This first started as an exercise to just make solid cards that aren't too flashy. Designing the Spirit Island set with razor showed me I had a tendancy to be too clever rather than "solid". Then, I submitted a card for a thread that gave me the idea of doing a space set and as I was designing the cards I figured I would embrace Star Wars. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Design principles:

Saddle and Crew are evergreen for this set as Star Wars is partly defined by its ships and mounts.
No race as the rebels and the empire have a huge spread and it would quickly become to singular and including race meant leaving out far too many characters other than humans.
X mana costs are a focus of the set.
New Keywords:
Destiny - small cycle of cards at common that support Heroic and are thematic with the choices force sensitive people must make. See cards below.
Harmonize - support for the X theme in the set and I felt helped display the idea of "using the force" to do powerful things. See cards below.
Bounty Hunter - this comes with a bunch of verbiage. If you are a bounty hunter, you put a bounty counter on a creature when you enter. A "Wanted" creature means that creature has a bounty counter on it, Collect a bounty means you controlled a source that either destroyed, exiled or sacrificed a creature with a bounty counter. See cards below.
Returning Keywords:
Cycling - easy tack on to make basic cards more interesting.
Heroic - thematic for the star wars universe. I let good and bad guys have heroic for the sake of balance.
Fuse cards - They were a good way to get quotes onto cards, despite taking a little literary freedom with editing. Designing these ones was fun.
High number of legendary cards due to the characters of the star wars universe.
Higher number of artifacts due to the technological themes.
No planeswalkers.

















I'm still filling in the gaps and redesigning to make it a cohesive set, but you fine people really know your card design and might notice something that I have overlooked.

I wonder if bounties might be better if you could only collect bounties on your opponents' creatures whenever they leave for any reason. It might lead to some endless standoffs if both players wanted to destroy or sacrifice the same permanent. Plus, having a repeatable sac outlet could turn off all your opponents' bounty cards.

That is a good point. I will update it.

"When this creature leaves the battlefield, if an opponent controlled the source that caused it to leave, that player collects the bounty."

Some quick thoughts:

- I'd make TIE Fighter and X-Wing a bit more different from each other. The big difference in lore is that TIE Fighters have greater maneuverability and X-Wings are more durable.
- I'd make the Millennium Falcon legendary and give it a bit more flare. Your preamble discussed focusing on solid design, but a marque card still wants some excitement attached to it other than good french-vanilla stats.
- Hyperspace or something akin to it would serve as a solid marker for the set. You don't need to use much space to make it worthwhile, and 7 cards sounds about right. I'd look for something that's not just suspend, but that design space feels like the right direction. EDIT: Traveling through hyperspace is sort of this ultimate move for a starfighter that has nothing to do with attacking. With that in mind, it might make sense to have it be a mechanic that replaces an attack. Hyperspace (Instead of attacking, you may send this through hyperspace. If you do, [EFFECT].) You could make the effect variable ("Hyperspace - Draw a card") or find one specific thing that makes sense. Just a thought.
- Destiny is a nice design. I like it. You might want to make it sorcery speed; it's a crazy good sorta on board combat trick that people can walk right into over and over.
- I agree that harmonize is the wrong name choice. This is modern Magic: just call it Use the Force.


- I like bounty in theory, but I wonder if it needs tweaking. First: can I kill my own creature to collect the bounty? Second: a lot of bounties are about capturing opposing characters. Should that come across in the mechanic somehow?

- The split fuse spell motif is fabulous.

- The one thing missing so far is the planets. Obviously they'd be lands, but I'm wondering if "system" can be used in some way to create a fun mechanic.

I was using symetry with the X Wing and Tie Fighter as an hommage to their constant battle and being solidly symbols for the rebellion and the empire. That being said, I have no issue re-designing them. I will juggle some ideas here.

I meant to make the Falcon legendary, so that was an oversight. I would love to see some ideas on how to make it more interesting, because I agree it is on the bland side, but hyperspace would spice it up a bit. Originally I had Hyperspace as ": Untap target land." to try to simulate the travel aspect, but it felt to bland. Your version of hyperspace gets around the other issue I had with using a suspend variant, which was how to manage the cost and the fact you could keep doing it over and over. Like, do I have the Falcon have a hyperspace cost of 0, despite in the stories it often had issues with its hyperdrive? Would a Star Destroyer have a longer time?

Destiny definitely needs to be sorcery speed.

Harmonize should definitely be Use the Force as it conveys the theme I intended, plus it creates sentences like "I'll play Visions of the Future and Use the Force to scry for 4."

I wasn't too concerned about people putting bounty counters on their own creatures as you would have to be pretty desperate to start killing your own creatures to get the treasure, but I just know someone will be ready to break it somehow. If I changed Bounty Hunter to be "Put a bounty counter on target creature you don't control" that would pretty much get around people putting it on their own creatures. What do you think? Is it a big deal to collect bounties on your own creatures?

I have the planets in the file, but so far they are just ETB tapped dual lands. I have cities and buildings (flavourfully) as lands and enchantments on lands to help make them feel more "Star Wars" locationy.

Jedi Temple
Enchantment ─ Aura (C)
Enchant land
When Jedi Temple enters, create a 1/1 white knight creature token.
Enchanted land gains “Whenever this land is tapped for mana, add .”

Moisture Farm
Enchantment ─ Aura (C)
Enchant land
When Moisture Farm enters, create a 1/1 blue farmer creature token.
Enchanted land gains “Whenever this land is tapped for mana, add .”

Destiny's really cool, but are you supposed to be able to do it at instant speed?

Nope. The file now has it at sorcery speed.

Some supprt cards for the mechanics of the set:

Bounty support:

Blaster Fire
Instant (C)
Blaster Fire deals 2 damage to any target. If it targets a wanted creature it deals 3 damage instead.

Han Shot First
Instant (C)
As an additional cost to cast Han Shot First, tap a wanted creature you control.
Han Shot First deals 4 damage to target creature that entered this turn.

Heroic + Use the Force support + X support:

Consumed by Hate
Instant (U)
Use the Force (Each you pay for as you cast this counts as .)
Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. If Consumed by Hate was cast from exile, put it into your hand as it resolves.

Size Matters Not
Instant (U)
Use the Force (Each you pay for as you cast this counts as .)
X target creatures get +X/+X until end of turn.

A couple of marque characters:

Yoda, Jedi Master
Legendary Creature ─ Jedi Knight (M)
Flash, vigilance
When Yoda enters, counter target spell.
: Add three mana of any color. Spend this mana only to use the force.
4/4
"When 900 years old you reach, look this good you will not."

Din Djarin
Legendary Creature ─ Bounty Hunter (R)
Flying, bounty hunter
When Din Djarin enters, search your library for an equipment card, reveal it and put it into your hand. Then shuffle.
Whenever you collect a bounty you may attach an equipment you control to Din Djarin.
4/4
"This is the way."

My original thought for "jump to hyperspace" was to have an attack that was replaced by some other benefit. The problem with that is... it's not really that different than at that point, is it? So how about an exert style trade-off?


As for the fuse cards, the designs don't currently embody the spirit of fuse, which is to say that fusing them doesn't create one big cohesive effect. I'd consider leaning into that style or thinking about a different style for the split nature of the quotes. The base idea is still perfect.

I know you mentioned not wanting to have races because of the breadth of options, but it feels a bit weird seeing all these people without any species listed. Honestly, I think even just having just "Human" and "Alien" would be good enough.

For bounties, it seems a bit awkward since other cards in the game already use bounty counters for other things. You could borrow the tech from suspect and just make creatures Wanted directly, without the counter:
When CARDNAME enters, target creature becomes wanted. (Whenever a wanted creature dies, each of it's controller's opponents creates a treasure).
It could cut down on some of the excess verbiage. Also, could the creature type just be Mercenary instead of Bounty Hunter? Solves the problem of if it's supposed to be one creature type or two, and makes it backwards compatible with the rest of the game (like making them outlaws!)

Lastly, I think some of the bigger names could do with some epithets, opening up the ability to design multiple versions. I think Luke Skywalker, Ace Pilot, Luke Skywalker, Rebel Hero, and Luke Skywalker, the Last Jedi could all be very different / interesting cards, instead of trying to capture the breadth of the character in one go.

@Rush:
Holdo Maneuver
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Holdo Maneuver, sacrifice a vehicle you control.
Holdo Maneuver deals damage equal to the sacrificed card's mana cost to target creature you don't control. If that vehicle jumped to hyperspace this turn, instead it deals that much damage to each creature you don't control.

That is a very good point about the bounty counters and your solution works great. The verbiage is much more simple and easier to understand. I had intially thought that a creature could have multiple counters on it so it could become "more wanted" for multiple treasures which I don't think wanted would allow. Also a good point on the outlaw idea. Not sure I can use Mercanery due to the Mercadian Masque mercenaries. Various versions of the characters is a fun design space since I had like 12 different versions of Luke and went with the simple but strong one.

Also, is this a good cost for this card:

Pod Racing
Sorcery (R)
Untap all vehicles that attacked this turn. After this main phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.

they've done some mercenaries since, including a couple in Bloomburrow like hired claw, which don't relate to that mechanic. I don't think there's a power concern, either, so if it's a good fit for flavor I'd just use it.

probably. relentless assault costs 4 and is a lot less limited in scope so a 1-mana discount seems fine. could maybe even cost but I don't see a reason to push it.

thunder junction had mercenary tribal and mercenary tokens

Another point about mercenary: Mercadian Masques had rebels, too. Bringing both back here is sort of a cute nod to the past. I think I'd even consider 1-of cards that reflect the MM mechanic, though definitely not a whole chain.

honestly I think the Rebel chain mechanic would be pretty balanced and maybe even interesting in a modern set. they were only a problem in Masques block 'cause Masques block was slow. (and also because the old legend rule made lin sivvi, defiant hero a lot stronger) not sure the mechanic is a great fit for Star Wars, so I wouldn't try to do more than one or two cards with it here, just musing.

Regarding hyperspace - what about it causing the creature/vehicle to phase out for a turn, and then providing some bonus when it phases back in?

Could even get creative with optional multi turn phase outs to represent longer trips, with choice of when to phase in being baked into the mechanic description. Ex: mechanic reading ‘when a creature enters hyperspace it phases out until it leaves hyperspace. At the beginning of each turn you may choose to leave hyperspace’ and a card ex: when /name/ leave hyperspace, creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn for each turn it was in hyperspace.

Or have variable durations fixed to the particular card (ex: Hyperspace or Hyperspace ) with longer hyperspace trips providing greater bonuses.

These are some excellent ideas as well. I'm going to spend some time tomorrow really trying hash out the best way to do it.

Completely agreed. It didn't help that creature quality was so bad that a chain of slow creature card advantage was the best you could do.

This is what I'm really getting back. Recruiting soldiers for the galactic war is part of the story, but only minorly so. Having a card on each side would be nice, but you really don't need to go farther. If this were an actual WOTC crossover (which, come on, they're gonna go here eventually), they'd probably do remake of both with shifted names.

How busted is this card?

Sith Mox
Artifact (R)
When Sith Holocron enters, add .
: Add a mana of any color.

and does it become less powerful if I up the cost?

Sith Mox
Artifact (R)
When Sith Holocron enters, add .
: Add a mana of any color.

EDIT: haha seeing it in print here made me see how busted it is. Better off using the "You can't play this on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd turns" rider.

Is this enough of a drawback to make the card printable?

The Mask of Darth Nihilus ? ?
Legendary Artifact (M)
When The Mask of Darth Nihilus enters, your life total becomes 10.
Your maximum life total is 10.
, pay 1 life: Draw a card.

The moxes have that same abusable problem as Priest of Gix and friends. On one hand, Burning-Tree Emissary came years later and didn't break anything (but was fun and good), which suggests that otherwise small vanilla creatures aren't gonna create problems. On the other end is Frantic Search, providing much more of what combo decks want. I think these moxes lean in that direction since they are pure mana makers. But I think you can fix that with one small tweak:


This takes away the "mox" quality of increasing your mana production the same turn, but it otherwise makes that card more palatable while accomplishing similar goals. There's a chance that is fine, but I think less is more in this case.

The Mask isn't any more powerful than The One Ring at . I'd even consider removing the no life above 10 clause, although that does make this more unique.

Things I'm expecting:

• Lightsaber as an equipment. Some question of whether or not multiple lightsabers need to exist. I lean no, but at the same time, Darth Maul makes me want specific ones. Equipment, obviously.
• Jar-Jar Binks as a luck-based creature, maybe with some Squee-esque survivability, though more about avoiding death than returning from it.
• Midi-chlorians (lol, just DO IT)
• Frozen in Carbonite as some sort of sleep effect.