Since I mentioned it in ymtc off topic chat, I figured I might as well share my "Return to Lorwyn" set. Originally, the name was going to be called "Eternal Twilight," but then I got sparkly vampire cringe.

Anywho, the idea is to meld the two versions of the plane, the tribal Day side of Lorwyn and the hybrid Night side of Shadowmoor. Since, for some odd resaon, people tend to want some mechanical references for returns. However, that comes some issues: Shadowmoor had a very strong "colors matter" theme to go along with the hybrid. This space actually covers a lot of the same space as tribal designs. Similarly, tribal and hybrid tend both add additional "draft piles" when categorizing cards in a sealed pool. These reasons are also why ally and enemy hybrids were in separate sets in the original Shadowmoor block. The tribal themes of Lorwyn also hit a slight snag. While Shadowmoor mostly used the tribes of Lorwyn, Eventide veered off course. While it would be nice to ignore Eventide's tribes, a return would feel like it's missing something if it didn't have a Noggle.

So here's the plan of attack: The eight main tribes of Lorwyn are back, but with more aims of Tribal game play themes than usual straight up tribal. Likewise, enemy colored hybrids come back to give reference to the Eventide creature types. Tribal and color matters will have cards, but they'd be more focused on Changelings for tribal cards, and scarecrows for color matters.

So, yeah, CHANGELINGS are back, and the changeling ability is coming back to represent Lorwyn.



SCARECROWS get the bulk of color matters.


GOBLINS get a decent amount of persist, the returning Shadowmoor block keyword.


So, yeah, this is a -1/-1 counter set. The tribe that gets to use them most are ELVES.


KITHKIN also return as a "creaturefall" tribe.


FAERIES are back as those annoying pests you love, but hate.


MERFOLK are back focused on an age old theme.


High toughness TREEFOLK are back.


FLAMEKIN are as fiery as ever.


And finally, GIANTS are going to leave a bit more of an impression this time around:


Then there were the HYBRIDS


Attached is a cockatrice custom set file. Since my internet's been annoying me lately, I haven't set up an picture autoloader file yet. The pictures for the that can be found here. Similarly, I'll take a break before writing up a full set spoiler (at least for the first draft).

Full Spoiler
Latest update
Note: Opening post will have the first and latest cockatrice files since I don't have a separate post for the first draft.

Edit: way post remembering to edit in later changes

Just looking at what is in this thread, I see a lot of stuff that I like. Forecast on Giants is a really good fit (you see them coming from a mile away). I think the red one should be until your next turn, though. There is very rarely a reason to give a creature defender on only your own turn. I'm also concerned that Merfolk would be really hard to balance. Like, they would require a lot of setup against a deck that doesn't run blue, but be really strong against other blue decks. And mirror matches would be ridiculous. But it looks really good overall, and I like that you are keeping all of the stuff that made the original cool.

WHITE:



BLUE:



BLACK:



RED:



GREEN:



MULTICOLOR:



COLORLESS:



Oh, the most important thing of all:


Current watchlist:
The legendary Faeries are too good.
Embodiment of the Wild should be just activated abilities. All abilities can get either detrimental or confusing.
Antlerwatch Scarecrow's tap ability is basically useless. It's hard to get a better blocker than a 1/5.
Dougal with Tumblerock Giant can get pretty rough. However, creatures can hit hard and be a bit resilient so far. I might want a Pithing Needle, but Needle's already in Legacy of the Kami War.



Thanks for the quick look.

The issue with granting defender until your next turn is that it isn't a very red thing to stop attacks. It's in the set to stop "must attack" effects and to play with the Dwarf defender theme. It could theoretically be shifted to white, but it's easier to find "do nothing" common friendly forecast effects in white.

About Merfolk, yeah, Merfolk and Elementals are the two I'm most worried about. It's been playing out okay so far in the little sealed testing I did, but I actually had to tone down some of the rares because things were a it too good in more constructed settings (Aoi had Islandwalk.... Overfill fount cost 4 and had a forecast at 2... It was bit horrifying). At un/common it seems the delta between Island enabled and not hasn't been too big, so it's been decent (Eddy-Rider hasn't actually been as good an attacker as I feared in fully enabled constructed decks because it really wants evasion).

Edit: took out images.

Will add Version 2 cockatrice file to this post and update the spoiler when this round of edits is done. Still got some legendary Faerie edits to do.

White:
Ballynock Censuskeeper now triggers on Kithkin spells. It also requires to pay to do the search. When combined with Changeling Herald and Preeminent Heir, the white aggro deck was having trouble emptying the hand, which feels weird. However the wanted play style needs a flow of creatures, so I wanted to see if this slows the card advantage down.

Caesaigh only triggers when other creatures enter the battlefield. I'd actually hadn't been playing Casaigh in Kithkin but rather in a Naya deck as a bit of a Intruder Alarm combo that can just function as a midrange aggro deck with Arlinn.

Blue:
Aidan is a 1/3. Also, to cast the stolen card, Aidan must be on the battlefield.

Vertigo Clique's typo is fixed.

Black:
Demoralizing Demise is with a discount.

Gravemound Changeling no longer mass reanimates and instead destroys a creature of the chosen type at an activation of , . Board states can stall a lot and I wanted to cut a combo enabler.

Nadia must be on the battlefield to cast the stolen card.

Red:

Ambush Changeling is a 3/3. This is a bit different from the other changelings. It's more of a build around than a hole filler.

Boggart Groundshaker is . Card was putting on a bit too much pressure, but it was also just a better play than setting up Elementals at .

Flamekin Firebrand is a 1/5. Elementals were a bit of a focus and this ability was acting a bit too much like a sacrifice outlet. Overall there was enough profitable low drops, and as a mana loving tribe, they weren't wanting higher cost utility. A more durable Firebrand is one of the few exceptions as it offers more direct board control.

Flamekin Sparkgrifter is a 1/4 that switches power an toughness of any creature for . In order to make a more useful two drop for Elementals, the Captive Flame was given to Utilitarian Flamekin. Durability was a major issue for the Flamekin, so Sparkgrifter offers a way to let firebreathing shore up defense in a pinch.

Furybrand is a 4/4. Again, one of the Elementals that's still nice at a higher cost. It was also one of the better performers overall.

Hot Out of the Oven text is clarified a bit (changing "it" to "that creature"). No functional change. It was essentially the key of Elemental deck since it allows you add another Elemental without sacrificing pressure for a turn.

Mirrorfire Flamekin is a 0/1 for , grants first strike to any creature for instead of firebreathing. It still has the power copying ability. Flamekin Brawler isn't the best one drop and Elementals wanted another to get the best use of Fireside Changeling.

Utilitarian Flamekin keeps the sacrifice ability but is a 0/4 and takes the Captive Flame ability from Sparkgrifter in place of regular firebreathing. The cad looked like it should combo with Tumblerock Giant before, but it really didn't as not many Flamekin could survive the Giant's ETB. Also, the card had been underwhelming at four mana. Flamekin needed to be able to stall until it can get to big mana plays later. This card can threaten early plays at the cost of a creature.

Green:

Changeling Horde now costs . It borderline usurped 4 drops in tribal decks.

Embodiment of the Wild only copies activated abilities.

Multicolor:

Arlinn, Tame and Wild had a minor typo.

Soul Guide now targets the card it returns. I was wondering why I had "another" on the card until I realized that it didn't target. There's not much advantage for that confusion, so the standard, if slightly weaker, targeting in.

Twilight Wayfarer has a cap of 3 for X. I'm trying to play up the difference from Barrow and adding a goes against that.

Witch of the Rising also has a minor typo.

Dougal of the Hewmyn forgot to reveal "the other card". You reveal another creature card as part of the Forecast abilitie's cost.

Gregarious Jack is a 6/6 that now has the abilities "Each other creature you control gets +1/+1 for each color it is." and ": All creatures are each color until end of turn." Jack was meant to be played with Itinerant Scarecrow, but it made the board state crazy confusing. Hopefully just counting the number of colors is a bit easier.

Colorless:

Antlerwatch Scarecrow grants lifelink instead of vigilance.

Monochrome Scarecrow is now a uncommon.

Overfill Fount's text matches the card image.

Reflection Well is rare.

Cavern of Souls and Shimmering Grotto are out. At common, Sheltered Cavern taps for or turns any land to the basic land type of your choice in addition to its other types until end of turn.

Xenolith of Skeptics is a sideboard artifact. It makes players only have to reveal one card from their hands instead of all cards, and it makes it so activated abilities can only be activated from the battlefield.

General thoughts:
On the tribal front, things are working out pretty well. Play style themes seem to stick out more than the tribes, so an off type creature with an appropriate ability doesn't stick out. There really isn't a Giant deck, but it fuses pretty well into a 50/50 Dwarf Giant deck. The other forecast Giants aren't without a home either, as they can fit into other decks.

The tribes overall are grindier than I thought. It hasn't been as balls-to-the-wall aggroy as I intended for some of the tribes. Kithkin would rather set up the first turn or two for a major creaturefall turn, and use Goats in the interim for board control. Merfolk are trying to establish some land manipulation so the heavy hitters can actually hit (Merfolk can actually be worse against majorly blue decks because the control elements don't work as well.). Flamekin are trying to get to the point where it has enough firebreathers and enough mana to put the opponent in a tough spot. Goblins and Elves might not even attack. It more that the tribes are look for a vector to control the board.

On the color-matters front, it can work a lot better than I though it would, but it can be a little bit mind-numbing. Most of the hybrid cards have mini-themes in their color pairs, but it turns out that these minithemes actually do work together (WB and BG seem obvious, but not so much some of the others). So what you get is a bunch of "build arounds" for different deck ideas all working together.

I played some with Legacy of the Kami War, and the sets don't have a lot of obvious overlap besides tribal and ETB abuse. How it does open up some more combo stuff. For example, Splendid Reclamation was a bit more underwhelming in LKW, but it works great with Embodiment of the Wilds, Crucible of Worlds, Rings of Brighthearth, and the fetchlands/Horizon Canopy cycle/Ghost Quarter. Blue control would probably be scary.

Also, set code is switched to DWD since Duel Decks were a thing.

EDIT: Upcoming things for the next update: Some treefolk rebalancing. Verdant Ash and Ashen Eulogist are switching cmcs with tweaked stats.

Since I haven't changed anything in a long while...

Verdant Ash is 1/3
Ashen Eulogist is 1/4

Nadia is legendary
Last second changed Blank Out to no longer be another removal spell, now exiles everything a target player controls until end of turn. Probably not a wise choice on my part.