To read how the contest works, please visit the start-up page. Those rules will be reposted when the contest thread is opened.

Below are all the set-theme submissions I liked enough to put into the poll. (I'm not grading 100 palindromes, raz.) You may vote for any number of the submissions. The highest vote-getter will be the set theme. If there's a tie, I'll pick the one I like best. I do have to grade this whole thing after all.

1. Purity


2. Prehistoric


3. Lifelessness


4. Golden Age


5. Kingdom Come


6. Oblivion


7. Egyptian


8. Ruptured Planet


9. Having Color Matters


10. Planewalkers

Why Vanishing? Was it such a popular mechanic?

Not really, but it tends to show up every time an extinction theme is mentioned.

Hey none of those are mine!

Lifelessness - Seems to be the best fit for what we're doing. Not really a "lifeless" plane so much as a formless one.
Coloured matters

Ruptured planet and oblivion get honourable mentions.

The formless plane is accurate, but a little too "meta" for my taste. And strife erupting over discordant visions is tempting fate a little bit.

I voted Egyption Mythology + Oblivion, in the hopes that somehow they get combined together.

I was just going to post that coloured matters could go well with purity when I realized that there's an actual poll at the top of the thread. I wondered why I was the only one to post my votes.

Prehistoric: Let's face it, there's some part of all of us that wants to indulge in the pop culture "cavemen and dinosaurs" mess. But I also think that we could do a lot of work with it.

Golden Age: This was my submission, and naturally I feel that it has merit. I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise. Part of me just really wants to work with the Time of Beginning rather than the Time of Ending.

Oblivion: Probably the most interesting of the esoteric set offerings. Makes me think of Planescape (at least certain planes) and The Void, which are both really good touchstones. Particularly The Void's color=life=power dynamic that seems to fit in really well with M:tG

Planeswalkers: This is half a troll vote, but I really do think it would be interesting, as a thought experiment if not a final set, to see what we can do with this. Or potentially functional as well as challenging if we don't go with 100% PWs but rather a PWs matter core theme (and probably an abundance of PWs anyway)

Egypt: Added this vote after the others, as of the leaders it's mt least unfavorite. I think part of the problem is I know TOO much about ancient egyptian history and mythology -- most people want a sword and sandal/Ten Commandments/The Mummy vibe out of this, and that's okay. And I can't deny I'd like to see Amit in card form, or your standard Akhenaten knockoff as a major antagonist of the set.

"THe Void" as in that strange Russian game? I've heard about it and it seems fascinating, but I haven't ever played it because I've also heard it's a big buggy mess.
You're right though, it has some nice overlap with MTG.

The Void is indeed the US-English title of that Russian game also known as "Tension" and "Turgor"

If you don't intend to play it or don't care about spoilers, there's a pretty decent video LP of it somewhere -- that's actually what convinced me to wishlist and (eventually) play it myself.

Actually, I don't think it's popular at all. The reason I like it is that it doesn't necessarily favor any one color, it allows you to push power levels (which most of us love to do), and it hasn't really been explored that much. And the extinction flavor is pretty solid too.

Put me down for Enalp and the Stack Cats.

did you even read my proposal? only the bad guys are palindromes!

You know, golden age could kind of go with lifelessness too. Although I may be imagining a slightly different "lifelessness" world than the rest of you. I'm thinking newborn world where things haven't quite gelled yet and powerful walkers can try to direct the plane's growth to their own ends. Reality is still fresh an yielding leading to all sorts of chaos. Cosmic larva would have a good chance of reprinting if the card lived up to the name.

I like the Prehistoric theme without vanishing, IMO.

The themes won't necessarily used the suggested mechanics. The way grading goes will likely dictate what sub themes if any will be established.

To be fair, there's some decent overlap between those and Prehistoric and Color Matters.

I voted for 6 and 9 because I am a bleak individual.

Just say no to drawback mechanics.

I hope prehistoric wins because I've already got three great card ideas for it.