Booster Pack Game

C02



Sarinian Islecrafter
Creature - Human Wizard
When ~ enters, create a basic colorless Island land token with vanishing 3. (It enters with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from it. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)
Adamant -- If at least three blue mana was spent to cast this spell, the token has vanishing 6 instead.
The best legacy an Islecrafter can have is to create an island that surpasses their own lifetime.
2/3

Notes: I think adamant is a good fit for a moni-color theme. Also, I wanted to capture the flavor of Sarin having to battle the sea to make islands. I also have been playing with token lands as a design space lately. Also, both blue and red seem to have a very temporal feel to them, so thinking of those two as having some vanishing to it.

C04



Cliffslide Catastrophe 
Sorcery
Choose up to two --
* ~ deals 4 damage to target creature.
* ~ deals 2 damage to target creature.
* Destroy target artifact.
The cliff took with it Marak and his ox... or was it his plow.

Note: Wanted to capture the dynamic nature of the mountains, and also some of the anti-artifact effects that would be helpful if the set has an artifact theme. 

C06



Slatar Expanse
Land - Plains
(: Add .)
~ enters tapped.
When ~ enters, put a vigilance counter on target creature you control.
The bright sun and flat terrain makes for excellent visibility, ideal for observing foes and subjects alike.

Edit: Added a +1/+1 counter as well.
Edit 2: Removing the mixing of counters and removing the payment, so no more and +1/+1. (Will update render later.)

Note: Having some lands that give a small benefit at common felt like a good way to add more mana into the set by replacing some weaker spells with lands.

C08



Lifesteel Awakener
Artifact Creature - Dryad Druid
When ~ enters, create a token that's a copy of target land you control, except it's a 4/4 green Beast artifact creature in addition to its other colors and types.
"Awaken, breathe, and take shape according to your nature!"
1/1

Note: Adding some further identity to Lifesteel, and also giving some love to 4-power matters, mana accel, and a nice Emerge sacrifice target. It also works well with the lands that have enters effects.

C10

Adamantine Golem
Artifact Creature - Golem
Defender
Adamant -- When ~ enters, if at least three mana of the same color was spent to cast this spell, scry 2.
These sturdy guardians glow a faint green when nearby a pure mana surge.
0/5

Note: Looking to expand on adamant, as well as provide a blocker against the 4-power creatures. It also fills the 3-mana colorless creatures with scry that we've been seeing in recent sets.

Ok, so once again to summarize what's been introduced so far:

Mechanical themes:

• G/W Artifacts
• W potential lifegain theme
• (B) Zombie tribal
• (U) Vanishing / time counters (in land token particularly)
• Adamant - presumably likely to indicate monocolor favorability, though a bicolor theme is canon.
• Land token production
• Overabundant mechanic, mana value theme
• small benefit lands
• Emerge
• potential (R) ogre tribal. Type caring.
• Potential 4 power theme

Overall, a lot of land production, a touch of tribal, some stuff that cares about Timmy value (high mana cost, high power...)


Lore:

• The Averlos plane has overabundant nature and mana, and a still developing civilization. It's regions/factions are Slatar (W), Sarin (U), Schwon (B), Vuzchori (G), and Medisa (R)
• A metal of unknown origin has appeared over the plane, referred to as lifesteel and connected to the G/W colors
• Types displayed: Ogres (R), Zombies (B), Humans (U and W), Dryads (G, artifact), golem (colorless), also angels are known to be present in (W).
• General Grabriella
• An invisible wall
• Sometimes corpses in Schwon are stitched with other parts before being possessed / reanimated

---

Uncommon #1

Uncommon 3

Judging in 48

Tyftw!

Goad wasn’t a good option for this, I agree.



Next up: Atlanteis



Welcome to the fully underwater world of Atlanteis. A world inhabited by of course all kinds of sea creatures, and also Merfolk that share their form with these creatures. What does that mean? It means that Merfolk are creature types like Merfolk Octopus, Merfolk Fish or Merfolk Shark. Never just Merfolk. Planeswalkers would also be transformed to relevant Merfolk hybrids would they visit, just like how they would shrink when visiting Segovia.

The magic of this realm is not very pronounced, as it is more of a communication with the relevant ecosystem than it is outright sparkly magic.


The colors are divided amongst five underwater biomes:

Red for the Red Reefs. Coral Reefs are this biome’s manasource. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef

Black for the Abyssal Deep. The mana here is interspersed in the darkness, and accumulates near dead organisms, the larger the better. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall & en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_zone

Green for the Kelp forests. This biome’s mana source is its giant plants. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelp_forest

Blue for the Sand Stretches. Shoals with an occasional sandbar sticking above the wave, where filter feeders thrive. Above the water here are endless storms that make sure none dare to go above the surface. The mana is taken from the granules of sand that are characteristic for the biome, as well as the cloudless storms above. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoal

White for the Big Open. The great open ocean, where schools of fish, krill and predators like some whales thrive. Mana comes from all around the sea water and the shining sun above, and disperses the further into different biomes you go. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_zone



Societies in this plane are not very pronounced, though do exist for some more sociable Merfolk. In the end, the law of nature reigns supreme.

Multicolor does exist, especially for the creatures that move between biomes or live on the edges of them.



Here’s a simple example card, and then off you go.

Swiftstrike Swordfish
Creature - Merfolk Fish
~ has first strike while attacking.
"It didn't even know what pierced it."
3/1



Also, you get bonus points for flexing any real-world knowledge that is incorporated into a card. Reference a wiki or the like as well to make it extra legit.

I was sitting here thinking once again for these primal worlds (well, this one is more just lacking in many proper civilizations than primal, but still) what blue would look like. I did find it interesting how blue here lives in almost islands in reverse. Regular blue has islands that have a ton of water compared to the other lands, but in Atlanteis the islands have a greater chance of actual dry land than the others, even though its quite dangerous. To live so quite close to surface suggests to me a longing for the sky and to see what is beyond the surface of the water. It seems to me that blue here is driven by its curiosity and its desire to challenge norms and conventions to obtain more and better knowledge, to understand the world around it and tap into it either for the pure pleasure of discovery of some way to improve its lives.

Common #2


Flying fish developed the adaptation that gives them their name seemingly to avoid the great variety of predators they are subject to. On top of the ability to leap they even appear to have camouflage. All in all, pretty evasive creatures, and with them going (even if only briefly) above the water's surface they seemed pretty fitting for the blue idea I was going for. I considered giving it an ability to make it unblockable, but flying fits well thematically, and given the nature of this set I imagine there's going to be very little flying even in blue or white, as there isn't much justification for things to have flying in an underwater set. In other words, flying is borderline unblockable if such prospects turn out to be true and I'm not overlooking anything major.

Oh one more thing that makes it fit in blue: Apparently a group of flying fish is called a Shoal.

C04



Razor Reefs
Enchantment
Tidal (At the beginning of your upkeep, put a tide counter on this permanent, then if there are three or more tide counters on it, remove all of them.)
Whenever one of more tide counters are removed from ~, it deals that much damage to any target.
Don't be near when the tide subsides.

Note: Bringing back tide counters. Just putting it on a 3-turn clock instead of 4.

C06

Read the Currents 
Sorcery
If you control two or more permanents with tide counters on them, scry 2.
Draw two cards.

A divination variant. Also plays a little bit into the flavor of monitoring ocean currents to help predict large-scale weather patterns, though I understand that is a bit of a stretch. Not quite sure if I'm implying a UR tidal archetype, or if it's something all colors are using.

Fair enough. Personally, I think individual numbers are more practical for something like this, and coordinated via player counters would be more interesting, make more sense and likely be easier to remember. I'll leave it at that though, it's your mechanic at the end of the day, so those are just my two cents.

---

Common #7

Imma let this continue until next week in the weekend, then I'll judge it. So not yet this weekend.