#arcedge

What are the pillars made of? I had always just assumed sort of generic magic beams but what if we hone in on the central colors for each one. Green is a giant tree trunk with a mass of growth at each end. Blue is a huge vortex of water. Red is either a fire vortex or a mountainous column-like stalactite or whatever they are called. Black would be a huge thing of bones? I'm not sure that's the right message. I have no idea for white aside from a huge beam of magic light.

Potentially these are influenced on each end by the other two colors for the tribe at each base but maybe not.

first is the idea of pillars as a land subtype. The pillars are central to our world design so I think it makes sense to include lands to depict them, as you’ve said since basically day one. But what does it mean to be a pillar? Here’s what I feel is my best take on it so far.

Pillar of Fire Land -- Pillar (R) Pillar of Fire enters the battlefield tapped with a number of pillar counters on it equal to the number of Pillars you control. T: Add R. 3R, T: Pillar of Fire deals damage to any target equal to the number of pillar counters on it.

Pillars function together. So pillars are stronger when you play more of them. In a mono color deck this will peak at 4 counters on the last pillar you play which is an unlikely thing to happen in a game unless we include cards that can tutor out pillars. But if you add more pillars of different colors (this is a cycle with one in each color) then you can increase the odds of your later pillars being more powerful repeatable effects. Honestly I may be way off base on the costing here. Bighted Forge as a reference would say I am. Keldon Megaliths is perhaps closer though Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is the best comparison I think with regard to power and the role of these lands in our world. 

Other problems I see are you either need to reprint the same pillars in the next set if you want that theme to carry through or else come up with a reason that you can make 5 new pillars for a total of 10 pillars even though only 5 physically exist in our world design. I’ve also considered a design for a colorless pillar that could add pillar counters (though that can become an artifact or something if it’s a good idea) and a home pillar to help fix mana in a deck that wants to run a lot of pillars. I’m slightly inspired by a Gates deck I’ve been playing with GRN. But playing lots of gates naturally fixes your mana since they all tap for two colors. The pillars as I’ve designed them don’t, so getting the right mana is really swingy especially for a 5C deck. But I think the pillars don’t make sense as dual lands and that our whole home mana scheme gets messed up if you do a cycle of traditional tri-lands. Support cards--tutors, other fixing, etc--are probably the only fix here. We could make them all home lands but then that doesn’t encourage playing them in a 5C deck where you cram in as many pillars as you can grab.

Speaking of 5C, my second thought is just a seed of an idea but it comes from the question “Can we do something else with a 5C deck thanks to the nature of this set and the home mechanic?” So typical 5C is a control deck that can run the best removal in any color and then plop down a late game threat or combo that’s color intensive (or have a small toolbox of the best threats in each color). But what if we had a card something like this:

Wandering Herder 1G Creature -- Human Nomad (R) Tap three untapped creatures you control: Choose three new home colors. 2/2

And the idea would be that the 5C human deck (or a variant of it) works by playing a particular wedge or arc in the early game to set up a combo in a different wedge or arc for the late game. So you would maybe have a Sultai control and tutoring setup then plop this guy down and sac it to pick new home colors and switch over to a Jeskai control finish. Like I said, just a seed of an idea. But it’s certainly novel. And that would be enough for a Johnny, which is what I think this sort of card is for. It’s not a Spike tournament-level idea but it can be a fun puzzle to solve.

Working on menus, more HUD stuff, and how equipment currently works.

So this is what it currently looks like. There are 3 things the action HUD shows:

- Main weapon & Skills - Offhand - Artes

- Main Weapon -

The magic blade Estelle summons when fighting. The spell she uses to weave its form it can be changed using objects dropped from enemies, basically allowing you to equip different weapons. These new weapons come with set abilities and passives to augment your fighting style.

 For example, this skill, [Heatstrike], is a flaming sword slash that shoots 3 short-range fireballs. Also, it converts a percentage of your damage to Fire damage.

-  Weaved Skills  -

As for how they work, there's a dedicated "Special Attack" button that executes your weapon skills. There's Neutral, Side, Up and Down, kind of like how Smash Brothers does its special attacks. They're also color coded for elements.

-  Offhand and Artes  -

On the opposite side shows Offhand. Basically it's for environmental interaction and (possibly) temporarily taking enemy weapons. The fireball skill icon there actually refers to your currently equipped magic artes. Just like weapon skills you can have 4 equipped at once, but they are independent of your weapons and are equipped in the Artes menu.

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Creating old magical ruins is pretty fun.

Ohh the neglect...well, i've been neglecting my logs more than anything :(

Working on assets for the forest area to make it look more foresty. Also a new HUD that's more functional than the placeholder. What do you guys think?