With some permissions granted, I'm developing a set originally concepted by TPmanW, known as Obscio, a Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror set.

Obscio:
Fear the Unknown

"The world is shrouded in fog. It would be at any rate, if where the fog falls could be called "this world". Under the thick and eerie blanket of fog lies an unworld full of places and things that should not be. Only a sane mind can keep the mists at bay. But the horrors from beyond the veil love no taste more than that of a thinking creature's mind." – TPmanW

Obscio is planned to be a large set, composed of 230 cards. It may have the rest of a block following it, but as of now, I'll see if I can even crank out one set.

104/230

Seeking seems like nightmare for actual play. How do you randomize the top card of the library and the hand without revealing any of them and without risking getting the top card confused with the hand?

Turn Away feels like a bad Stave Off.

Treacherous Frogspawn doesn't feel like a common. It also feels really underpowered.

Consume Likeness feels like a bad Mind Control. I think it would be better if you made it an instant and cut the cost to 4 (or 5, if you're power level paranoid).

Blackwing Harrier is green

Why use the Arcane subtype when all your Arcane cards do something totally different from Kamigawa Arcane cards? Just use a new subtype, or even better, don't use any subtype at all and make it an ability word.

Have you figured out the different draft archetypes for this set?

I guess I was stretching too hard. I have the rare cycle of "Revelations", and didn't want a player to be able to hold one as the only card in hand to guaranteed punish your Seeker creatures. Tweaking it slightly to give the option of one or the other, instead of randomly choosing between either.

There are some bad cards in the set. I have the problem of designing top-down too heavily, and tend to miss mechanical elegance because of it. I definitely appreciate the critiques, and will be doing some changes.

I think I'll drop Turn Away to and remove the tap clause.

Frogspawn is meant to be a bad beefy blue creature designed for the limited tempo archetype. I might reduce the drawback to bouncing your creature instead.

I think I'd like to keep Consume Likeness as-is mechanically, and maybe drop the cost to 4. As an instant, I feel it could be a dangerous combat trick, but I suppose 4cc combat tricks don't really get much play as it is.


Is it worse to bleed Fight into Black, or Flying into Green? I guess I went with Fight in Black because it really wants kind of a vulture-y feel, and I felt that kind of opportunism was justifiably Black.

I did want "arcanecraft" cards similar to Kamigawa's "Spiritcraft" cards, and I find that less elegant with ability words. I also did want some cross-block support for what was an otherwise very insular mechanic from Kamigawa. I felt it would be nice if, should they ever be playable together, you'd have more options to spice up your Obscio deck with Kamigawa cards, and vice-versa. They both also represent otherworldly magic, not the kind regularly used by the natives of the plane. Arcane here is being used in its more traditional definition, but I felt the added mechanical friendliness was a good bonus to reusing Arcane.

Draft archetypes envisioned at the moment are W/U tempo, B/R Madness, G/R tokens, any color Arcanecraft, and U/B Mill.

Combat tricks are awesome though : (

For the sake of making it more fun, I moved it to Instant.

Looks good so far, plus it has the added coolness of having a card I designed in it .

Maybe consume likeness could cost five, but exile instead of destroy?

I feel that an uncommon clone should help you remember what the creature is now and removing the old one from the game allows you to put it under (or over) the original creature.

Prognostic revelation confuses me, compare plea for power, is the 5 mana for 5 intentional?

chill of the void feels more rare than common.

Devastating revelation and savage strike should probably say may.

I'm switching Consume Likeness to exile, but I think I want to push the power on it a bit on weird cards like that. I don't see it breaking NGA standard at 4cc, so I'm thinking I'll leave it there.

Prognostic Revelations I feel can get away with 5 cards for 5 mana. It's a rare, sorcery, and costs double so if Tidings is an uncommon, I feel this can go rare for one more card and a semi-unlikely conditional effect.

Comparing Chill of the Void to Vendetta I feel is a fair comparison. Chill will likely do more damage if played early, unless you jump through some hoops, and is only Sorcery speed. As for it being a global enchantment at common, compare the Seal cycle, for simplicity.

I did add may clauses to the Revelation cycle, and Sudden Ambush. Good call.

Nearly 20% concepted.

Added enemy dual lands to fill out NGA's needs.

"Darkened Cathedral enters the battlefield tapped unless you reveal a white card, then a black card, from your hand."

Thanks for looking out for NGA Constructed, by the way. I think we have enough serviceable enemy duals now.

Stalled for midterms, but planning to resume this. Hopefully before Christmas season annihilates me with work.

It's not exactly super-relevant (or well-timed), but I thought I would share this nugget from Mindscape- the set that I based my concept of Obscio on.

That is a really cool concept. I'd borrow some of it, but I think its hitting an evolution of its own here.

That aside, added some more cards, including the first Mythic. My organizational impulses want me to fix the color balance on the multicolored cards, but asymmetry is perfect for the set themes. It incites an uncomfortable reaction.

Hats off to you for the flavor. I can feel the Lovecraft dripping from the commons. Well done!

Maybe stalker could put a counter on the stalked creature to forestall memory issues? Or you could go a step further and have the stalkers affect all stalked creatures your opponents control, which would encourage players to build a stalker deck.

Reven Kenner, Mistbound Deceiver, Archmage Erynol: "Whenever an ability of [CARDNAME] causes a [...] card to be revealed..." Alternatively, you could be cute and say something like "Whenever [CARDNAME] discovers a [...] card..."

Sign of Protection is a Limited bomb. It should be rare.

Halfbreed Cutthroat is missing its card type.

Echoing Wall: "Whenever Echoing Wall blocks a creature..."

Scrying Field: Change name to "From Beyond" or "Visions from Beyond"?

Chill of the Void is very efficient compared to the current standard of common removal. Consider making it uncommon.

Brain Churning: "You may pay 2 life. If you do, repeat this process. Otherwise, draw a card."

Spiraling Unreason is no longer in red's color pie according to Mark Rosewater. Tormenting Voice and the like are the new standard.

Tindermote is a repeatable removal engine. In its current state, it should be uncommon.

Crackling Immolation could probably be common.

Savage Strike: Change name to "Finish the Prey"?

Serpentine Woodcaller should be uncommon if you plan on having a common instant-speed Arcane spell.

Wooden Divinations: Change name to "Strange Aeons"?

Call of the Stars: "Put a 1/1 green Druid Horror creature token onto the battlefield. It has ': Add to your mana pool.' "

Blessed One: The name is a little too generic when you consider that another card might want this name in the future. Namedrop one of the Dark Gods instead?

Coiled Kidnapper: Change name to "Coiled Emissary of [Dark God]"? Lovecraft did love his overblown names.

Consume Identity is awesome (though it should be rare, not uncommon). I'd nominate it for CotW, but it's too tied to the flavor of this set to make sense as a one-off, so I'll have to settle for praising you here.

Fixed or changed a lot of these, as per suggestions. Much appreciated! Feedback keeps me from trying to work out a set completely in a vacuum. Still gotta tinker with my uncommon/rare slots I'd allocated to ensure that there's room for a lot of these designs where I want them.

Are the memory issues of Stalker any different from what was done with Soulbond?

Flavorwise:
Decided to leave the name Scrying Field as-is, since the flavor alludes to using it on an artifact, and it works on lands.

Good catch on the name of Blessed One, it has been reworked, and the first GOO has been name dropped.

Leaving the Druid tokens as raceless, just as Solider tokens represent different soliders of varying mtg races, or the mothership article that talked about Priests of Norn as transcending race. I think its better to imagine the druids of obscio as hooded cult figures, some of which could be insane humans, the newly resurfaced serpent people, and some of which are horrors themselves.

If you're going to have raceless druids you should play up their mysteriousness in the flavour text.