MTG: Discord in Eldraine

Short thesis statement

OVERVIEW

TLDR

Discord in Eldraine is a Top-Down designed magic set designed by me. This is a project of making a set for magic based on the plane of Eldraine built around the character Oko and a new set of fairy tales that fit his aesthetic, who was introduced when the first Eldraine card set came out. For this project I try to make a new card every day or a couple each week.

For this set, outside of it being top down, I wanted to create a new mechanic, reintroduce some reprints, create a cycle of cards, and bring a high power level set where every mythic or rare you got would feel strong.

Timeline

12/20 - Present

Tools

mtg.design

About MTG

Magic the gathering is a collectible card game made by Wizards of the Coast

Challenges

Learning the structure of everything that goes into a set

The first time we visited Eldraine, a mischievous Planeswalker named Oko tried to throw the plane into chaos: a heist, kidnap the king and attempt to frame murder. Oko was stopped by Will and Rowan, two planeswalkers that share a spark and the planeswalker Garruk. But hark! Before they could capture Oko, the shapeshifter stole away under the cover of his powers. Using his spark he left the plane of Eldraine, leaving Will, Rowan, and Garruk to leave the plane shortly after in search.

Years later, Oko returned to Eldraine. This time it was empty of planeswalkers set on ruining his fun. Oko has free rein to throw the whole plane of Eldraine into discord, creating new stories, while altering others. Let his era begin

STORY

DESIGN CHALLENGES

Top-Down Creation

In the set that Oko came out in, I immediately loved his character and the whole plane of Eldraine. Shortly after its release, the card Oko was banned, which sparked me to want to create a set around the character, so I could bring him back into the game. That is how I got the idea to build a set around him as a character.

I focused on getting iconic fairy tales that were not used in the original set and midsummer aesthetic, which could represent all the chaos he added. The main focus for the fairy tales are Alice in wonderland, and the Wizard of Oz, while sprinkling in additional fairy tales like Aladdin, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and Little Red Riding hood.

New Mechanic - Questing

The first Eldraine set had a mechanic around going on an adventure, so I wanted to pay tribute to that mechanic by having it thematically be very similar, while also still feeling different. This is almost like the reverse of adventure, where once the creature is on the field, you can then use its special ability.

Questing: Questing can only be activated once. When activated the creature will exile until the start of the next turn and its effect will activate. This allows the user to maybe use an instant speed questing to dodge a kill card and get a small bonus.

Creating a Cycle

Most magic sets have a cycle, which is a card type that has a similar version in each mana color. For this I wanted to create a cycle of Mythic Legendary Humans that each costed four mana that fit perfectly with the fairy tale they were supposed to represent.

When doing this I wanted to make sure each of them felt like a powerful card that the opponent would panic if it was played, while also trying to give them a mana cost that would make them harder to play in multicolored decks.

Design Takeaways

I learned that from Top-Down design starting a set is strong, but it gets harder to fill out the flavor of each card as you go on.
Creating a set based on the design specs of older sets ( aka how many mythics and rares; how many instants and creatures ) is a weird formulaic setup that is needed to keep the set balanced, but hard to find the perfect middle ground.

Project Takeaways