Grimneath Spoiler

The concept for this fantasy set was developed as a submission for the Great Designer Search 2. The concept was never submitted as I didn't make the cutoff for the multiple-choice design exam in Round 2. After dropping out of the contest, though, I was still having a blast desinging cards for the set. Ultimately I decided to create a full set, both for the design exercize, and to make something that I could potentially play real Magic with. In that vein, the set was designed with a focus on limited play. This is the result of that effort!

My Notes from the GDS2

The block is set in the subterranean plane of Grimneath. Mechanically, the central theme is "colorless as a color". The narrative themes of the first, second, and third sets are oppression, rebellion, and liberation, respectively.

Flavor

In this set, oppression is colorless. The oppressors are eyes (blue/black), who oversee a slave mining operation in order to harvest deposits of precious psychic jelly. The jelly has strange magical properties which are not fully understood. Long-term exposure has deleterious effects: over time, you become graywashed and your distinguishing features erode away.

The eyes are served by a corps of loyal vedalken wizards (blue), whom they furnish with jelly for performing bizarre experiments. They're also served by humans, whose loyalty is more tenuous. The humans are wizards and interrogators (black), and taskmasters and jailers (red).

The slave races are kor (white) and elves (green). Elves are tasked with the back-breaking mining labor. Kor are often kept as servants by the vedalken. Wild creatures also inhabit the underground, and include beasts, lizards, and moths. Many are touched by the jelly in some way. Beings born of pure jelly energy—illusions and elementals—also lurk in the darker corners of the plane's vast cavern system.

Story Arc

Originally, I envisioned Grimneath as a block of three sets (for the GDS2). As even a single set is a large undertaking, the three planned sets have now been collapsed into a single large set. The story arc below, and the notes following, refer to the original configuration.

The first set introduces us to the world, establishing the bleak atmosphere and the backstory of the slaves' plight. In the second set, the kor and elves lead a joint rebellion, and an immense reservoir of colored energy (christened the Lifelake by the rebels) is discovered deep beneath the mines. In the last set, the eyes' stronghold is infiltrated. The power of the reservoir is tapped and focused on the stockpile of jelly, which causes a reaction that rends the domain asunder and exposes the surface world above. Massive discharges of colored and colorless mana are released from the earth in the form of colossal elemental incarnations and cataclysmic phenomena. The eyes and all others inside the stronghold are transformed by the blast into beings of pure energy. Those remaining are liberated and face a new age in a reborn world.

Mechanics

Though "colorless matters" and "colored matters" appear in each set of the block, the focus is skewed towards the colorless faction in the first set, transitions to a balanced split in the second set, and finally emphasizes the colored faction in the last set.


Jellysource
Jellysource is a creature ability in two acts. The first part is the actual ability, which is relatively vanilla. It looks like this:

Jellysource 2 (This creature enters the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters and has "Remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature: Add 1 to your mana pool".)

Most creatures with jellysource have a secondary ability which "enhances" the jelly mana in some way when you spend it. For example:

When you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if you spent colorless mana from CARDNAME to cast it, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.

Jellysource would appear in all colors, with an emphasis on vedalken.

Jelly Smuggler 1G
Creature - Elf Rogue
Jellysource 1 (This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter and has "remove a +1/+1 counter: add 1 to your mana pool.")
When you cast a spell, if you spent colorless mana from CARDNAME to cast it, that spell can't be countered by spells or abilities.
1/1

Jellysource Proliferator 2U
Creature - Vedalken Wizard
Jellysource 1 (This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter and has "remove a +1/+1 counter: add 1 to your mana pool.")
When you cast a creature spell, if you spent colorless mana from CARDNAME to cast it, the creature enters the battlefield with two additional +1/+1 counters.
1/1

Palecast
Colorless mana counts double when paying for spells with palecast. Basically it's the inverse of monocolored hybrid, though I didn't notice the connection at first. Possibly it could be used for activated abilities as well, though I didn't get around to exploring that. Generic costs for palecast cards should always be even numbers because it's prettier that way .

Diaphanous Caveserpent 6U
Creature - Serpent
Palecast (When you cast this spell, it costs 1 less for each colorless mana you pay.)
CARDNAME can't attack unless defending player controls a colorless creature.
6/6

Leaden Blast 4R
Instant
Palecast (When you cast this spell, it costs 1 less for each colorless mana you pay.)
CARDNAME deals 5 damage to target creature or player.

Drones
Drones are sort of like Eldrazi Spawn. Except they're 1/1 instead of 0/1. And they can't be sacrificed for mana (at least, not on their own). You will be able to sacrifice them, though. You'll see what I mean.

Mineshaft Bully 1B
Creature - Human Minion
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a 1/1 colorless drone creature token onto the battlefield.
Sacrifice a 1/1 creature: Add {1} to your mana pool.
2/1

Dust Pit
Land
{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.
{T}, Sacrifice a 1/1 creature: Add {2} to your mana pool.

Morph
The vedalken have discovered a way to focus a blast of jelly mana on a victim. This concentrated blast exaggerates the effect of long-term exposure--draining the subject of color and erasing any trace of identity--turning them into morphs. Morph is used this way as a means to terrorize and subjugate enemies and insubordinate slaves.

Many morph creatures in this block will have color-heavy mana costs. There should be a "split-card" effect on these cards, in that colored-mana strategies will play the cards for their face-up value, while colorless strategies often want just the colorless 2/2. Blue and black cards will also be able to turn creatures face down to torment enemies.

Occasionally a wild creature inadvertently suffers intense exposure to the jelly, causing them to become morphed. Only an infusion of colored mana can restore it to its natural form.

Pumice Scutter RRR
Creature - Lizard
Haste
{R}: CARDNAME gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Morph - {R}
2/3

Bleb Monstrosity 5UB
Creature - Eye
{T}: Turn target creature face down.
{T}: Gain control of target colorless creature.
5/5

Monocolored Hybrid
This was an easy one. Lots of space left to explore here. For limited it rewards you for playing colored mana without making cards useless if you're going for a colorless strategy. One basic thing that hasn't been done is mixing monocolored hybrid symbols with colored or generic costs.

Caustic Slime 2/G 2/G
Creature - Ooze
Deathtouch
CARDNAME enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each green mana you spent to cast it.
1/1

Break Ranks 2/R R
Sorcery
Untap target creature an opponent controls and gain control of it until end of turn. It gains haste until end of turn. If it's face down, turn it face up.

Solidarity
Solidarity is a combat mechanic that evokes a sense of coalition and resistance and is featured in the "colored" faction. It's a creature ability and is templated as "Solidarity – [Effect]". A creature's solidarity effect is triggered whenever it attacks or blocks and it shares a color with another attacking or blocking creature you control.

Emboldened Beastrider 2GG
Creature - Elf Warrior Rebel
Trample
Solidarity - Put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME (When this creature attacks or blocks, put its solidarity effect on the stack if it shares a color with an attacking or blocking creature you control).
3/3

Solidarity naturally works well with multicolored creatures; in this set it will appear on a cycle of multicolored hybrid cards.


Big Spells
The third set will feature massive, over-the top spells with an emphasis on color-heavy mana costs. Some spells might just feel "big" (think Shivan Meteor); others will actually be big, on the scale of the Decree cycle from Scourge, or bigger. They should generally be simple and focused, closer to Decree of Annihilation than Cruel Ultimatum.

Cleansing Flood 4WWWW
Sorcery
Exile all nonland permanents and all graveyards. Gain 1 life for each card exiled in this way.

Hybrid Mana
The colored kind. It could show up in set three and possibly in set two. I like that it simulates "generic" mana for the colored faction without giving it up to the colorless faction. Hybrid morph costs is one idea.


Rebels
The second set could contain a rebel subtheme to help bolster the rebellion theme. The representation would probably be small. Just rebels is really dull though. Instead of fetching other rebels, perhaps the rebels in this set could fetch creatures with a specific mana cost? For example, "{1}{W}{W}, {T}: fetch a creature with mana cost {1}{W}{W}". Or we could riff on Ramosian Revivalist and use different effects. In any case, the subtheme should favor the colored faction.


Chroma
I'm not really excited about this, but the set seems like a natural fit for Chroma. Maybe in the third set.