Forgive the font in the title, it entertained me too much not to use at least once.

Aaaanyway, I've decided to buckle down and try (for a second time) to design a set based around the world of Muraganda. Easy enough right? We know it has Petroglyphs and probably weird dinosaurs.....and that's about it. So I tried to put together a rough design a while back because I was bored and dino-world sounded fun. I got about three quarters of the way through my design skeleton before realizing that I didn't like what I had done and jettisoned the whole mess into the void.

Now I'm ready to take another crack at it and see what I can do. I'm just sort of stuck in one spot and I'd like to see if anyone had some advice.

Here's what I'm shooting for so far:

Muraganda feels like a very primal and wild place, full of mystery and awe. It strikes me somewhat of what I'd expect if someone creatively smashed Pre-Eldrazi Zendikar and the Alara shard of Jund together and saw what grew out of it. Tossing in some expected tropes like dino-riders, cavemen, out-of place explorers, tar pits, and even unexplained obelisks cropping up here and there; everything molded together to form this idea.

Muraganda is only partially a natural plane. Eons ago, a Pre-Mending 'Walker used it as a staging ground for planar experiments due to its rich mana and highly adaptable or resilient ecosystems. Said 'Walker created a control obelisk and five tuning obelisks spread out throughout Muraganda. The purpose of these stone monoliths was to cause localized planar overlays; essentially stealing swaths of other planes and merging them with Muragada. Anyway, the ancient 'Walker has since disappeared as many 'Walkers have Post-mending, but its planar technology lives on, if dormant, as the populations of Murganda continued about their existence.....that is until one of the tuning obelisks was activated, pulling a portion of a nearby plane into the fold and disrupting everything. Will the off-worlders be able to figure out what is going on, find the control obelisk, and get home? How will the home teams take to these new strangers tromping about their lands? Do the natives have designs of their own for the obelisks now that their powers have reemerged?

I've decided to go with mostly mono-color with a splash of enemy color to delineate the factions (most of which are just rough ideas currently).

Set themes:
Enemy Color
- () Cat-folk, Unearth, Tar pits, Shamanistic
- () Human, (Retrace, Recover, Forcast) Planar Refugees, hard magitech similar to Vryn
- () Elves, Sacrifice theme, Dino riders, very "strong survive, weak are eaten" theme, cannibals
- () Kithkin, token theme, cavemen, similar to Tarkhir goblins, aggressive, numerous
- () Dinosaurs, Evolve

The main issue I'm having is deciding what spell mechanic to use for the set (Unearth and Evolve are both creature mechanics). I've decided that the refugee faction will get the bulk of the ability (as they are in the spell colors), but depending on which one I choose influences a lot in the set and creatively what kind of people they are.

Isn't the Imperiosaur from the future shifted cards also from Murganda? 5/5, can only cast with basic lands? Having that for a theme would be interesting, I think.

I am disappointed that Sleestak are not a major tribe.

I thought about it, but it felt weird having a tribe of lizard people and a faction of dinosaurs.


I don't think there's enough space in it to warrant a full theme. I was thinking of sprinkling in some cards for it though.

Your lizard people could have started out as drones for the dinosaurs that began to exhibit subtle defects in their thought processes that led to the beginnings of their cultural development. Perhaps the lizard people can reproduce asexually, budding off new offspring through the spells that the dinosaurs used to create them.

Muraganda hasn't given me any associations with mystery except the lack of detail surrounding it, which is rather meta. If there's a word I would use to describe it, then it's 'raw', although we've only seen cards that associate with green things from it (plausibly because it's a very green-feeling place.)

Anyway, idk about the whole premise. Introducing a set as cojoined with another plane or several to some extent weakens the identify of the place. Taking Ethercaste Knight as an example that Yxoque seems fond of, the card would be a lot less interesting if the set started in Conflux.

Eh, we just had a set where there were dragons and snake people. Though it is an interesting choice of go full in on Land of the Lost or just pepper with it.

The Imperiosaur gave me an idea. Not sure how good or bad of an idea. What about spells that have a high casting cost and two or more effects. Though if you use only mana from basic lands then its cheaper but you lose an effect. The flavor is that its the beginning of learning a spell so you only have rudimentary means and it is not going to be that powerful. If you are more advanced you can do something a lot more powerful.

As far as other ideas I obviously like going full Land of the Lost. Other ideas is maybe having the different evolutionary steps before dinosaurs. Giant armored sea monsters, amphibians, Dimetrodon, and other animals you would find in Monsters Before Dinosaurs.

Mirrodin's trolls sometimes look like weird frog-apes. Using similar trolls, minus all the metal, would let you knockout amphibians and cave-people.

Imagine it more as that Muraganda (the plane) is a healthy thriving gestalt of its core self mixed with streaks of otherness that have melded and evolved to create a lost world ecosystem over the millennia with ancient ruins of forgotten peoples, towering lizard beasts, and tribes of primal cats, elves, and pygmy people who go about their everyday lives when a *thing* happens and a localized area of the plane is overlaid with a small population of people from a magi-tech culture (like if a few blocks of Izzet territory on Ravnica got sucked into Jund, but different). Then everyone experiences one another while the refugees try to get home, the natives are awakened to the idea that these obelisks are a thing, and a 'Walker or two dick around with things they are probably not supposed to.

Anyway, all I'm really looking for right now is some guidance on what I should be doing with my planar refugee faction. What spell mechanic I choose for the set will greatly determine how they are built moving forward.

Honest question, what colour would Ichthyoconodon be?

Marine mammals in Magic tend to fit comfortably into Blue, Green, or both, depending on if their art has them swimming in the water or not. It could be Green with Islandwalk or Pro Blue/Hexproof, some sort of medium sized Blue creature, or a gold or hybrid card of some kind.

Anyone know if Blade of the Sixth Pride is confirmed to have a home plane? I'm looking for fun flavorful vanilla reprints to fill out a minor Vanilla matters theme I'm working on for my set and Oreskos Swiftclaw is firmly trenched in Theros.

I think it was meant to be a rebel for New Phyrexia.

I saw someone post that theory online, but the art looks nothing like Mirran leonin.

I thought Blade of the 6th Pride was already confirmed as coming from somewhere. Mirrodin or Theros I think. The "6th Pride" definitely came up somewhere. Plus, could cave cats count past 5?
A shamanistic faction confuses me. and are the primary shaman colours.
On YMTC there was once a game where we took turns filling out a pack for an imaginary set. We did a dinosaur plane and I think the results are worth checking out. viewtopic.php?f=17&t=287&start=47 Take note though, that the devolve mechanic already exists in NGA constructed as Primal X.
Finally, The Mimeoplasm is from Murganda.

The plan for the Leonin is to make them pterodactyl riding, tar-pit necromancers that lets me see how Unearth fits in Black/White. I prefer this necromancy style to be more shamanistic that wizardy because of how primitively the culture is.

From top to bottom culturally I've mapped out:
Humans - Magitech
Elves - Highest primitive tech, raptor riding/Dino domestication
Leonin - Medium primitive tech, more magic centric than technology
Kithkin - Lowest primitive tech, rocks and sticks at best
Dinosaurs - No tech