ALEPHEL -- Witness Their Rising

Nowhere, it's not a real set. Alaphel is a custom set I'm designing for fun.

Those of you wondering where I've been, fear not. I actually have not one, but two new custom sets I'm working on currently. Why aren't I showing them off? Well..

One of the things that I think I did wrong with Alephel was get too far ahead of myself with regards to what I put online. I had pages and pages of notes up with lists of cards, not to mention literally hundreds of individual card posts, and I was even posting full-render images towards the end. Having so much of the set floating around in where everyone could see it made me feel like it was too complicated to start changing things that needed to be changed, as though things were more set in stone because they were out there in the public eye.

So I'm not doing that with my new sets. Instead I'm taking them one step at a time, organizing them in files on my private computer until they're read to be shown off. You guys will see them eventually, but not until they're ready. And not soon.

I can go ahead and tell you a bit about them, though.

Set #1 is a top-down set based around the idea of a dungeon world. Most of it is a pastiche of the pop culture dungeon crawler/dungeon master genre. The title I'm bouncing around at present is "Dungeons of Durion." Thematically, there are groups of heroes that care about class (rogue, mage, fighter) and groups of monsters that gang up to fight the heroes. Some mechanics I'm bouncing around currently are:

Champion a TYPE (returning mechanic from Lorwyn/Morningtide);

Fortifications (future-shifted mechanic debuted in Future Sight);

TYPE minions (a new mechanic which makes different monster tribes into Minions in addition to their types, for tribal purposes);

Gold tokens (artifact tokens similar to those created by Gild in Born of the Gods, except they produce colorless mana); and

Bounty N (a new mechanic that creates gold tokens when creatures die)

Set #2 is a more mechanically driven set with a strong graveyard theme, which borrows heavily from Odyssey block and Innistrad. The story setting is loosely based on Egyptian and Jewish mythology, and some of the flavor elements from Alephel have been folded into the set. So no, this probably means you won't be seeing me return to Alephel anytime soon. The title I'm throwing around at the moment for this set is "Tombs of Akhet." Some of the current mechanics I'm looking at are:

Threshold (returning mechanic from Odyssey block which requires seven or more cards in your graveyard to produce an effect);

Unearth (returning mechanic from Shards of Alara which allows you to return your creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield for one turn);

Transform and double-faced cards (returning mechanic from Innistrad, with some new twists); and

Choose order/chaos (the most original mechanic from Alephel, it's also a strong flavor fit for this set and helped me pin down the parts of the set that aren't as graveyard-centric)

I'm a bit burned out on Alephel right now. I'm having real trouble getting my head into it lately, even so far as looking at the mechanics I've got and knowing what should stay or go.

Please help me out by answering these questions! Thanks!

What was the best experience you ever had playing Limited (draft or sealed)?

What set or environment have you had the most fun drafting?

In backing up to broad-strokes design, I've been thinking a lot about the dynamics I want to push in Alephel Limited as a way to inform how I reshape the set.

I like the model WOTC has subscribed to in recent years, which involves making sure all ten two-color pairs have a unique dynamic in the set, each of which is reasonably draftable given the environment. (These ten archetypes don't necessarily have have strictly equal power levels (if such a thing were even possible), but they do have to all be relatively strong enough -- and more importantly, well enough supported in-set -- that people will be able to draft them. If one pair is less powerful or popular overall, that can actually make it conditionally stronger, as a player who drafts such an archetype will have less competition for the key cards.)

I decided I wanted to emulate this formula by giving every two-color pair something to do in Alephel Limited. While I don't have solid answers to all ten yet, here's my initial stab at some of them:

WU -- Weenie w/ inspire and choose order

UB -- Control

BR -- All-in aggro w/ overbear and choose chaos

RG -- Tribal Giants w/ ramp

GW -- Weenies w/ inspire and choose order

BW -- Tokens/sacrifice w/ forsake

UR -- Witness/card drawing

BG -- Midrange w/ ramp

RW -- Choose order+chaos

GU -- Tempo

As you can see, these archetypes allude to a few of the set's keyword mechanics, which I'm also in the process of revamping. Here's the current slate of mechanics I'm looking at for the set:

Witness (Reveal the top card of your library, then draw that card.) -- Mainly seen in the first line of instants/sorceries, possibly in ETB triggered abilities of a few creatures.  -- Many effects will have abilities which refer to the witnessed card or trigger from witnessing -- Primary in W/G/U but appears in all colors -- Ties into RU archetype

Forsake [cost] ([cost], Sacrifice this permanent: Draw a card.) -- Cycling-from-battlefield, first designed in Urza's block and coined by Shawn Main in the GDS2 -- Religious name fits with thematic feel of the set -- Primary in B/G/R but appears in all colors -- Ties into BW sacrifice-matters archetype

Overbear (Creatures with less power than this creature can't block it) -- Appears on R/G/B creatures such as Giants to show that they tower over smaller creatures -- Fills similar role to intimidate, replaces intimidate in this set -- RG, BG and BR archetypes probably use it a lot

Inspire -- As long as you control an Angel, [effect]. -- Conditional ability word mainly in G/W/U -- Rewards weenie strategies like GW and WU, drop a single Angel and empower all your small creatures

At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose order or chaos. Whenever you choose [value], [effect]. -- distinguishes factions: order (G/W/U) vs . chaos (B/R/G) -- rewards linear archetypes that combine same choice triggers -- also rewards archetypes that combine opposite triggers by giving player more opportunities to choose their best option

The most obvious thing about the above is probably the distinct lack of Auras-matter as a mechanical theme. I've decided the right move at this point is to remove that focus. This includes the Aura brand mechanic as it never really felt right and I don't think it added very much to the overall set. Besides positioning the set too much in Theros' space, my experience testing Alephel with Auras-matter in it was that you either got enough Auras to make them worth it or you felt bad playing the set at all.

... and there's a reason for that.

Partly I've just been busy. Partly I've got mixed feelings about where the set is at, and I've been trying to sort those feelings out.

On the one hand, I like a lot of the mechanical themes in Alephel. Enchanting creatures feels good. Choosing order and chaos feels good. A lot of the rares and mythics at the top of the set feel good.

On the other hand, I think I made a mistake forcing the Auras-matter angle as strongly as I did. Now that Theros is out, it's impossible not to compare the two sets as they play in a lot of the same space, and I'm not altogether pleased with the comparison. To be blunt, WOTC hit the ball out of the park with Theros, and it's not fair to myself or my work to try and look at the two sets side-by-side. For what should be obvious reasons, positioning my custom set next to Theros is not something I was ever aiming to do.

After lots of thought, and I've decided I'm not going to scrap Alephel. But I've also decided not to leave the set in its current form. Instead I'll be taking several steps backwards to a more open point in the design and reevaluating a lot of the decisions I've made regarding Alephel's overall mechanical identity. I expect I'll be reining in the Auras-matter theme a bit, refocusing the mechanics on what I want the set to feel like, and spending more time figuring out the Limited dynamics I want to push.

This site is going to stay quiet for a bit longer while I get organized and figure some of these things out. When I return, big changes are coming that will make Alephel a more successful venture overall.

Prized Dromad Common Creature — Camel W — 0/3 “Life is a bit like a camel: you can make it do anything you wish, except back up.” —Wisdom of Rebbe Mosheah Illus. Aracubus

I decided this makes more sense in white than green. Not only are camels in Magic traditionally white, but so are nearly all domesticated animals. White is also the color that most needs one-drops.

Also, this is now a functional reprint of Valiant Guard. So there's that.