on the brand new Rat token. (I don't know why you wouldn't but I like giving players edge-case options).

Cannibal Orgg is a Flush payoff I forgot to include earlier. Grit Chamber is a black artifact (I swear they look so awesome). With this, I wonder if I could push, say, Rakdos into a discard theme... Long-Tailed Slink is a big powerful 6/6 for 4 with an extra upside, and an extra downside. I do kind of wonder if this is too big of a bomb, but that's what playtesting is for. Unnatural Vapors is a black board wipe, but as there aren't very many artifact creatures, it's pretty much 100% effective (doubtful you'd have too many Slithering Surveyors). Though I could have Black/Something be an artifact archetype...

Not much to say about these simple cards. Blind Hunt is interesting in that you get a consolation prize if your creature dies in the fight. Works well in the Abzan lifegain decks.

Map the Sewers allows you to restock the top of your deck with a bunch of lands, guaranteeing land draws so you can fuel the Burst cards in your hand. You can also have it be an ultra slow Rampant Growth early game if you're really struggling for lands. Knotcroaker generates tokens, though perhaps I might have changed it to "Whenever Knotcroaker is dealt damage" instead. Wandering Minotaur is a huge way to ramp and refill your Burstable lands, making it a massive value engine, though it's not a bomb that's going to win you the game outright.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra White

Now we've mostly finished with cards about the new mechanics, but there always have to be a few simpler spells. Some of these I won't have too much to talk about.

Click to enlarge.

Fallback Plan is a good way to save a creature from combat, however, it sort of acts as a Backup payoff, because this would only work onyour own creatures if they had Vigilnce or were targeted for Backup, so they could tap. If you target an opponent's creature with this (a plan I didn't realize was possible until I looked at the card just now), you could tap it down during the Begin Combat step, making it effectively super cheap removal. I gotta pay attention to those interactions in the future. I should probably have made Fallback Plan more expensive, or made it say "Enchant creature you control"...

Inescapable Trap is a much more fun spell to me. It's an O-Ring, but once you've taken an opponent's creature with it, they can pay eight mana to get it out. Inescapable, you say?

Bucolic Homunculus (oops, spelled it wrong in the title) is an Enchantment payoff for the Green/White Enchantment deck (though again, I'm reconsidering that since it's not interesting to me).

Grounding Wire is the first white Artifact, to go with red's Chainbomb from before. In this set, there are a few colored artifacts, in particular giving Red/White an equipment theme (once again rethinking that). Grounding Wire lets you protect your creatures from damage, but it's not really a splashable card because the activated ability on it uses only white mana. There is something so cool about the look of colored artifacts...

Exit Strategy lets you return creatures to your hand, but only at sorcery speed, so this is not like Fallback Plan. This is more for a blink deck, which would be interesting to make White/Blue be a blink shenanigans deck.

Speaking of White/Blue, something I've never gotten around to mentioning is that there are no fliers in this set. I considered Bats for flying and Spiders for reach, but ultimately I stayed away from all of that in favor of pushing forward the other new mechanics. This meant it was tough for White to not have as many combat manuevers (flying and, for the most part, vigilance), which presented quite the challenge for coming up with white cards. I had also considered earlier on to have Swimming be a mechanic, which is literally just Flying but likely moved to be heavier on Blue/Black. I ended up trashing that when I settled on the three-color mechanics.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Lands & Artifacts

Now onto the colorless artifacts and lands! There will be more colored artifacts to come.

Click to read.

This cycle of lands I call Search lands. Each taps for the four colors of a Kasprah faction, but you have to spend a couple of turns 'searching' for the ability first.

Pile of Trash is an Artifact Land that only works once, either as colorless mana, or as an onboard combat trick. I am certainly aware of the trouble with Artifact Lands, though my sets are always designed with Limited in mind, so the Artifact nature of the land is more for flavor reasons—though you could blow it up with Chainbomb!

Diamond-Tipped Tunneler is the only Vehicle in the set. I also considered making more Vehicles, but couldn't come up with anything else interesting. With Diamond-Tipped Tunneler, I like how it's both a Vehicle and essentially a Traveler's Amulet.

Alternate Route is basically an Evolving Wilds for nonbasics.

I almost got a cycle out of these monocolored lands, but could never quite come up with a white one. I tried to go heavy on the flavor with these lands. The disadvantage of three of them is that they come in tapped; Electric Room does not, but it deals damage to you when you use it for mana. Electric Room and Pump Room go together, in that they both have activated abilities for 1CC and a sacrifice. Rat Nest and Brood Muckery go together in that they both make 1/1 tokens, though to make them different I made it so the Rat Nest has an activated ability and Brood Muckery has a triggered ability. The green land, in particular, offers a go-wide creature strategy, though as I mentioned before, I may have tokens be Green/Black, so these lands still work alright.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Red Flush & Green Drain

Lots of red Flush cards!

Click to embiggen.

Lots of these cards are your basic red spells with a Flush tacked on. Shocking Jolt is just Shock with Flush. However, once more it is important to notice that the cheaper and easier it is to get a card into your graveyard, the more expensive the Flush cost. So Shocking Jolt is a cheap little spell, but costs 5 to Flush.

Clear the Well is a common Flush payoff, where you deal damage equal to the number of cards you own in exile. However, since Plunge is also a thing, your opponent with a Plunge deck might actually help you go off with Clear the Well!

Watch out for Blind Cyclops; it can also deal damage to your own creatures! Purgebreaker is an uncommon Flush payoff. You only need to have Flushed one card (or had an opponent Plunge one card of yours) to give Purgebreaker trample. Chainbomb is a fun design that I want to explore more. Originally I had it as only being 'Destroy target artifact' without the other option, which meant that you might blow up Chainbomb itself if there are no other targets. At least you are given a small choice here to deal damage to creatures. However, depending on board state, this might actually hinder you from Flushing. I wonder if I changed it to something like it deals damage to you if you can't do the other options. Arson is simply a rare card (Banefire) with a bonus Flush, though it's not a payoff the way Clear the Well is.

The green Drain cards are pretty simple. Shortfanged Slink has no power, but Drains if it isn't blocked, so it's a bit of an opposite Afflict.

Pesticider and Topside Feeder offer activated Drain abilities. Lifeblood Enchanter is a payoff for the Enchantment deck, which I may make be Selesnya, or even Simic, though I'm not sure I want that to even be an archetype for this set. Enchantment themes are a bit of a late addition when I was struggling for interesting cards.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Blue Burst & Black Plunge

Again, back on the Burst train. So much fun.

Click to embiggen

The blue Burst commons are fairly normal blue effects: countering spells, bouncing permanents, scrying, and card draw.

The uncommons, and the next mythic, however, is where it's at.

Rebel Recruiter steals a creature and Spillway Throttler sleeps all creatures, both of which of course are huge plays, but it's Ochetas here that really brings things home. It has two separate instances of Burst, so you can stack them and choose whether to sacrifice a land for each independently. If you need to untap all of your permanents (and in particular your lands here) to cast more spells in hand, effectively making Ochetas practically free (apart from the sacrificed land), you can do just that. Or, if you need to refill your hand with a few cards so you have some spells to cast, you can do that instead. Or, sacrifice two lands and do both! I love Ochetas as a bomb mythic. I originally named her Thalassa, but of course it sounds like Thassa, and in any case both are from the same root word, so instead of "Sea" as my root (especially in a sewer), I used "eight". (Good thing she's an 8/8 for 8!)

The Plunges here aren't too special to note here. Scavenger's Shadow is an Aura with the ETB Plunge trigger. Peel Sanity is a Plunge that repeats until you get something that isn't a land, so you get to Scry. You might peel five lands off the top, or stop at the first card. Gurgly Lurker is the common Plunge payoff.

Suckling Feeder is the uncommon Plunge Payoff. Shiver of Merfolk has a "double Plunge" trigger, and multiple ones, at that.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Green Burst & White Backup

Huzzah, more Burst, and more fun stuff to talk about!

Click to embiggen

Shortsighted Cyclops and Dismantlers do some basic green things with the Burst. Gremlin Wayfinder has basically no downside to the Burst, since you sacrifice one land to get two (apart from them both going into your hand instead of one on the battlefield). Fungal Armor is really fun to me, providing a duplicate token copy of itself when you Burst. However, the token copy must enchant a second creature; you can't have it enchant the first. (I think there's probably a better way to phrase it.) Ruinbred Ogre is the common Burst payoff.

Moldy Giant is again your basic green effect, as well as Healer Giant, though the eight life is pretty big. Knotmother is the first instance of the frog token, and you can work on going wide with it. New Passageways is a rare Burst payoff, allowing you to find more lands to fuel more Bursts. Leader Basilisk is the first mythic I've shown, which lets you put another creature directly into play. Which, if you like, can be another Burstable creature, and you could sacrifice yet another land for another effect, such as dropping Knotmother. You've just put 10 power on the board for five mana! (...plus two land sacs).

These common Backup cards are mostly simple, though Inspiriting Call is tricky, and I'd have to aska judge on the rules for it. Do you have to cast it on your begin combat step to activate the Backup? I would think so, because if you cast it during your attack step, the timing for the Backup trigger has already gone by.

Watchful Cleric I find to be particularly interesting, giving other creatures Backup while it's in play. It does not have Backup natively, so you might want to choose to give Watchful Cleric itself Backup. Standing Sniffer is an uncommon Backup payoff. Note something interesting here. Suppose at the beginning of combat Standing Sniffer is untapped, making it a 5/5. You attack with it and something else with Backup. Standing Sniffer becomes tapped, making it a 3/3. Then the Backup trigger goes on the stack. While it's on the stack, Standing Sniffer is vulnerable to be bolted. Watch out!

Relief Sergeant is another uncommon Backup payoff, and, in fact, I considered Backup to be a token-making mechanic initially, such as simply saying as reminder text "When this creature attacks, create a 1/1 soldier creature token". In this case, Relief Sergeant gets the token tapped an attacking, for some solid aggression (however, the token cannot become untapped via Backup in this combat, since the Backup triggers have all already occurred). Elephant Barricade is a rare Backup payoff, though you could potentially just drop it and never attack with it.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Black Drain & Red Backup

Click to enlarge and read.

The black drain triggers are mostly on death, as one might expect from a deathy color. Glorifier of the Purge has a sacrifice ability on it for when you just need to get through that last point of damage. Vicious Sweeper has a slightly different kind of on-death trigger, letting you drain when it kills another creature. I am considering a Black/White sacrifice Drain deck as an archetype for the next version of this set. Though Black/Red is the usual sacrifice colors, White often allows you to sacrifice creatures for some benefit, such as giving another creature Protection, etc.

Gnawing Rats lets you create rats, so you have a repeatable Drain with each trigger. With black rats and green frogs (we'll see later), I'm considering Black/Green be a possible tokens strategy. The problem here, I think, is that I also do generate a lot of tokens in White with 1/1 soldiers, and I don't want too many token decks. Depending on how silly or serious I make things, perhaps one of those tokens goes away. It would be interesting to almost color-shift all the archetypes, making tokens the Green/Black strategy....

Anyway, Bloodthirst (oops that's a mechanic name) is an uncommon lifegain (and therefore Drain) payoff for black. Priest of the Purge give all of your creatures an on-death Drain trigger. That would certainly work for a tokens deck, wouldn't it... hmm...

Not too much to say about these red Backup cards, apart from they are all very aggressive. Springing Flailer is a Backup payoff that does not have Backup on itself.

Impatient Purger is an uncommon payoff for the Instants & Sorceries Izzet deck, though as I've mentioned before I think I'll try to come up with something more interesting for that color combo. Purgeball I just think is a really funny card. If your opponent can find a way to block it with five creatures, it will kill itself. Crazed Cleaner is a bit of a sweeper, or makes a headache for your opponent if it goes unblocked. Untamed Rage is a rare Backup payoff. One of the cycles I made throughout this set is a collection of rare payoff enchantments for each new mechanic.

Sewers Under Kasprah – White Plunge & Blue Flush

Our first Legendary creature coming up!

Click to enlarge.

Lose the Way is a fairly benign Plunge effect, similar to Pressure Point but with Plunge instead of 'Draw a card'. Hooded Anathema is similar to the blue Juvenile Feeder from earlier, except that if you get through with Hooded Anathema, you don't assign combat damage. Blind Condylur is a Defender with Plunge on attack, so you can pay mana to have it be able to attack. Overall, I think Hooded Anathema and Blind Condylur are a bit complicated for commons, but not powerful enough to be moved to uncommon or rare territory.

Sanguine Forecast is both a Plunge with a semi-Backup effect. Terrifying Strike is an instant that gives a creature Plunge on damage, but since it also gives doublestrike, it is possible you will be able to double Plunge off of it. Spurned Legionnaire is something of a Mentor of the Meek style effect, but for Plunge rather than card draw, encouraging you to go wide. Last Breath is our first legendary creature for the set. It has three Plunge triggers, and allows you to gain life off the Plunge. Therefore, this lets you Plunge, but it can do its part in lifegain decks as well.

Each of the cards above are basic blue spells, with Flush tacked on, as Flush cards tend to be.

Here we start to get interesting things. The common Flush payoff here gives Slippery Mutant unblockable for the turn. Interrupted Ploy is interesting because it doesn't outright counter a spell, but has a Mana Leak-style effect, except that the opponent has to essentially pay double the cost of the spell to cast it. In all but the most late-game grinds, this should be pretty much a hard counter. The other two cards are again basic blue cards with Flush tacked on. It's tough to make Flush an interesting mechanic worthy of discussion; truly, like Plunge, it offers inevitability and value for control decks more than anything.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Red Burst & Green Backup

Burst is such a fun mechanic. There's a massive variety of things to do with it. Here are some ways Red gets to play with Burst.

Click to read.

Tunneler Boa lets you trade land for land, which is of course useful for when a player is lacking lands already or is missing a color, but there are a few nonbasic lands in this set you may want to get rid of. Since Tunneler Boa is expensive without the Burst, you may want to sideboard it until you know you need it. Hot-tailed Flailer gives you a nice aggressive 3/1 body while letting you lightning bolt something for the bonus Burst cost. Hot removal! Smashing Ogre lets you come in hot and fast, and if you are Burst-heavy aggressive, a hasty, first-strikey 4/4 might really help close out the game. Intimidating Ogre gives you a threaten effect as well, and while threaten effects aren't always a great option, you're not wasting a card by having a 4/4 for four in your deck, so the threaten effect is a nice bonus.

Terrorizing Crocodile can similarly close out a game by giving all of your creatures menace when you Burst it onto the scene. Note, however, the Terrorizing Crocodile doesn't have haste, so the 3/3 body shouldn't be relied on to help. Junkers is great for red-style card draw, of course. Aggrandizing Druid practically lets you cast something even bigger for free!

Like Flush, Backup is a relatively simple mechanic, so most cards don't have too much to say about them, part from the extra features and occasional synergies.

Wired is an enchantment that grants Backup. Purging Party is a fairly average Backup card, though it's a big boy, since green is the color of big boys. Dwarven Salvager has Backup, and then has Backup for lands, essentially. It's a bit like when Prowess was introduced in Tarkir, where some cards had Prowess, and another ability that would trigger at the same time.

Shrieking Slug has a double instance of Backup. Noisy Lizard and Alarum Sergeant have a bonus way to untap all creatures you control, on death and on ETB, respectively. You can kind of see the theme of "waking up" with the titles of these cards. Minacious Crocodile is effectively unblockable, so it's locked away as a rare bomb.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Blue Plunge & Black Flush

Plunge is a control-style mechanic that allows you to slowly mill (sort of) your opponent, while giving you the possibility of powerful scrying.

Click to read.

Eyesore is a simple ETB Plunge trigger. Sanity Leech is repeatable, and being an early defender, it is invaluable to control players looking to stack their deck. Mind Scavenge is a simple instant with Plunge, which has the variability of being better, worse, or equal to Opt. Brain Feeder offers an activated Plunge ability, though I think of it as a tad expensive (for a common, it's important for it to be a little expensive). Brain Suckle essentially lets you "mill" three cards, but you also get your choice of exiling the card with the highest CMC for you to Plunge with.

Juvenile Feeder can provide an interesting choice for an opponent. Many times, and opponent who needs to decide blocks may let a simple one damage go through to block other threats, but with the triggered Plunge, the opponent may decide blocking that one damage is important. Undertow Lurker is an Instant/Sorcery payoff, which is naturally Izzet's subtheme. I may change that to be more interesting as I redesign the set. Three-Eyed Mole is a Plunge payoff, letting you constantly draw cards if you have the mana to recast Three-Eyed Mole. Pieces of Sanity is a rare enchantment that gives you a lot of inevitability. Novel Futures is a Scry payoff, but just the same way that all lifegain payoffs are also Drain payoffs, this Scry payoff is also a Plunge payoff.

Flush being a fairly simple mechanic, there won't be too much to talk about on each of these black cards.

Here, Black gets an instant, a sorcery, an enchantment, and a creature at common each with Flush. The ease of which they enter the graveyard determines their flush cost, so a cheap sorcery like Smokebomb is expensive to Flush, while permanents are a little cheaper.

The uncommons and rares get more interesting. Agonized Survivor makes you discard a card to cast, but you get a replacement after you Flush it. Rabid Blood Rebel let you sacrifice itself to act as removal, and also get it more quickly into the graveyard for Flushing. Slimesucker is a simple payoff for Flushing your cards. Rotting Feasts is a more interesting payoff for Flush, in that it turns your Flushing into removal. As well, your opponent hasn't seen the last of Rotting Feasts when they remove it, because you can activate it one last time from your graveyard. They language is a little tricky here, because as an enchantment it only works on other cards while it's on the battlefield, but it works on itself from the graveyard. I wonder if there's a way to clarify that.

Sewers Under Kasprah – White Drain

Now that I've got my feet wet designing the cards for Sewers Under Kasprah, I'm taking a step back and re-evaluating all the archetypes. The original "archetypes" were just the three color combos that made up a singular mechanic, and that just won't do. So now, with these mechanics in mind, I'm considering proper two-color archetypes that can be supported by these mechanics. So I think I'm going to start from scratch, almost, redesigning the set with the new archetypes in mind. I am also strongly considering changing the story theme and flavor. Though it will remain about sewers, I'm unsure whether I want to alter things to make them more of a joke set as originally intended, or tighten up a story that can flow through the cards.

In the meantime, I thought I'd post all the cards I had originally designed. I'll break them up into a bunch of posts like I did with Seffala, starting today with White Drain cards.

Click to read.

First, the common Drain cards. Moral Brutes is a simple card with the basic ETB effect we've all seen from cards like Skymarch Bloodletter. Ardent Purger is similar but requires you to pay the extra mana for the privilege, kind of like Extort. Dwarven Venger has more of an anti-block trigger, so it some ways it acts like Afflict, however since Dwarven Venger needs to have been dealt damage, zero-power creatures (like walls, usually) would not affect it. Anemic Peel is the first sorcery that drains. It uses the 'fairness' aspect of white in its second bit of text, allowing you to catch up to your opponent's life totals. Innervation sage is the common payoff, giving it a Prowess-type boost, but for lifegain.

Now, the uncommon and rare Drain cards. Longfingers is closer to a proper Afflict mechanic, because its trigger is on becoming blocked, not on being dealt damage. Sapping Trap is a removal spell with a variable Drain tacked on, which can be a very heavy swing if the opponent comes in or blocks with a big bomb. Feasting Leeches is the uncommon payoff for Drain, so at worst if you're below ten life, it's a 1/1, but if you've drained enough to get above 20 life, you're getting an above-rate creature. Mucilaginous Feaster has a bunch of triggers, first by having multiple Drain effects (on ETB and on attack), but then also has half of Dawn of Hope tacked onto it, appending card draw onto lifegain, which makes the card a rare payoff. Unusual Recruitment is a second rare payoff, allowing you to turn your potential lifegain into a go-wide token strategy. Notice here that it's a replacement effect, so you never gain the life. But it's also a may ability so you can choose whether the lifegain or soldiers are more useful at the moment.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Ideas, Mechanics, & Themes

My next Magic set I began running with shortly after finishing Ruin of Seffala—that is, shortly after finishing the last card over a year ago.

Ruin of Seffala was meant to be a serious set that I thought I could be proud of. I would say the mishmash of tribal themes was a bit disjointed, and the mechanics were nonbos, such as the original idea of Toughlink (when the creature dies, you gain life equal to its toughness) being completely negated by Wither (as a creature that dies from -1/-1 counters has a Toughness of zero when it dies).

So, having learned that I was bad at "serious" sets, I thought I'd take a break and make something funny.

Since every videogame has a requisite sewer level, I decided to make a sewer-themed Magic set. After hemming and hawing over made up plane (or perhaps city) names, I have settled on Sewers Under Kasprah, or SUK.

Being a sewer theme, I wanted to come up with mechanics that were hilariously named, even if they were seriously designed. I kind of went for a top-down design, coming up with possible mechanic names first that would match a sewer (or rather plumbing) theme, and then tried to come up with mechanics that sounded like they fit the name.

So I'll start by showing off the five major new mechanics I designed. Each mechanic can be found in three colors, but I follow neither wedges nor shards; however, it does all balance out so each color gets exactly three new mechanics. I worked hard to theme them nice!

Naya, the aggro colors, get BACKUP.

Click to embiggen. Lots of cards this post!

Backup is fairly simple: it's kind of a triggered, moveable Vigilance. Whenever a creature with Backup attacks, you can untap it or any other attacking creature you like. Since the ability goes on the stack (unlike Vigilance), there is an opportunity to react to the trigger.

Since I have my own pseudo-Vigilance, I tried to not use too much real Vigilance. There are a few cases so far, but these are more used like bonuses, such as with Purgers' Bloodhounds here, so that you don't have to 'spend' your Backup trigger on the creature you're attacking with itself. Instances of Backup stack, as you can see with Shrieking Slug, which by itself has two instances of Backup.

Abzan, the colors of life and death, get DRAIN.

Drain is a well-known mechanic that only has this as an unofficial name, so I codified it here. Drain is another simple keyword that can be activated or triggered. When an instance of Drain X occurs, each opponent loses X life and you gain X life. We've seen this ability a million times in Black, and I decided the other colors of lifegain could use them as well. Here are a bunch of options, where you can have it tacked on to an Instant or Sorcery, as an activated ability, or as a triggered ability.

Temur, my favorite colors, get BURST, my favorite mechanic (which will likely always be the case).

Burst is more of a reminder word for an ETB effect. Burst always begin with "When this permanent enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice a land. If you do...", and then you get some bonus. I figured Temur would be great for this mechanic: Green is the color of putting extra lands into play; red is the color of short-term gain and high-risk, high-reward; and blue is the color of card draw, so you're likely to hit your land drops. Each instance of Burst always gives a fun different bonus, and depending on your strategy, you may not want to load up on them, or you may decide not to activate the bonus, since it is not mandatory.

Esper, the control colors, get PLUNGE.

Plunge is a keyword ability that kind of mixes and matches what blue and black do best, while inverting the fairness inherent to white. Plunge has you exiling the top card of your opponent's library (a slow mill plan if you wish), and you get to Scry X, where X is the converted mana cost of the exiled card. If you exile a land, bummer, and if you exile your opponent's eight-mana bomb, you get to really stack your deck.

Grixis, the colors of card advantage, get FLUSH.

Grixis has a very simple mechanic, that mixes the card advantage of red and blue with the graveyard shenanigans of black. You simply pay the Flush cost, exile the flushed card out of your graveyard, and you get to draw a card. The Flush cost usually scales, so the greater the CMC of the card, the smaller the Flush cost. Quite frankly, with its simplicity, I'm surprised there is not another mechanic already just like it (at least not that I could find).

With all of these three-color mechanics designed, I set to work making four-color clans. These are rarely 'tribes' because it's not so much a creature or class tribal set, but just in terms of story, there are five four-color factions.

Above the sewers, in Kasprah, there are gangs duking it out in a post-apocalyptic Seffala-meets-Kaladesh hellscape.

Below the sewers, we have the Survivors. Survivors are primarily intelligent creatures that have gone down into the sewers to escape the war-torn city above and try to live on slime. Survivors are most Homunculi, Mutants, and Orggs. These Survivors are mostly strangely-bred creatures that were raised to do the bidding of one faction or another above, but got away. Survivors make up the 'Artifice' slice of the color pie, meaning White, Blue, Black, and Red. They utilize the new mechanics of Plunge and Flush.

Heading down into the sewers to clean them out are the Purgers, mostly Humans and Dwarfs that form what might be thought of as the police state or armed forces of Kasprah. Their task is to clean out the nuisances of all living creatures in the sewers. I like to picture them as having flamethrowers. They take up the Aggressive colors of White, Black, Red, and Green, and use Backup and Drain as their mechanics.

The Scavengers are primarily Horrors that live in the sewers, feasting both on the flesh and the psyche of all the enter. Scavengers can be all manner of creatures that would naturally swim in the muck, including Merfolk, Cephalids, Fungi, Homarids, Leeches, Moles, Naga, Ooze, and Rats. Since they feast so well and live like kings in their watery domain, they take up the Growth portion of the color pie: White, Blue, Black, and Green. Their mechanics are Drain and Plunge.

The Beasts (the generic term here, not the creature type) make up the less-than-intelligent creatures that live in the sewers. More beef than brains, these creatures are big boys that chomp their prey to pieces. They can be Crocodiles, Basilisks, Jellyfish, Crabs, Fish, Krakens, Octopi, Frogs, Lizards, Slugs, Snakes, and Squids. I love variety in my beasties. They make up the Altruism slice of the pie (for lack of a better word, since they're generally too dumb for morals), with White, Blue, Red, and Green. Their mechanics are Backup and Burst.

Lastly, we have the Rebels. Above all, these are the guys the Purgers are really going after. The Rebels are the gangs that are going to war above, and use the sewers as ways to get around the city undetected. They've got the waterways mapped out, and even know how to lay traps for their foes. Rebels are mostly monstrous humanoid types, like Giants, Ogres, Orcs, Cyclopi, Minotaurs, and Gremlins. In their quest for destruction and anarchy, they make up the Chaos slice of the pie: Blue, Black, Red and Green. Rebels get the mechanics of Flush and Burst.

Perhaps for story purposes I'll add watermarks to each clan, if I can either find or create good-looking watermarks.

After coming up with all of these mechanics, themes, stories, factions, etc., I blew through a slew of interesting ideas for commons and uncommons, and a few rare and mythics, but I started to slow down and get stuck. Then, out of boredom, I kind of created two-color subthemes for variety, so that there was more focus and differentiation between two colors that might belong in the same wedge or shard. And this is where I'm at: I'm currently experimenting with putting small spins on the overarching themes, like having Blue/Black have a greater emphasis on Mill, and Red/White have a lot of equipment. With Seffala, I stopped myself from making extra cards as soon as I hit the limit, but now I'm experimenting, and I hope to generate far more cards than necessary, and start to cut them back when I have too many (perhaps save some ideas for a sequel). All of the sample cards above have the possibility of being cut or reworked.

But, so far, I am much happier with this effort than my first; though it started off with silly plumbing-themed mechanics, it quickly grew into a serious set with interesting characters. Now I just hope it plays better...