It is voting day. I would guess that Parad hasn't come in yet.

Should we as a community declare submissions-closed at, say, midnight tonight and post up a Parad-style ballot post around then, have tomorrow be a voting day, and then new designs Fri thru Sun with plans for another voting day Monday? We know the process, we don't need to completely jam up upon Parad's absence.


Parad's account seems to have logged in today - whether the cause of absence is personal or technical really should not be our concern but I'm happy that we can safely rule out Parad-got-hit-by-a-bus.

I think that's probably a good idea. These types of projects tend not to do well without forward momentum.

I'd be down with that. Probably too late to get two rounds done this week, but we might as well open the next one early since I think everyone's submitted who's going to at this point.

I'm sorry for my absence everybody! I've been partying pretty hard the past few nights and my NGA duties totally slipped through the cracks.

I'm also going to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference this weekend to be around my fellow transpeople, so that might tie me up between now and Sunday, as well.

I think thatmarkguy should be the backup contest runner when I'm not around.

It's just like my workplace. Those who have spoken have volunteered.

Yeh, I'll do it. I'll try to post up the ballots shortly after midnight ET tonight. This means an 'early' close to the now-dual-criteria Black thread (which people thought they had until Friday).

Nah, I've got this round taken care of. But next time I'm not around, you or Shazzeh are more than welcome to step in and post ballots or count votes in my stead. I'll try to keep people more notified in the future. The past two nights kind of happened without warning.

I think that we should focus the set's multicolour in opposing colour pairs. This plays up the seperation angle and justifies reprinting Fire // Ice

What are the current thought on tokens? Only one that is confirmed is:



I'd also like to see.



Alternatively, the abilities could decide whether it should be sacrificed or not.
Sort of sceptical for ruins at this point.
Don't see white getting soldiers, and humans are usually discouraged. Could get spirits. Not sure if green should be snake, bear or elephant sized. Skeletons have been discussed in black, although tokens with regeneration sounds like a pain.

Parad suggested sand tokens in the Flavor thread. I'd be a fan of that.

And at some point someone (Parad again?) floated the idea of Myths being a counterpoint to Relics.

I think we should stay away from that for this particular set for the same reason we're not doing colored artifacts: the two types are already pretty similar, so let's not give them the same mechanics.

I agree with Shazzeh. We should be trying to distance artifacts and enchantments. Myths would bring them closer together.
Likewise, Sand tokens are super cool, but have colourless nonartifacts seems like a bad idea. Basically for all the same reasons they made New Phyrexia's Germ tokens black.

If someone could count the votes for me, that'd be amazing. If no one gets around to it I'll probably do it later today, but I'm at a conference so I've got stuff to do.

I'll take care of it, Parad. Black looks problematic because people were voting for commons as uncommons and vice versa. I'll try and figure it out, but I'm not really sure what to do about that.

I'm back from my conference! I'm glad to see you guys got along fine without me.

Well, it's "voting day" again. What now?

If nobody has any objections I'll close the rounds on behalf of Parad?

The planning for this set seems to have Lands planned as 2 5-cycles and 2 uncommons.

But as type-matters, I wonder if this is a chance to do something more with type-matters lands...

I know Gaea's Cradle / Serra's Sanctum / Tolarian Academy ain't about to ever happen again (nor Mishra's Workshop!), but there have been type-matters lands that aren't crazypowerful that might be worth reconsidering or extrapolating. The lands I've looked at for inspiration and am trying to work/rework into this set include:

Any-color-mana, can only be used to cast (type)
Ancient Ziggurat
(the problem here is that while block artifacts are colorless this won't matter for the artifact type; making it a junior Mishra's Workshop by making that two colorless is still too powerful; also, doesn't support land-matters)

Any-color-mana, goes away if you don't control (permanent type)
Glimmervoid, Thran Quarry
(The problem here is that it doesn't support instant/sorcery types; is also kinda trivial with land.)

Salvagers:
Academy Ruins, Volrath's Stronghold, Buried Ruin, Haunted Fengraf, Petrified Field

Special-purpose mana with uncounterability:
Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Cavern of Souls


Anyone have any ideas on what, if anything, we might want to do with land to better support type-matters?

Some kind of cycle of salvagers at common like Buried Ruin would be neat.

White enchantments, blue artifacts, black creatures, red spells, green lands?

The salvagers seem most likely. Academy Ruins could actually fit right in. We have an academy, right?