Booster Pack Game

Common 4

Skyfloor Guide
Creature - Cephalid Scout
Discard a land card: Target creature can't be blocked this turn.
Wise explorers seek knowledge from the locals first.
1/2

I didn't see where any blue creature types have been defined.  So at the bottom there are cephalids!  Also need an outlet for all those extra lands from exploring.

Common #6

"In myth and legend, Evil spirits known as Aelictors bound their creator within the earth before fleeing to the skies. Although undoubtedly fictitious and the product of the Ancient's imagination, areas of concentrated power known as Ley-Locks do dot the surface. We build towers in those locations to ward off potential threats and as power conduits, although I think those who claim that the Aelictors will descend and murder us all are preposterous and-"

"But what about the sightings? What-"

"Bah! The very idea that anything lives in the sky beyond the occasional bird or dragon is childish and will not be tolerated in this lecture!"

Ley-Lock Prospector
Creature - Cephalid Wizard
When Ley-Lock Prospector enters the battlefield, Build a Tower. (As you build a tower, you get a tower emblem of your choice if you don't have an uncompleted tower. Then, put a construction counter on your emblem.)
: Scry X, were X is your Tower's Height.
"This looks like a suitable site. Level ground, high mana concentration, Low wildlife..." - Alfonsa, Tower Prospector
1/4

Observation Tower 
Emblem - Tower
[Capstone]: Whenever you Build, draw X cards, where X is half the number of construction counters on Observation Tower, rounded up.
[III]: At the beginning of your endstep, name a card, then you may have target player mill five cards. if the named card is milled this way, draw a card.
[II]: Whenever you scry, name a card, or reveal a card, you may have target opponent reveals their hand to you.
{I}: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may reveal the top card of target player's library.


Each tower level should be worth for each level. ([I.] should be worth , [II] should be worth , etc.)

I'm leaving the other towers a bit ambiguous for anyone else who decides to take a crack at it. I also think it would be fun to have a little first encounter/alien conspiracy mixed in here or there.

I meant for it to be left open if anyone wanted to make stuff for it, but that is a lot now that I consider it. Should I make a tower to go with it, or should I just leave it?

Thoughts? I'm not really sure how to balance an emblem.

Common 9 - let's finish this!

Empyrean Growth
Instant
Target creature without flying gets +4/+4 until end of turn.
Left below but never abandoned.

Uncommon 1:

Traversable Aether

vizionarius ?

Alright, sorry for the long wait everyone!

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Feedback


pernicious  [4.5/5]
Archaeologist: Excellent common with a great story-driven flavor text. Shell feels excellent in white, but the name of the ability feels a little off for this particular creature. Love the ability, though; a nice new variant on ward! [4.5/5]

Fermat  [4.5/5]
Blissful Ignorance: A great common with a nice story-driven flavor text. The effect fits the name and flavor perfectly. I just fear that it may be a little weak if there are not enough artifacts in the set. Maybe having it target "up to one target artifact" so you can still gain life with it? [4.5/5]

fluffydeathbringer  [4.3/5]
Surly Survivor: I like the choice of Orc for the sky floor dwellers. Well-costed, and it's a nice take on the Samurai/Warrior effect from NEO. Love the story-driven flavor here, and I like the use deathtouch to deter blocking. Lifelink works nicely too. [5/5]
Dig Too Deep: I'm happy to see the return of billow! Well-costed for the 3 damage to anything and billow 3. Agree on the sorcery type. The flavor text is a little cryptic, but that's alright by me; definitely hints at an "oops" moment with the card name as well. [5/5]
Aspirant of the Heavens: A solid common flier! Good flavor text (thought it seems to be missing a phrase around the second use of "people"). The bird would have to be pretty big to make a larger creature fly, but the 1/1 body doesn't make it seem like it is that big. Maybe a spirit (to make it grant flying in non-physical ways), or if it was a 3/3 for 4ish mana, or if it limited the size of the creature who can get flying from it? It does fill a missing spot in the set. [4/5]
Soul Censure: Amazing flavor text! Goes in hard on the Empyreans having questionable moral character. The power-level of this card I think is pretty low. By the time you cast this with X equal to around 3, it's likely turn 3 or 4. By then, your choice of cards in the mv<=3 range is going to be few. I'm not sure what the connection between creatures you control, the Empyreans, and your opponent's hand is with relation to Soul Censure. The name of the card feels more like a spell that would discard creature cards than something that cares about the power of your creature. I'd want this spell to do something a little more/different. Maybe you gain life equal to X if no card is discarded? Or add to the casting cost and have the spell have billow X, and not have it care about your creatures' power? A discard card fits a missing space in the set, though. [3.5/5]
The Promised Calamity: Happy to see a Saga! This one has great flavor! The 1st chapter alone might be enough to win a game. The 2nd chapter feels a little weak as a stand-alone ability, but it does set up for a one-sided board wipe with chapter 3 (and kills off Planeswalkers). I'm not sure it's mythic-proportions in effect, but since it does depict a mythic-proportion event, I think it fits. Flavor-wise, it neatly divides the board into the sky and the sky floor, then goes on to show how that division affects the outcome. It doesn't really do too much if you don't have creatures, and makes you wait for 3 turns before it truly has its "calamity" effect, so it makes it a bit weaker in those situations. [4/5]

moweda  [4.625/5]
Skyfloor Guide: Cephalids work well! I like the use of the extra lands from explores, and the mechanic fits the flavor really well. Excellent flavor text, too! [5/5]
Angel Vane: I like this a lot, actually! Works really well with explore and billow, and still has an effect even if you never hit an Angel with it. The card and its effects feel correctly costed. Vigilance fits. And having a Vane feels so flavorful for this set and what it does (it senses the winds, which can reveal top cards, and if it senses an Angel, it can summon it; love it)! Good flavor text too (I'd have just had "... the wind blows."). [5/5]
Empyrean Growth: (oops, back-to-bak posts; all good, though) I think I understand where you're going with it, but it feels a little off compared to where the rest of the flavor direction is going with previous submissions, where the Empyreans have possibly left the sky floor dwellers behind, whereas your card points to the opposite. The effect feels very strong (I think generally better than Giant Growth), but it also seems strange that flavorfully, Empyreans grant a boost to non-flyers. Maybe if it gave +3/+3 and reach to a non-flyer, and flip the flavor from being an aid from the Empyreans, to being a boost against them? It does fill a missing spot in the set. [3.5/5]
Traversable Aether: The is really neat. I like this ability a lot, and the flavor is neat in that it does some more world-building. It interacts with explore, and grants you an extra mana for a turn (you can get to 2 mana on turn 1). I like that you can't chain these (since they are not basic). It feels like the Spirit Guides with more steps and in colorless. I think it's a very interesting design and would love to try it. Feels like a card that would be printed to aid as a cross-set synergy with another set printed near it that cares about landfall things. [5/5]

dangerousdice  [3.5/5]
Ley-Lock Prospector: This feels a little complex for a common, since it introduces a new mechanic that feels fairly complex, and also refers to it in another of its abilities as well. You also would have to know all towers available to be built, and have to remember what each does, which I think is already a no go (I see similarities to it to Dungeons, but I wasn't a fan of those either). Love the little intro study to it, and the flavor text works well, and I like the idea of building towers. However, I would prefer to stay away from emblems for this, since it makes it impossible to interact with, and towers don't really feel like emblems. I'd have liked it a lot more if "build a Tower" had the following reminder: "To build a Tower, put a construction counter on a Tower you control. If you don’t control one, create a colorless Tower artifact token first" (basically the text for amassing armies). Then have the creatures that build towers care about the height of your tallest Tower, but the Tower itself do nothing on its own. That way, commons that create towers and have another ability that refers to them wouldn't feel too complex. I quite like your Cephalid as a 1/4 scry engine that starts off at scry 1. Though since built in the right deck, it could easily get to scry 3 or 4, the ability feels undercosted at 2 mana (maybe set it to ?). Overall I like the idea of Towers, and having a repeatable scryer based on Towers feels good, but I'm not the biggest fan of your implementation of Towers. [2/5 for the design as is, but 4.5/5 for introducing the Tower as a possible concept to be used]
Razzelda, Stormy Heir: I like the enemy-colored 2-color Legendary! Fun flavor text. I'm not a fan of it doing nothing if you don't have a finished Tower. I'd rather that it get a bonus if you have a finished Tower or a Tower with some height. I like that it has a build based on some trigger, and damage being dealt feels good for that trigger. Maybe if the abilities cost a lot more, like /, , but the costs were reduced by the height of your Tower? I do like having the Tower theme. Draw and damage fits well. [4/5]

melono  [4.5/5]
Map of Ancient Ruins: Very flavorful! Great name, love that it's a Treasure, and I like the basic land search. A good common mana fixer that I'd be happy to take early in a draft. Would have loved a short flavor text. [4.5/5]

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Result


The winner is ... will post in a couple of hours. Have to rush to a meeting. >.<
moweda, with an average score of 4.625, but also a good number of designs! Runner-up is fluffydeathbringer with a solid 4.3 average score throughout the most number of submissions. Overall I'm very happy with where the pack ended up. Thank you all for participating, and thank you for your patience while my life got back under control!

moweda hasn't logged on this weekend. So giving the win to fluffydeathbringer instead!

C#02

Nightmare Trinket
Artifact
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
, , Sacrifice ~: Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland permanent card from it. That player discards that card. Activate only as a sorcery.
Dredge 2 (If you would draw a card, you may mill two cards instead. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand.)

Common #4

Wall of Garbage
Creature — Wall
Defender
When ~ enters the battlefield, target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
So terrible is its stench that even the most crazed have to pause to gather themselves.
0/4